Editor’s Note: You can read the first article in this series here.
As you read through the gospels, it’s shocking to see who Jesus reserved His harshest words for. It wasn’t the tax-collectors and the prostitutes. We see Jesus confronting them with compassion and gentleness when calling them to repentance. In contrast, we see Jesus reserving his most pointed rebukes for the religious elite.
Jesus condemned the self righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes in many of his confrontations with them. They had a hypocritical focus on the outward appearance of keeping the law, but inwardly their hearts were full of sin. They knew the right words to say to make it appear that they were honoring God, but their hearts were a million miles away from him. Jesus savagely tore into their false works-based religiosity and exposed them for their legalism (see Matt 23:1ff).
What is legalism? Legalism can be expressed in two ways: (1) Elevating the traditions of men to be equal to the commandments of God. (2) Seeking salvation by keeping the law.
As Christian parents, we can veer into legalism in how we raise our children if we’re not careful. We can elevate man-made preferences to be equal with God’s commands (e.g. homeschooling is the only “Christian” form of schooling), and we subtly teach our children that keeping the rules makes them right with God. While we should require obedience from our children, we must steer their hearts to the gospel of Jesus Christ. No one can keep the rules perfectly, so we must place our faith in Jesus’ saving work on the cross to be right with God.
As parents, our primary focus should be on addressing sin in our children’s hearts and their need for Jesus to save them, not merely their external behavior. In this series of articles, we’re looking at one of Jesus’ most contentious confrontations with the Pharisees and Lawyers in Luke 11:37-54 as a framing device to see how we can avoid parenting like Pharisees. As parents, we should never lose sight of the hearts of our children. In this article, Jesus is going to continue tearing into the Pharisees and we’ll see several sins that come from legalism that we should avoid in our parenting.
The Sins of the Pharisees (Luke 11:42-52)
The Pharisee who had invited Jesus to lunch had just been offended over the fact that Jesus didn’t perform a ceremonial hand washing before eating. In response to this blatant form of legalism, Jesus is going to issue a series of six woes to the Pharisees and the Lawyers (the Scribes). The word “woe” is an expression of grief that speaks of condemnation. So, Jesus is going to condemn the Pharisees and Lawyers for six specific sinful ways that their legalism manifested itself. We’ll look at the first three in this article.
Focusing on Keeping the Rules and Ignoring the Heart
But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
Jesus condemns the Pharisees for being fastidious for keeping the rules in minor issues of life, while neglecting the most important things that God commands. They were so obsessed with rules that they created additional policies to tithe individual pieces of mint and other herbs. They were literally parsing individual leaves when it wasn’t commanded in scripture, because they wanted to be holy. Yet, they were neglecting justice and love for God.
It’s possible that the word “justice” is calling out the injustice and corruption that the Pharisees were partaking in. However, the Greek word for “justice” (krisis) also means “divine judgment or condemnation.” So, the Pharisees were so concerned about their outward show for other people to see how holy they were that they were ignoring the fact that their souls were in danger of divine judgment.
Crucially, they were ignoring a true love for God. They weren’t doing all of their religious activities to honor God. They could care less about God. They were doing it for themselves and for the praise of other people.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matt 22:36-40
When we parent our children, we need to constantly bring them back to their relationship with God and how they can only be right with God by repenting from their sins and placing their faith in Jesus. Right standing before God is only possible through faith in Jesus, not keeping the rules. It can be very easy to get into a trap of thinking you just need to obey to be good.
If we raise our children to follow all the rules and they are pleased as punch with themselves for being good kids, but they never love God, they will go to hell. They need to have a relationship with God that is only possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ. To be clear, we need to teach them that if we are saved, we are commanded to obey God. However, our obedience is not to earn God’s favor (which can only be earned through faith in Christ). Rather, we obey God because we love him and want to honor Him.
What Should Parents Do Instead?
- Require obedience, but focus on the heart
How Should We Do That?
- Explain the concept of the heart to your child (the “heart” is who they really are).
- Explain how God can see the heart and that sin resides in the heart.
- Teach them the gospel—that we can’t keep the rules, but Jesus did and provided the only way for us to be right with God.
- Don’t divorce rules from the greatest priorities: loving God and loving others.
Obsessing Over Image and the Praise of Man
Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their love of status and image.
The NKJV says, “you love the seat of honor in the synagogues.” These were the seats at the front of the synagogue facing the congregation. They were highly visible and went to the most respected people attending the synagogue.
The NIV says that they loved “respectful greetings in the marketplaces.” The Pharisees loved being revered by the people.
Everything that the Pharisees did was to elevate their status and how they were viewed in the eyes of the people. They didn’t care what God thought about them. They thrived off of the praise of men.
As parents, we may be more concerned with how people view our kids than how God views them. “You need to do what’s right so that you don’t embarrass me.” Or maybe our kids are becoming prideful because they think they are holier than other kids who aren’t Christians. Or maybe your kids have a tendency towards people-pleasing and they think that serving is a way to get praise from people at church.
We need to teach our children that their sin and obedience is first and foremost related to God. We need to teach them to be humble and to not strive for status:
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
James 4:10
What Should Parents Do Instead?
- Focus on Humility and Honoring God
How Should We Do That?
- Explain the dangers of the praise of man being a trap (Prov 29:25).
- Teach them to look for signs that the fear of man is taking root.
- Focus on what God thinks, not what others think.
- Be less concerned with how things look than how things really are.
- Be honest about your failings and need for Jesus.
- Teach your children humility and authentic honesty.
- Teach your children to do all things to honor God.
- Teach your children the danger of the fear of man.
Ignoring Internal Sin
Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.
Next, Jesus compares the Pharisees to unmarked graves. That may seem like a confusing metaphor to us, but the Jews would have understood exactly what He meant. In the Mosaic law, coming in contact with a dead body or a grave would leave someone ceremonially unclean. That meant they had to be isolated from others and couldn’t worship with the congregation.
Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
Num 19:16
If a grave was unmarked, it was hidden, and people would walk right over it and contaminate themselves without knowing it. Jesus is calling out the Pharisees for the hidden sin in their hearts and saying they are covertly corrupting everyone around them. The Pharisees were so fastidious about following the minutiae of every rule, yet they were extremely wicked on the inside and did nothing about it. They never focused on addressing sin in the heart.
As parents, if we only address outward behavior when we are correcting our children, we’re not teaching them where sin comes from. When disciplining them, we need to explain that their actions came from their hearts. That includes their thoughts, attitudes, and emotions.
If they are not saved, they need new hearts that come from placing their faith in Christ. If they are saved, they need to pray that the Holy Spirit would help them address sinful patterns coming from their hearts. If they obey what you tell them, but still have a sinful attitude, that is still sin. You need to tell them that true obedience comes from the heart.
What Should Parents Do Instead?
- Teach that sin in the heart must be addressed.
How Should We Do That?
- Teach them to examine their hearts for sin.
- Explain that the gospel is the only cure for our sinful hearts.
- Teach them not to hide their sin, but to confess it.
- Help them understand that true obedience comes from the heart.
At this point, we see someone else at the dinner chime in. This man isn’t a Pharisee, but a lawyer.
One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”
This isn’t a lawyer like we would think of today—a defense lawyer or a prosecutor. This was likely a scribe. They were experts in interpreting and applying the law of Moses and the traditional teachings of rabbis (“great ones”). They were often Pharisees, but not always. A lawyer was a “super scribe.” In theory, they should be the most educated on the law and what God commanded.
This lawyer speaks up and says, “Hey—just so you know, you’re not just insulting the Pharisees. You’re insulting us too.”
What does Jesus say? “Oh—I’m sorry about that. My mistake.” No—he basically says, “You want a taste of this too? I’ve got some woes for you that are coming your way.” In our next article, we’ll look at the sins of the Lawyers that Jesus calls out and what we can learn from them in how we parent our children.
