Beware of Religious Phonies

Matthew 23:1-12

In this section of Matthew’s Gospel, we are following the events in the final week of Jesus’ life before He went to the cross. We have seen increasing conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities in the temple in Jerusalem. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were by and large hypocrites, and over the last few days in the temple, Jesus has exposed their unrepentant hypocrisy in the parables He told and the questions He answered. The last six verses of Matthew 22 confirmed their hardness of heart. In those verses, Jesus proved from the Old Testament that the Messiah would be more than a man. But rather than believing God’s word and repenting, the Pharisees were silent.

In Matthew 23, we have the last public teaching of Jesus—His last sermon to the multitudes. After this, Jesus will only teach His disciples privately. Jesus knows these will be His last words of counsel to the people. They are words of warning against their religious leaders, namely the scribes and the Pharisees.