Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Daily Gospel Exegesis Podcast made by Logical Bible Study. And what we do here in this podcast is we take a look at the literal sense of the text from today's gospel reading at Mass. So every day when you go to Mass, there's usually 3 readings, sometimes 2. The last reading is the gospel reading, and that's from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
And we take a look at that reading and we're looking at the literal sense of the text, as in what was the author trying to convey to his original audience. And by doing that, we can really get at the meaning of the text. What? And in fact, that's the best way to find out what it's trying to say to us today. So today we're looking at a really, really interesting passage for a number of reasons.
One of the most important, I think, in terms of understanding Jesus thinking and the Jewish thinking at the time about the Pharisees, et cetera. So we're looking at Matthew chapter 23, verses 1 to 12, addressing the people in his disciples. Jesus said the scribes in the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. You must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they
say. But do not be guided by what they do. Since they do not practice what they preach, they tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders. But will they lift a finger to move them? Not they. Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broad philacteries and longer Tessels, like wanting to take the place of honor at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues, being greeted obsequiously in the market squares, and having people call them Rabbi.
You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one master and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your Father. Since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven, you must not allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one teacher, The Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everybody who humbles himself will be exalted.
So in this passage, there's two really interesting things that need to be talked about, and those would be the seat of Moses. In the first half, Jesus discusses what it means to have the seat of Moses, so we'll talk a bit about that. And then in the second-half, of course, there's that common objection against Catholic teaching, which is that Jesus says call no man father, but of course Catholics call their priests father. So this is a really important passage.
Well, I would say this is one of those passages where if we don't do an analysis of the literal sense of the text and we just jump straight to the spiritual sense of the text and we're going to miss a lot of really important information. So let's jump into it, The literal sense of the text. Matthew chapter 23. So the setting of this appears to be in the temple. So Jesus is telling us a few parables and he has some confrontations with the
Pharisees in the temple here. And this is basically the final conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, and it's the most hated one. Jesus doesn't pull any punches here. He really digs into the Pharisees and the way they live their life, and he pinpoints exactly what his problem with them is.
Earlier in his ministry, he's spoken not very highly of the Pharisees, but it hasn't been entirely clear what the fundamental problem is. Here Jesus really tells us exactly what his problem with the Pharisees is. First one addressing the people and his disciples. So notice that we have crowds listening and the disciples listening. He's addressing both of them, Verse 2, the scribes and the Pharisees.
So these are the common religious teachers at the time in Israel. Essentially, they're the Jewish religious authorities. They had the power to interpret the law, and I would say they actually did their best to interpret God's law. They're not trying to be deceptive. They're actually doing their best to teach the people God's law because most people couldn't
read or write. So the Pharisees have the role of teaching people what the Old Testament says, even if they're sometimes mistaken, which they certainly are, they're doing their best to teach people God's law. The scribes is the second group mentioned here.
The scribes were kind of like a subgroup within the Pharisees, and they were experts in the actual text, the writing, the words of the Old Testament. So Jesus says the scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses, the chair of Moses. So we need to understand this phrase if we're going to understand Jesus conflict with the Pharisees during Moses's
life. So let's go back to the Old Testament. So during Moses's life, it appears as you know, there's these times when people come to Moses while they're camping in the wilderness. People would come to Moses if they had a problem, and Moses would bring a solution or a judgment. And it appears that during his life there was an actual chair that he would sit on when he's making judgments and when people would come to him. Kind of like a throne, but not
really. It's just his chair that he made judgments from. And whenever he sat in that chair, it was he was teaching authoritatively. So it was believed by the Jews at the time that because of Moses's office as a divinely chosen by God, Moses clearly was spoken to by God and he clearly had God's approval. Then the Jews believe that any teaching that was proposed by Moses to be believed by the Jews was binding, not necessarily
infallible. We don't want to say Moses was infallible, but he did have the right to create binding decisions that all Jews were bound to. And so the Jews believe that this authority of the chair of Moses or the seat of Moses was then passed on to Joshua after Moses died. So then Joshua had the authority of Moses. Then later as Jewish history progressed, it was passed on to some of the other Jewish
leaders. Maybe Ezra and Nehemiah might have held that office, and possibly some of the other prophets as well. We don't have a clear line of who exactly it was passed down to, but there was this general idea that the Jews had that the chair of Moses, Moses is teaching authority to bind, to make binding judgments, was passed on throughout time, and whoever had the seat of Moses had the power to interpret the Law of Moses for the Jewish
people. So basically, if you sat in the seat of Moses, then you could explain to the people what the Torah meant and they could add in certain disciplines or regulations about how the law was to be enacted and those were binding on the people. So by the time of the 1st century, so the time of Jesus, the authority of Moses and the seat of Moses had passed to the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were now the official authoritative teachers, and particularly in the weekly liturgy, it appears that they literally sat on a special seat that was in a sense considered to be the seat of Moses. And then they would give their sermon, during which time they could make official teachings for their local congregations. And we know that they had this, the seat of Moses, because Jesus tells us in this passage he says the scribes and Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses.
This isn't often talked about much, but it needs to be. We often, sort of, you know, we'll often hear that there was 4 competing groups in Jesus time. You have the Essanes, the Pharisees, the Sedgeses, and the Zealots. Probably lots of you have heard of those four groups, and often it's portrayed as though they all had equal authority with each other.
It appears that really if we look at the Gospels, the Pharisees were the only ones that had legitimate teaching authority that was approved by God. The other groups were kind of just doing their own thing. So that means, if it's true that the Pharisees had the seed of Moses's authority, anything the Pharisees officially taught in Jesus time was authoritative and binding. Anything the Pharisees taught was to be obeyed, and that's what Jesus expected. So that's radically different
from what we're often told. We're often told that the Pharisees were just wrong about everything. Jesus didn't approve of them. He thought that they shouldn't exist, and things like that. No, that's not the case. Jesus is saying you must obey them because they sit on the seat of Moses. We can look at it this way. God approved of their teaching office, and in fact he'd given them their teaching office. But he didn't approve of every
single teaching they proposed. Not every single thing the Pharisees said was from God. It's just that God has given that. God knows that the Jewish people needs leaders, even if the leaders are fallible. He said He set things up in such a way so that there's always some sort of Jewish spiritual group of leaders who have the power to make binding decisions and the people must obey it.
That's how God has set it up. So the Pharisees teachings were authoritative and binding, but not necessarily infallible. If we can keep that in mind, that will help us understand the conflict Jesus has with them. Verse 3. Jesus says you must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they say. So since the Pharisees do have genuine teaching authority as Jews, the people in Jesus time were bound to do whatever they say. That's what God expects, That's what Jesus expects.
That's how God has set things up. If they make a teaching or discipline, you must obey it, says Jesus. But he adds A caveat here. Do not be guided by what they do since they do not practice what they preach. So this is really interesting. Jesus tells his disciples that they should follow all teachings of the Pharisees, anything the Pharisees teach as part of their teaching authority. He expects his disciples to follow that because it's binding.
But he says don't imitate their way of life, don't do what they do, don't live the way they do, don't have their attitude because they're not particularly holy people. This is the main criticism Jesus has of them as, as we'll see, it's not that they are teaching things. That's not his problem with them, it's the way they're living their life. And you could extend that to say the way they're treating people. We soon discovered that as we read on the passage, the Pharisees do everything to
attract attention. That's the problem. That's what Jesus says, don't imitate them. So Jesus here is probably quite frustrated. He wants the Pharisees to be holy people. He wishes that they were, because if they were, the whole situation would be much better. There'd be holy leaders giving wholly authoritative teachings. But that's not the case here. Verse 4, Jesus goes on. The Pharisees tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders.
So Jesus is telling us that the Pharisees, when they exercise their teaching authority, are requiring the Jews to follow all sorts of extra rules and disciplines. And of course we can think of the dietary laws at the time, and also the Sabbath laws. You know, you couldn't pluck grain on the Sabbath. That added in all these extra tidbits in the way that they interpreted the law. Now they were binding, So Jesus is not disputing that they're
binding. But what he's saying is they're tying up heavy burdens and laying them on men's shoulders. So the Jews do have to follow those teachings. But will they lift a finger to move them? No, not they. So the Pharisees adding in all these extra little rules and Jesus is frustrated with that because the Pharisees are not considering the impact that that will have on the Jewish people. In fact, it could make coming to
God harder for them. So Jesus concern here is that the Pharisees are exercising their authority in such a way that it might actually be harder for the Jews to come to God because there's so many little requirements. So in fact the Pharisees would not actually act like the holy people that that the Jews required.
So imagine imagine what it would be like if the Pharisees added in all these laws which they were doing, but on top of that they acted like holy people, and there were people that the Jews could imitate. If that was the case, the whole situation would be much easier because the Jews could follow all the laws. But then they would have the Pharisees to look up to and to imitate, and they would be able
to live a holy life. And in that way the rules would would become less burdensome because they had role models to look up to. But in fact, the situation is not that. The situation is the Pharisees, using their teaching authority, are binding the Jews to follow all these little authoritative laws and the Pharisees as their spiritual leaders and not doing anything to help them live out those laws. They're just adding more and
more things. So I hope that makes sense that if you're understanding the distinction between the Pharisees having legitimate teaching authority, but then the way that they're living their life kind of making it harder for the Jews to access God. This contrast with Jesus yoke. Remember what Jesus says about his burden? He says my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So that's in Chapter 11 of Matthew, verse 29.
In contrast, the yoke of the Pharisees or the teaching, the teaching body of the Pharisees was quite hard for the people to bear. So Jesus finishes talking about the Pharisees teaching there, and now he's going to talk about the Pharisees way of living. Verse five. He says everything they do is done to attract attention. So the Pharisees like to be seen as important. They're motivated by pride. Basically. They'd like to wear broad phalactories. So Phalactories are small leather boxes.
You might have seen pictures of the Pharisees from this time period. They're small boxes and they contain Scripture passages. So this is based on Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 8, where God says, put the law at the front of your mind and on your hands. And it's kind of like a metaphor for, like, make sure you always follow the law. But the Pharisees took that literally to mean we literally need to put the Scripture passages on our heads and on our
hands. So during the liturgy, they would wear these little boxes and they would strap them to their forehead and their left arm. During the liturgy, it probably represents knowledge and loyalty to the Torah. It appears that the Pharisees or the Pharisees in this part of the world were quite, quite prominent Philactories, so that everyone saw their Philactories and they appeared to be extra knowledgeable and extra holy. So is there anything wrong with wearing Philactories?
No, there's not. Jesus is not criticizing that. That was sort of part of the Jewish way of understanding obedience to God. But his problem with the Pharisees is that the reason the Pharisees are wearing the Philactories is to attract attention. And then he gives another example. They love to wear longer tassels. So tassels were kind of like the end bits of the cloak, and they were considered to be the religious part of Jewish
clothing. And they particularly represented for the Jews, the tassels represented the Jewish responsibility to keep the commandments. And that's specified in Numbers, chapter 15, verse 38 to 39, where it says the Jews need to wear certain kinds of tassels as part of their obedience. So the Pharisees had their clothes specially designed to have really long tassel so that everyone could see their tassels. And everyone would say, well, aren't they so religious?
Aren't they so holy verse six, they love to take the place of honor at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues so that everyone can see them, basically, and know how important they are. So the Pharisees on the whole are motivated by pride. They love to be greeted obsecuously in the marketplaces. What a strange word. Obsecuously that our littergy translation has. I've never heard that word before until I saw it in today's
littergy translation. An easier translation of that word obsecuously is They love to have many salutations in the marketplace, so they expected everyone to give them a special greeting because of their status. They also love to have people call them Rabbi. Now this is a good connector to the next part of the passage. The Pharisees really liked people calling them the term Rabbi. So Rabbi was a word in the 1st century society which had come to mean my teacher.
If you said Rabbi, you were saying that I consider you to be my teacher, or more literally my great one. So you wouldn't just call anyone Rabbi. It was anyone that you respected significantly, my great one. So a Jew would use it for anyone they consider to be their authoritative teacher. In the gospel, some people address Jesus this way. They call Jesus Rabbi.
Sometimes it's to flatter him, like the Pharisees sometimes try to call Jesus Rabbi. Sometimes it appears people genuinely mean it. They genuinely see Jesus as a rabbi, which he is. The difference is that the Pharisees required people to call them Rabbi. They said as part of showing us respect, you must call us Rabbi. So really, again, it's out of pride. So people, they weren't giving people the option of calling them rabbi. You're they're saying you must
call us rabbi. They wanted the satisfaction of everyone considering them to be their teachers. So again, the Ferris is being selfish. So we now enter into the part of the passage which can be one of the hardest to understand and reconcile with both later Christian teaching and later Catholic teaching. So we really need to dive into it. Verse 8 Jesus says you, however, so now he's talking to his
disciples particularly. You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi. So the Pharisees love to be called Rabbi. But Jesus says, you guys, my disciples must not let yourselves be called Rabbi. So Jesus knows it. In the coming years after he's gone, the disciples would become significant teachers of the Christian faith and people are naturally going to want to call them Rabbi. What's the reason Jesus gives for why you shouldn't let yourself be called Rabbi?
He says it's because you have one teacher and that's God. God is the only true rabbi. Now sometimes other translations will have this as master, you have only one master or teacher. Both of them are kind of like a translation of Rabbi. So the reason the disciples shouldn't get themselves to be called rabbi is because God is the only true rabbi.
You are all brothers. So Jesus is saying in a sense, Jesus is saying this, that in the Kingdom of God, in the new covenant, the playing field needs to be leveled in a sense within the Christian community because he's seen how it's so easy for people in positions of authority in in terms of God's leaders, in positions of authority, it's so easy for them to be corrupted. And he wants his disciples to not fall into that corruption and pride.
He wants him to have a frame of mind which sees God is the teacher, and then all Christians on an equal level below that. He says that has to be the starting point. We don't seek authority for for our own sake, he says. Now there's a bit more to it though, because as we go on we see that Jesus is using hyperbole. He's exaggerating here. He does not literally mean that it's never OK to call someone rabbi. That's not what the passage means. This is why it's really important that we do.
That we dive into the When we're stunning the Bible, we must look at the cultural context, the way that words were used, the way that Jesus used phrases. Because if we don't do that, if we just pluck a verse out of context, we will end up saying you should never call anyone rabbi or you should never call anyone father. And we really put ourselves in some difficult situations there, because that would imply that we're not allowed to call our own earthly fathers father.
So there must be an element of hyperbole here. So Jesus, again, he does not literally mean it's never OK to call someone Rabbi. What he's saying is that he's trying to contrast the way the Pharisees have set up their leadership system with how he wants his disciples to set up their leadership system. In fact, Jesus allowed himself to be called Rabbi sometimes, so he's not forbidding Rabbi altogether. He's using exaggeration. Here he goes. On verse nine, call no one on
earth your father. So this is the second example. Don't let yourself be called Rabbi. And now he says don't call anyone else father. So Jesus has to be exaggerating here. Think about it. Don't call anyone on earth father. But everyone calls people on earth their father. Our dads. We're going to call them father. So clearly Jesus doesn't expect his disciples not to call their dad's father. That doesn't make sense. He has to be exaggerating, and we'll talk about this a bit more as we go.
He says call no one on earth your father, since you have only one father and he's in heaven. So apparently the Pharisees enjoyed being called Father as well, and it had become a real problem in Jesus time. So Jesus reminds his disciples that really they only have one father. He's the source of all paternity. Why doesn't this verse contradict the Catholic teaching on the fatherhood of priests? Here's why.
If this passage, if we just had this passage in the New Testament which said call no one on earth father, even if we grant that OK, Jesus doesn't mean biological fathers, you can call them Father. Maybe Jesus means spiritual fathers Don't call anyone your spiritual father. Now if we just had this verse to go by, then that might be true and Catholics might be in a bit of trouble here because the Catholic teaching that we can call Priest Father would seem to
contradict this verse. But luckily we have other verses in the New Testament. Later in the New Testament we see the apostles being called fathers and accepting the title Father. So Paul calls himself a father in five Lehman chapter 10. Sorry, five Lehman verse 10. And John the Apostle John often refers to his disciples as my little children. So he sees himself as a spiritual father to these people.
Probably the most famous verse which can be used to support Catholic teaching here is 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 14 to 15, where Paul says, I admonish you, my beloved children. Though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. I became your I became as your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So here it's pretty clear that Paul is considered to be a father to this the Corinthian people, and he wants to be seen as a father.
So if we have people like Paul and John telling people to consider them to be their spiritual fathers, and they knew Jesus quite well, particularly the Apostle John, and they knew what Jesus said here, well then they must have understood that what Jesus said here in Matthew 23 does not forbid calling people spiritual father in all circumstances. That's how they understood it and that's how the Catholic
Church understands it today. So if later parts of the New Testament allow the term Father to be used for spiritual fathers, then that means the New Testament writers understood that Jesus was using hyperbole here and he's not forbidding the term spiritual father to be used. So I think that's really cool when we compare this with the
way later usage was used. So if that's the case, what is Jesus saying Here again, Jesus is exaggerating to make a point, which is that we can't have the same frame of mind and the same starting point as the Pharisees when we're constructing the leadership of the Kingdom of God This 10 Jesus uses one more title, He says, Nor must you, nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers or masters. So apparently that's another term the Pharisees like to be called.
So you have only one teacher, the Christ. Now this is interesting because for the first two Jesus says if you have only one Father who is in heaven. But this time he says do not let yourselves be called teachers, for you have only one teacher, the Christ. So this time it's not God, it's the Messiah, the Christ.
Jesus doesn't say me, He doesn't say you have only one teacher and that's me. He says you have only one teacher, the Christ. So Jesus here is affirming that the only individual who will have true teaching authority in the present of his disciples or in the future of the Jews is the Messiah. Jesus says that's the only person who is a true teacher in and of himself.
He's the only person who's ever going to have true teaching authority in his own person because of who he is, rather than the Pharisees who did have teaching authority but only because of their office. Whereas the Messiah, because of the very person who he is he has, he's the true teacher. All other authoritative teachers have it only because of their position. Hope that makes sense with the
distinction there. Now again, we know that Jesus is in a sense using the hyperbole here, because later in the New Testament Paul calls himself a teacher. He allows himself to be called a teacher. Second, Timothy one, he does that, and in fact, Paul even teaches Christians that the office of teaching is a
legitimate church church office. It's an actual role that God sets up is the office of teacher, and that's in one Corinthians 12 verse 28. So Jesus, if we put together all the information from the New Testament, Jesus is using exaggeration here to make a point. So let's summarize this part of the passage with the discussion of these three titles. Rabbi, Teacher, and Father.
Jesus is using exaggeration to teach how sinful and prideful the Pharisees were for not looking humbly to God as the source of all authority and fatherhood and teaching, and instead setting themselves up as the ultimate authorities, father, figures, and leaders. He's therefore not forbidding us or his disciples to call people these titles Father, Teacher, or Rabbi, but he is teaching us not to ascribe fatherhood or teacherhood, two people to a degree that they do not actually
have. We must always remember that God is the ultimate standard for teacherhood and fatherhood. As long as we keep that in mind, and we don't set these other people, even priests, up as the ultimate standard of fatherhood, as it appears the Pharisees we're trying to do, then we're okay. That will be the Catholic teaching verse 11. Jesus finishes by saying this famous phrase, verse 11. The greatest among you must be
your servants. A better translation of this is the greatest among you shall be your servant. So Jesus here isn't making a commandment as much as he's saying. Here's what it's going to take. In order to be the greatest, you need to be a servant. So this is the main point Jesus wants to make with his the whole thing has been saying up till now is leading up till this.
Jesus wants to teach his disciples that in the Kingdom, the one who serves other people will be the one that's considered to be the greatest by God, not the ones who make themselves out to be the greatest. That's what Jesus is trying to get at. God is more interested in how we treat each other than what our official positions are, and that applies even to today. So Jesus probably here is speaking specifically to his 12
apostles. He knows that soon they are going to be the authoritative leaders of his church, and he wants to make sure that they don't fall into the same pride trap that the Pharisees have fallen into. He says the Pharisees like to make themselves the greatest. He says if you want to be the greatest, you have to make yourself the least. Verse 12. Anyone who humbles sorry other way around, anyone who exalts
himself. So in other words, anyone who makes himself great and forces other people to pay respect to him, a KA, the Pharisees will be humbled. So this appears to mean that they'll be humbled by God. In the Kingdom of God, these people will be humbled. It's not clear whether that means during their own lifetime they'll be humbled, or in the afterlife it could mean either.
And then he says the reverse. Anyone who humbles himself, so we're talking here about anyone who makes himself low and serves others will be exalted. So God will exalt those people in the Kingdom. And obviously theologians as scholars have talked a lot about how Jesus here is setting up an upside down Kingdom. It's the opposite of everything the Jews would have been familiar with at that time.
The greatest is the one who makes himself the lowest and that's the end of our passage for today. After this, if you read on Matthew chapter 23, Jesus gets even more forceful in his criticisms of the Pharisees. He calls them blind guys, and he tells them that their conduct is actually preventing people from getting into the Kingdom. So I recommend reading the rest of chapter 23. It's well worth it. So really interesting passage. Where does this appear in the Catechism?
Only a couple of places. So there's a brief reference to it in the section on marriage, which is really interesting. So paragraph 2367 on. It's in the section about the responsibility to have children in marriage. It says called to give life spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. And that's it. So the paragraph goes on from there. But that's the only part that quotes this scripture passage.
So that's kind of cool in a sense, just as God is our true father and all paternity derives from Him, if we have children, particularly men, then we can share in that fatherhood of God by becoming, I guess you could say secondary fathers that derive our fatherhood from God who is the true father. And then in paragraph 526 is in the discussion about little
child God eternal. So comparing us to God in a sense, it says to become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the Kingdom. For this we must humble ourselves and become little even more to become children of God. We must be born from above or born of God. Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this marvelous exchange.
Our marvelous exchange. Man's creator has become man born of the Virgin. We have been made shearers in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share our humanity. So the reference there about God being Father and also a requirement to humble ourselves is brought together really nicely in this paragraph about how God humbled Himself even though He's our Father. He humbled Himself to become a man so that we can be partakers
in his own divine life. So I'll put those two, those two categories and paragraphs into the show notes. Hopefully you learn something new. This is one of my favorite passages in terms of understanding the role of the Pharisees, because the Pharisees appear so much in the Gospels, and if we don't understand that they had legitimate teaching authority and Jesus believed that they did, but he didn't approve of their practice, then we're really going to struggle to interpret the Gospels.
So if you think there's some people who would appreciate hearing this information about the Pharisees and Jesus teachings about fatherhood, etcetera, then please share it with them. Bit of a longer podcast today, but hopefully you can see that it's been beneficial. Thanks for listening.