Matthew 23 : 15 Jesus Second Woe against the Jewish religious Leaders.

Introduction

A Woe is an intense denunciation pronounced against the Leaders of the Jews because of the hypocrisy.Jesus is in the temple not long before He is murdered. Everyone who speaks out against wickedness can expect a backlash. Jesus did, and therefore was unafraid to tell them the truth. Oh that we had more people in our Day who denounced wickedness and spoke out against sin against a loving Eternal and All Powerful God.

Mat 23:15  "Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you scour sea and land in order to win one convert--and when he is gained, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna [hell] as yourselves.

Comments

Mat 23:15  "Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you scour sea and land in order to win one convert--and when he is gained, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves. WNT

Mat 23:15  "How horrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You cross land and sea to recruit a single follower, and when you do, you make that person twice as fit for hell as you are. GW

Notes

"How horrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees! You hypocrites!

You compass sea and land - You take every means, spare no pains, to gain proselytes.

Proselyte - One that comes over from a foreign nation, religion, or sect to us - a convert. Among the Jews there were two kinds of proselytes:

1. “Proselytes of righteousness,” or those who wholly and fully embraced the Jewish religion, who were baptized, who were circumcised, and who conformed to all the rites of the Mosaic institutions.
2. “Proselytes of the gate,” or those who approved of the Jewish religion, renounced the pagan superstitions, and conformed to some of the rites of the Jews, but were not circumcised or baptized.

Twofold more the child of hell -  twice as fit for hell as you are.. That is, twice as bad. To be a child of hell was a Hebrew phrase, signifying to be deserving of hell, to be awfully wicked. Compare the notes at Mat_1:1. The Jewish writers themselves say that the proselytes were “scabs of Israel,” and “hindered the coming of the Messiah” by their great wickedness. The Pharisees gained them either to swell their own numbers, or to make gain by extorting their money under various pretences; and when they had accomplished that, they took no pains to instruct them or to restrain them.

They had renounced their superstition which had before somewhat restrained them, but the Pharisees had given them no religion in its place to restrain them, and they were consequently left to the full indulgence of their vices. Barnes

Dr. Lightfoot, and others, observe, that the proselytes were considered by the Jewish nation as the scabs of the nation, and hindered the coming of the Messiah; and Justin Martyr observes, that “the proselytes did not only disbelieve Christ’s doctrine, but were abundantly more blasphemous against him than the Jews themselves, endeavoring to torment and cut off the Christians wherever they could; they being in this the instruments of the scribes and Pharisees.”

Application

How much do so-called ‘christians’ bring scorn and reproach on the name of Christ even as the Crusades did in the middle ages. They are still cursed in the Middle East to this day.

Whatever the Coalition troops do today they are called the 'Christian Crusaders.'

May the Lord deliver us from all Hypocrisy and pretense so that we might live blamelessly before The Lord and those who are unbelievers.