This is actually the reality: Pharisees however exist today. And no body needs to become a modern-day Pharisee. It really happens.
Many Pharisees start out with good intentions. But somehow these motives morph into something not-so-good.
My hope and prayer is you will read this and do an assessment of your heart. These things movement from my very own particular struggles with legalism and being truly a Pharisee.
In many ways, I’m a retrieving Pharisee. I however have a long way to go. But I’m happy the acceptance of God enables me to stumble. Enables me to struggle. And be his child.
Therefore, here are 12 signals that you will be a modern-day Pharisee.
1. You believe showing up for worship every Sunday makes you right with God.
Modern-day Pharisees attempt to evaluate everything. They must have metrics and barometers. Something to evaluate their righteousness. Such a thing to offer them some safety with God.
And I’m perhaps not against barometers or metrics. Not at all. Barometers can disclose developments and present inconsistencies. But modern-day Pharisees see metrics as essential to righteousness and salvation. Worship is not really a time to pull into God; praise is yet another check always off the list.
For modern-day Pharisees, Religious residing is not really much about transforming to the image of God. It’s more about residing around the conventional of God. And no-one can live up to God’s standard—except Jesus.
2. You spend more time talking about what you are against, not what you are for.
Pharisees like to argue. They love to invest their time convincing the others they are wrong. If they’d to number the actions and issues they’re against, the pencil would go out of lead. But turn around and question them to number what they’re for, and the pencil would not actually have to be resharpened.
Pharisees think their work is to defend God and legislate morality. Therefore they’re against drinking, smoking, cursing, short skirts, speaking back to parents, holding hands before relationship and therefore on. And many of these things come prior to the gospel. Or even they’re the gospel. Modern-day Pharisees can’t inform the difference.
3. You believe God actually needs you.
Modern-day Pharisees think God wants them on his team. They think the church is dependent on them.
Let me be actual with the modern-day Pharisees. If God wants a person for his church to endure, he’s not really a God worth serving. Or worshipping. Or following. God wants no one. God simply permits us to perform a role. He permits us to perform a part.
We should just know our role. Perform our part. And do not think too extremely of ourselves. God’s got this.
4. You don’t repent of sin because you believe you don’t have any “serious” sin to repent of.
Remember that point the modern-day Pharisees repented of sin inside their life? Oh wait, they never have. They don’t have any serious sin to repent of. Pharisees have a popularity and position to maintain. Repentance involves vulnerability and weakness. Pharisees do not show weakness.
Who cares if the God of the universe was humiliated and mocked by simple guys? That has no displaying on a modern-day Pharisee.
Repentance is for folks who sin actually bad. Not for them.
5. You make every issue black and white.
The Bible is dull on many issues. But modern-day Pharisees do not option in the world of gray. They must have every thing in dark and white. In or out. Sure or no. Up or down.
If a problem is dull, modern-day Pharisees have to do some function at the heart level. But Pharisees do not function at the heart level. They don’t consider motives.
Here is another thing about dull: It doesn’t let modern-day Pharisees to keep score. Black and white issues, but, let them to keep a tally of these righteousness. “I have never sipped or smoke or gambled or cheated on my wife,” they say. “Who cares if my center is high in lust, frustration and envy?”
Making a gray situation dark and white indicates modern-day Pharisees do not have to cope with the motives underneath their actions.
6. You condone in secret what you preach against in public.
If someone were to preach on the evils of sexual sin, a modern-day Pharisee would nod his / her head in agreement. “Yes, that is right, Preacher. Preach on!” But on Sunday evening, they plop down in the couch and discover wit from a film or TV show that glamorizes the thing they just decided was wrong.
This is the actual problem with modern-day Pharisees. They love to hold a show when the lights are on. They need people to consider they’re righteous. But Jesus doesn’t inform the others of these lives.
After all, they went to church and small group. The checklist is complete.
7. Your salvation is based on your works, not on Jesus.
Modern-day Pharisees believe in their works. This is exactly why they love Wayne 2:14-26.However they top across the passages about grace. They think Jesus died on the cross for their sins, however they turn around and mock the cross by trying to earn their salvation.
8. You read the Bible to substantiate your convictions, not to be shaped into God’s image.
At that time of Jesus, no one realized more Scripture compared to Pharisees. They studied the Scriptures relentlessly.
Modern-day Pharisees do the same. However they turn around and use the information to influence the others why they’re wrong. The Bible is their particular weapon. Modern-day Pharisees put it to use to place stones at all of the misguided, wicked sinners in the world.
To modern-day Pharisees, the Bible isn’t a means to grow to the image of God. It’s a means to influence the world of fallacies and misguided theology.
9. You believe church outsiders should conform to a certain lifestyle before they are accepted as “Christian.”
This can be a Pharisee trademark. Before non-Christians can be viewed “the main class,” they have to adapt to a specific lifestyle. Stop all the cursing and drinking. And end performing all of the material “poor people” do.
After potential Christians “resolve their lives,” modern-day Pharisees gladly delightful these individuals within their family. Just do not revert back to “sinning” again. Membership in the class is definitely conditional.
Instead of conference people where they’re, modern-day Pharisees force people to come around their level. And until these individuals live up to the conventional, they’ll be externally looking in.
10. You don’t know the difference between a convert and a transfer.
Modern-day Pharisees get just as thrilled when someone ties their church as they do when someone ties the empire of God. In fact, they do not see much variation between the two. They celebrate a baptism exactly the same way they celebrate a family group going from the church across the street.
This is the reason no actual desire for the missing exists. The church is adding “members.” But they’re being added to the directory of the area church, perhaps not the directory of the kingdom. Modern-day Pharisees do not treatment, as long as the “church” is adding people.
11. All of your Christian friends look and act just like you do.
Pharisees are exclusive. They pick and pick who enters the group. But Jesus never respected exclusivity. Just look at his chosen a dozen: a tax collector (Matthew), a doctor (Luke), fishermen (Peter and Andrew), a Zealot (Simon). That is clearly a conglomerate of people from a variety of backgrounds.
Therefore, shop around at your group. Is it essentially an accumulation of guys and girls cut from exactly the same shape?
12. If someone tries to rebuke you, you get angry and offended.
Remember what occurred when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees? Their hearts broke. They repented. And Jesus applied them to start the church.
Not.
When Jesus called out their sins, the Pharisees crucified him. Modern-day Pharisees see any rebuke as an individual attack. They straight away continue the defensive. Some get upset and storm off. The others proceed to produce a set of sins of the individual rebuking them.
Regardless, modern-day Pharisees refuse to have a center sensitive to rebuke. It undermines their outside righteousness. And it undermines the lie they are perfect.
Realize that the reason I will create this article is that I have now been responsible of most 12 of those in my own life. I wish to pull people to Jesus. I wish to go in the actions of Jesus. I am hoping you do, as well.
I question you to hope for me and my struggles. When you yourself have a comment or yet another indication of a modern-day Pharisee, react below.
