I was listening to this sermon by Mark Driscol at Mars Hill ( he is controversial, yes ). At the 24 minute mark in the message he begins to describe Scribes. Take a listen and tell me if this description sounds familiar to you
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Below is the transcript of the actual audio.
The religious people, the Pharisees and the scribes, look around and they start criticizing, “What is Jesus doing?” Let me just say this: beware of anyone who wants you to be holier than Jesus. There is no one holier than Jesus but sometimes religious people want you to be holier than Jesus. Here the religious people want the disciples of Jesus to be holier in their estimation than Jesus.
The Scribes and the Pharisees
But let me unpack this for you. He mentions the scribes and the Pharisees. They will appear repeatedly as sort of the religious antagonists against Jesus throughout this gospel and the others. Now a scribe was a professional theologian, they were formally trained. They were formally trained. These are guys who were enjoying the equivalent of seminary or Bible college. They’ve memorized books of the Bible. They’re very studious. These are the geeks for God. They love footnotes. It’s those guys. And they’re very serious and they love to make rules and lists and impose their will on others because they’re the holy men who serve God, very serious.
And under them were Pharisees. Now Pharisees were the working class, not formally theologically educated masses. And these would be the groups of people who are very zealous, very devoted, very motivated for their scribe. And the scribe then, in an effort to extend their authority, would add rules to the Bible and they would impose them on people and bind them to live not just according to the Scriptures, but according to the traditions of the scribe. And so the Pharisees were— They were passionate, they were devoted, they become some of the most influential leaders in early Judaism. After the temple is destroyed in 70 A.D., they become the predominant voice for the Jewish people. They miss Jesus. Some, in fact, did love Jesus, but the majority rejected him.
And here’s what’s going on. The Pharisees would choose a scribe and they would want this to be their teacher, and so they would ask the scribe, “Could I please be on your team? Would you be my teacher?” And if it was a very popular sort of rock star, lots of friends on Facebook, lots of Twitter followers kind of scribe, there was a long line of people who wanted to be in his closed community, be taught by him, led by him and also religiously praised by him. So it was sort of an application process. “Oh, I want to be with so and so.”
And what you would do then is you would give money to the scribe, and some of the scribes got very, very, very rich. And you would serve the scribe. So the scribe now became sort of a spoiled, soft, spiritual leader. Everybody’s taking care of them and tending to their every need and giving them lots of money and praising them all the time and thinking that they speak on behalf of God and their authority is almost equivalent to Scripture, and what they say is law and you better obey it otherwise the other people in the community that are also among the Pharisees on your team, they will shame you, they will scorn you, they will come against you. Lot of fear, control, and intimidation, as is always the case with religion.And what you really wanted if you were a Pharisee, you wanted your kids to get trained by that scribe.
So you think almost in terms of an exclusive prep school. There are lots of scribes but some of them, boy, if your kid could get into that scribe’s school, wow. Now they’re gonna be really respected. They’re earning potential’s gonna go up. Their spiritual pride and perfection will be increased. You could put a bumper sticker on your camel, you know, “My kid’s an honor roll student at Rabbi Gamaliel’s class.” It’s a big deal. There’s a lot of social pressure to get your family under the right scribe, get your kid under the right scribe.
So you’re paying money, you’re doing favors, you’re serving this guy. You’re in every way stroking his ego so that he will increase your religious position in the community. And if you got your kid in under this guy, this particular scribe that you wanted, you’d have to continue to pay a lot of money. And then your kid would have to swear allegiance to the scribe above their own parents. SPIRITUAL PARENTING anyone? -describes JB's and JM's relationship to Mike. Both have sworn a greater allegiance to Mike than to their own parents. So the scribe became second only to God. He’s almost a mediator, like Jesus, but a false mediator. He tells you what to do, he tells you what God says and you just obey him. He’s in the false functional position of savior, lord and Christ, very dangerous, spiritual abuse. And then your child would have allegiance to the scribe beyond their own parents and they would follow this scribe around. They’d listen to every word he said, copiously take notes. The kids are all competing against one another. Who’s gonna memorize the most Hebrew? Who’s gonna memorize the most books of the Old Testament? Who’s gonna pass the oral exams? Who will answer all the scribe’s questions? Who will be able to follow in his ways and not forget any of his rules and live really strictly and obediently[/b] so that maybe someday if you did a really good job, then God would love you, then God would embrace you, then God would accept you. It’s corrupt religion at its core, and everything, sometimes even Christianity, has some form of this sickness.
And what would happen then is if you got the right rabbi and you paid enough money and you served well enough and the scribe accepted you and your child worked really hard, they could pass their classes. They could become a religious leader, which was a very honored position in the community. And when they were about forty years of age, right around my age, I’ll be forty in October, your child could become a scribe. They could be in this position of spiritual authority. They could write books. They could give lectures. They could open their own school. They could get their own students. They could make a lot of money. They could be very powerful. They could take care of you in your old age.
And the children and the adults who were in the community of the Pharisees were in a closed community. To get into that community, you had to apply, you had to earn it. You had to give generously. You had to work hard. It’s not like Mars Hill. Not a grace-centered community where everybody’s welcome. You can come for free and you don’t have to do anything, but if you meet Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s in you, you’ll want to, out of grace, not out of guilt, not because you have to but because you want to. Not so that God will love you but because of Christ he already has. Totally different motivation.
And one of the big honors was once you got accepted to one of these closed communities, you and your family got to eat together with the other families in the tribe of Pharisees and sometimes you could even eat with the scribe. The scribe would come into the meal and, “Here’s the holy man. Here’s the holy man. He’s here with us. We’re closer to God because we’re under scribe so and so. We’re closer to God because we get the real teaching. As long as we obey his rules, God’s okay with us.” And so you would only eat in a friendly community way with the other Pharisees, not even the Pharisees in the other schools. You wouldn’t eat with people from other denominations or traditions. They didn’t have it quite right. Their scribe was not as good as your scribe. Your scribe was better than their scribe and there was religious conflict and pride and pecking order.
You would eat with your friends and you would eat with your community and you would undergo testing for anywhere from a month to a year to even be allowed into the community, and then you could live near these people and you could eat with these people and you could be friends with these people. Now your children could intermarry with these people and you could keep a pure, spiritual bloodline and you all could have the same beliefs, not just what the Bible said, that’s actually a good idea, but what your scribe said.
‘Cause see, people sometimes want to go beyond the Bible thinking that the more they do, the more holy they become. The truth is the further you move away from Scripture, the more deceived and demonic you become, the more religious you inevitably become.Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2010 04:29AM by TurningPointReject.