Hypocrisy of the Pharisees

Introduction: Jesus grew up with Pharisees. He knows them well. 1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 "Why do your

disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!" Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, `Honor your father and mother.' 5 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, `Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is no longer to `honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: "`These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" 10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. 11 What goes into a man's mouth does not

make him `unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him `unclean.'" 12 Then the disciples came to him and Peter asked, "Explain the parable to us." 16 "Do you still not understand?" Jesus asked them. 17 "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into

the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man `unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man `unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him `unclean.'"