Six or Seven?

It seems that while the Pharisees are taking this information about Jesus’s yoke, Jesus doesn’t even give them time to set up a trap. Suddenly going on the offensive against the Pharisees now (it was the Sadducees earlier), Jesus gives them a real brain-teaser that apparently stumps the teachers so much that “no one dared to ask him any more questions.”

But Jesus isn’t about to let them off the hook. Having just made a minor public spectacle of some highly trained teachers, Jesus turns to the crowds and his disciples saying:

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

It should be noted that Jesus does affirm the place of these teachers within Jewish society. He affirms their devotion to obedience and the soundness of their teaching, along with their commitment to the Text. The thing that Jesus appears to have a problem with is their interaction, expectation, and dealings with other people. He doesn’t like how they tie up expectations and load up the guilt without doing anything to help relieve people of their burdens. He also isn’t a fan of how they seem to put their righteousness on display in order to receive the approval of men. Instead, he’s wanting to call people to serve one another, not impress them.

However, Jesus has some tough things to say to the Pharisees in the crowd that day:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. 

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.”

Now, for the Jewish listener, the moment you heard a teacher prophetically give a list of woes, you are going to think of Isaiah immediately. In chapter 5, Isaiah gives his own list of woes.

Woe to those who join house to house,    who add field to field,until there is no more room,    and you are made to dwell alone    in the midst of the land.The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing:“Surely many houses shall be desolate,    large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,    and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.”

Woe to those who rise early in the morning,
    that they may run after strong drink,
who tarry late into the evening
    as wine inflames them!
They have lyre and harp,
    tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts,
but they do not regard the deeds of the LORD,
    or see the work of his hands.

Therefore my people go into exile
    for lack of knowledge;
their honored men go hungry,
    and their multitude is parched with thirst.
Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
    and opened its mouth beyond measure,
and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down,
    her revelers and he who exults in her.
Man is humbled, and each one is brought low,
    and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.
But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice,
    and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.
Then shall the lambs graze as in their pasture,
    and nomads shall eat among the ruins of the rich.

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood,
    who draw sin as with cart ropes,
who say: “Let him be quick,
    let him speed his work
    that we may see it;
let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near,
    and let it come, that we may know it!”

Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
    and shrewd in their own sight!

Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
    and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
    and deprive the innocent of his right!

If one were to compare these two lists of denouncements, they would notice the kind of person described is quite different. Go ahead, take a second to look at Isaiah 5 and ask the question, “What kind of person is being condemned?” Then, ask the same question of Matthew 23.

What did you find?

I do this exercise with my students and they never fail to articulate the same thing. Isaiah’s woes describe a person who is wrapped up in selfishness and greed. It’s a disgusting picture of a person who has completely lost the plot of God’s story. They oppress others, serve self, and live for injustice. The woes of Matthew 23 describe a person who is self-righteous.

But did you notice? Extra credit to anyone who counted the woes.

In Isaiah, there are six woes; an appropriate number for woes that are denouncing sin, right? But in Jesus’s denouncement, there are seven.

Jesus’s point: “You have perfected the art of evil and sin.”

Do you know what’s even worse than a greedy person? A self-righteous person.

How can you possibly take sin and greed and take it to the next level? You can become a cold, self-righteous “know-it-all” who actually destroys the work of God. This is why self-righteousness is so significant. These people claim to speak for God, yet they put a completely counterfeit version of God on display to the world around them. It’s even worse than the sin of greed, because at least people know greed when they see it.

By inserting a seventh woe, Jesus says they have completed the sin of their forefathers. This is evidenced further by reading Jesus’s closing to this denouncement:

“Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

Jesus says, “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.” 

In the NIV, Jesus says,”Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started.”

It’s a striking warning that I try to be reminded of frequently. I belong to a generation bent on restoring justice to the world we live in. We cringe at the idea of greed and the oppression of the weak. Yet, if we are not careful, we can be in danger of an even greater sin. We have been repentant of the greed and waste and destruction of our forefathers. We have seen the abuse of the earth, the abuse of aliens and slaves, the abuse of resources, the abuse of power. We must be very careful not to miss the pride that lurks under the surface of our self-righteousness. We must work to hear the words of Jesus warning us to make sure we see ALL people, help and serve ALL people, and pursue humility in our walk after God.

Let’s not perfect the art of sin.

Let’s not complete what our fathers started.

Image and Inscription

** I am indebted to Ray VanderLaan for much of the teaching in this post.

Apparently, in the midst of this story telling from Jesus during this week, these spiritual leaders decide it’s time to go on the offensive. The Pharisees and Sadducees work together (which is almost unfathomable; the two parties cannot stand each other) to try and trap Jesus in order to remove him from his place of influence.

One of the great Jewish debates of Jesus’s day was the debate that swirled around paying “taxes.” These “great debates” were fueled in large part by two rabbinic voices we haven’t talked about much. However, to understand the context of these two rabbinical schools is to have a much clearer perspective on the Jewish world of Jesus.

In the rabbinical generation that preceded Jesus, there were two rabbis who argued vehemently about the great Jewish debates. As we’ve seen, there was a conservative rabbi who held an interpretation of the law driven by the priorities of obedience (more on this in a later post). His name was Shammai. In the other corner was a rabbi who held to a much more progressive interpretation revolving around love for one’s neighbor. His name was Hillel. These two worldviews competed passionately over the interpretation of the law in matters of great debate.

Nevertheless, in order to understand the context of the debate about taxes, we need to first point out that the real issue isn’t about taxes at all. The gospel of Luke seems to give us clues by choosing the Greek word kensos to speak of taxes. The King James Version translates this more accurately as “tribute.” The debate isn’t asking about paying taxes as you and I would be familiar with paying taxes. In fact, the tribute they speak of was a particular coin that every resident in the Roman world was expected to purchase. This tribute coin could be used as a “receipt” that proved you had paid tribute to Caesar and to Rome. Upon validation of this receipt, you could be given incense at any number of different outposts where tribute was paid. You would offer the incense — and your worship — to Caesar.

Ruins of the temple at Omrit, just south of Caesarea Philippi

It should be worth noting that we have uncovered one of three tribute temples constructed by Herod the Great less than two miles from Caesarea Philippi, where the disciples have recently been, before Jesus set his course toward Jerusalem.

Now, understanding this context helps us understand the question being debated. It’s not just about paying money; the question is about idol worship. Realize that amongst the differing Jewish responses we’ve looked at before, there would have been differing opinions.

HERODIAN: “Sure, pay the tribute; God knows what’s in your heart.”

SADDUCEE: “Of course. Do you know what Rome gives us? Don’t make them angry!”

ESSENE: “You don’t have to pay tribute when you live out here in the desert…”

ZEALOT: “Anyone who offers tribute deserves to die!”

The PHARISEES, however, were split on the issue, depending on whether they held to Shammai or Hillel’s interpretation. Shammai Pharisees would have claimed this is an issue of idolatry and obedience demands we not purchase the coin. However, Hillel had a much different interpretation. Pointing to the book of Jeremiah and showing that God says He was using Nebuchadnezzar (one of the most brutal tyrants in human history) to do His will and the kingdom was being given to him, Hillel said that the ruling authorities are put in place by God. Therefore, when one buys the tribute coin, they are not taking part in idolatry, but simply giving back to the ruler what God has decided in His sovereign will to give him in the first place.

Notice the trap they set for Jesus:

Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

In this sole mention of the Herodians, it is pointed out that they are conspiring along with the Hasidim, the very people who have an opposing worldview. They are setting Jesus up for failure. No matter how he answers, he’s going to make one of the groups angry; he’s either going to look like a compromising idolator or he’ll lose favor with the people.

But Jesus is a brilliant teacher.

He asks somebody to give him a coin — which is a really funny move. They are standing on the Temple Mount, where it is unlawful in Judaism to have Roman currency. In the words of my teacher, this is like a person questioning your position on pornography, and in response you ask for a Playboy and somebody hands you one. You’ve now shown the teacher where you fall in the argument, but he still hasn’t told you anything about his own opinion. We would assume one of the Herodians produced the coin, but still, that’s funny.

Jesus wants to know two things: whose image and whose inscription?

Now the image will be of Caesar and the inscription is going to speak of the divinity and worship of Caesar as a divine god. The tribute coin I have seen in person contains the inscription, “The worshipped son of a worshipped god.”

The people answer, “It’s Caesar’s inscription.”

The implication here is an unspoken question: Whose image and whose inscription is on you?

And in a stunning moment fit for a poetry slam, Jesus declares, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s.” Actually, the King James Version will nail the translation again with the word “render.” The word render means “to give back.” Jesus uses Hillel’s position, but not without making it crystal clear that your worship belongs to God and God alone.

In other words, Jesus says, “Give Caesar his stupid coin, but don’t you EVER give him your worship!”

**mic drop**

And in that moment, every group is challenged by his words. The Herodians. The Shammai Pharisees. The Hillel Pharisees. The Sadducees. The Zealots.

It’s brilliant.

It challenges us, as well. It challenges us to consider the things we pledge allegiance to. It challenges us to consider the things that become the object of our hope — and our worship. It challenges us to wonder whether there can be another Empire other than God’s.

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

THE SILENT YEARS: Perfect Timing

We’ve looked at the five different responses within the first-century Jewish world to the problem of Hellenism and the Greco-Roman empire and influence. While we’ve touched on a few of the aspects of these different groups, I wanted to dedicate a post to reviewing and summarizing the different responses and how they will play into the cultural landscape of the gospel narratives and the stories of Jesus.

As I teach this material to my students, I often find there are universal experiences that demand very important observations. First, you will find yourself resonating with one of these groups. We have the same groups and responses at work today within the religious community; for certain, you can find Pharisees, Herodians, and even Essenes. That is actually very helpful to wrestle with. To understand oneself, to be able to objectively critique and evaluate your own experience, and to identify weaknesses and dangers in your daily walk is incredibly beneficial. So don’t resist or miss the opportunity to relate with the story. This, however, leads to another significant observation. This is NOT about figuring out which group was the most “correct” or the “right” group to belong to. To be sure:

Each group had its struggles. None of these groups had the methodology perfect; they all had an approach skewed by biases and misinterpretations. In short, on some level, each of these groups was wrong.

Each of these groups also brought something quite valuable to the table. This will be hard for most of us to accept. Each of us will have a group that we will demonize and vilify and act as if there was no redeeming value to them; we will all talk as if the world would be better off without “that group.” (By the way, I have found this is often indicative of your own personal struggles; almost without fail, the group you hate the most is the one you struggle with becoming.) It is important to realize that each group offered something while struggling with something else.

With that being said, let’s take a moment to review the five groups and I’ll suggest what I believe to be the strengths and the weaknesses of each group. My language will certainly betray my own biases (as you can probably already tell from my writing, I identify most with the Essenes). But nevertheless, here goes nothing:

ZEALOTS — This group brought an incredible amount of passion and zeal to the table. This was their incredible strength, as it takes some chutzpah to actually get out and change the world — to go and DO something. The Zealots were nothing if not action-oriented. They put their money where their mouth was and aligned their behavior with their beliefs. Their obvious weakness would be their steadfast resolve to use redemptive violence, something that definitively goes against the teachings of Jesus. A Zealot would have been offended at the suggestion of Jesus to love his enemies; he had likely taken a vow to kill them. But Jesus saw their strengths and called a few Zealots to be his disciples; he saw the passion and zeal and knew that if he could just change the weapon in their hand and rewire their passionate hatred into zealous love and compassion, he’d be on to something.

PHARISEES — This group definitely gets the worst treatment in the gospels. Their negative side is in the open for all to see. Their self-righteous devotion to what they perceive as the correct path is what will keep the Kingdom from coming. Jesus was ruthless against their weaknesses, frequently telling them that the sinners (the people the Pharisees blamed for the world’s ills) were entering the Kingdom ahead of them, while their own piety was blinding them to seeing things through God’s eyes. However, they were incredibly devoted to the path of God and living a life that was set apart. Jesus exhorted His followers to do what the Pharisees say, just not what they do. They had the truth correct, but they had forgotten about loving others and chasing after the marginalized. If the Pharisees would keep their rugged devotion to obedience and not let it get in the way of truly seeing and loving people, they would be a formidable force for the Kingdom. But self-righteousness is so hard to overcome; it makes the victim blind to God’s peace

SADDUCEES — To be sure, the Sadducees had been called to their role by God Himself. This is their strength. They have a role that is appointed, commissioned, and ordained by God to help the people in their relationship with God (you may recognize the roles of the priest here). However, having spiritual power is incredibly dangerous and difficult to carry well. Many of us in today’s church culture can relate with abused religious leadership. And far too many of us have given up on religious leadership and have judged anyone who carries a title guilty until proven innocent. This is a tragedy for both parties. We need people to be called to the God-ordained offices of church leadership and they need to carry that responsibility with integrity. But we also need to respect our leaders, allowing them to be human, encouraging them to fulfill their duties as God intended.

HERODIANS — This may not be something that we want to hear, but most of us are Herodians. We wouldn’t last a day in the life of the Hasidim in the Galilee. Take away our running water, air conditioning, and smartphones, and we’d be crying uncle by lunchtime. We have convinced ourselves that we can live in the Hellenistic world that is American consumerism and serve God at the same time. We do not see our consumption as idolatry. And we may be right, but that is the danger and the weakness of the Herodian. They had exchanged the “set apart” life of the Pharisees for the comforts of the world. However, the positive of the Herodians is that they are perfectly placed for God’s mission. If they will snap out of their idolatrous slumber, they find that they are sitting right at the crossroads of the earth, perfectly placed to impact a world that’s buying into the wrong message and the wrong kingdom.

ESSENES — The positive of the Essenes is their passionate commitment to know the path of God and walk it. They had all the zeal of the Zealot, the devotion of a Pharisee, the calling of a Sadducee, and they hadn’t forgotten generosity, hospitality, and love to the outsider. But it didn’t matter. They ran off into the desert and separated themselves so much from the culture that they weren’t ministering to the people God so desperately wanted to rescue. This may sound very familiar to our discussion about shephelah. Please notice that over 2,000 years later, the wrestling matches haven’t changed one bit.

It’s very important to point out that Jesus calls all of these guys into His havurah (group of disciples). He calls at least two Zealots (Simon and Judas), five boys from Pharisee-ville (Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Philip), two Herodians (Matthew and Thaddeus, whose Greek name gives him away, specifically), and He is influenced and trained by an Essene (more on this later). There also appears to be connections to priestly families spread throughout, as well (you may remember Jesus’s uncle is a righteous priest named Zechariah). Jesus calls these guys together and tells them to get along! Can you now appreciate why they are always arguing about who’s the greatest? They aren’t taking about personal greatness; they’re arguing about worldviews. Every conversation that comes up is going to be divided amongst themselves; Simon is never going to read the Scripture in the same way as Thaddeus — they can hardly stand being in the same room!

One final point: Galatians 4:4 tells us God sent Jesus at just the right time. When all the pieces were in place, Jesus showed up. That means that there could not have been a more perfect time for Jesus to come than when He did. So why did God wrap Himself in flesh and enter the story when He did? There must have been something about this newfound love for the Text and how it was interacting with culture. The different responses amongst God’s people must have set a stage that God wanted to crash and fill with His truth.

What will we find as God comes and walks among us?

THE SILENT YEARS: Essenes

But the Hasidim weren’t the only ones to react negatively to the corruption of the priesthood and the Temple system. There was also another group that responded with as much zeal and passion as the Hasidim, but with a different methodology. This group was called the Essenes.

*It should be noted that there continues to be much debate about this group called the Essenes and what we truly know about them. Every time the scholastic community seems to make some headway in deciding who this group was and what they did, a whole different discussion arises that questions even the most basic assumptions that scholars have made.

One of the places that has been uncovered and has led us to learn so much about the Essenes is the work at Qumran and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Most are familiar with the fact that we found an unbelievable amount of biblical text in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but we also found much along the lines of extra-biblical text as well. One of the documents that was uncovered is called The Community Rule and explains much about the lifestyle and expectations for those living in the Essene community.

From what we can tell, the Essenes were made up of disillusioned priests who recognized the corruption of the Temple system and rejected the priesthood that had become so tattered. Some of them continued to perform their priestly duties twice a year, while others abandoned their posts altogether. While we used to think that only male priests were allowed into the group, we have recently found the bodies of several females in the cemetery at Qumran, causing many to suggest that the priests’ families were allowed to live there, or maybe that others were allowed into the sect, as well.

At any rate, we know this group of priests came out to the desert in order to preserve God’s way. They were determined to know the path and walk it well. They were stationed out in the desert in order to be the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
        For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

They would be the voice crying out in the desert. They would be the group that would know the ancient paths when the words of Jeremiah would come to life:

This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.

When the people began coming back to God’s way, the Essenes would be ready. When people found themselves standing at a crossroads and asking for the ancient paths, the Essenes would know those paths. They were committed to knowing the path of God and walking in it.

To know the path. And to walk it.

These Essenes went to work, not only memorizing the Text, but preserving it. One of the main accomplishments of this sect is the unbelievably accurate transmission of the biblical text through copying the words and preserving the scrolls. Without the Essenes, there would be no Dead Sea Scrolls. Without the Essenes, we would still be wondering about the accuracy of our scriptures. To know the path.
But they were also committed to walking it. According to The Community Rule, in order to join this sect, you had to sell all of your worldly possessions and everything you had became common property in the community. They lived in strict, disciplined community with others, including a rigid commitment to ritual and obedience, meal times, and communal responsibility. The extent of their commitment to following God’s commands is astounding. To document the work of the Essenes adequately would be far beyond the scope of this blog post (even ignoring how much it is debated within scholarship). To walk the path.

When I travel to Israel with groups, one of the most significant stops we make is at Qumran, as we observe the dedication and passion with which these men (and apparently women) devoted themselves to learning, knowing, and walking the Text. I have stood on the mountain overlooking Qumran many times and shouted, “I want to be an Essene!”

To be the voice of one crying in the desert. To be the answer to the one standing at the crossroads and asking for the ancient paths and the good way. To know the path. To walk it.

I want to be an Essene.

THE SILENT YEARS: Hasidim

So the Greeks move into town and the people of God respond in different ways. Some of them certainly thought that this lifestyle was not inherently evil and preferred everything that Greece had to offer. And also, for sure, you would have seen all kinds of people responding with different commitment levels to walking the path of God, from true compromisers to those who just wanted to hold both worlds in tension.

And there’s an argument to be made there, but we will deal with this later.

Other Jews, however, responded with fierce resistance. They refused to engage the new Greek world as passive consumers of this new message and philosophy. They resisted in the choices they made, they resisted in the way they worshipped, and they resisted in where they chose to live. And all of that worked out alright until the Greek world went into turmoil. Alexander the Great died and the Greek empire was passed on to four different generals. We will talk about the first two later, but the far eastern part of the empire (think Babylon/Chaldea) was given to a Greek ruler named Seleucus, and the southern portion (think Egypt) was given to a general named Ptolemy.

Originally, the land of Israel lay in the southern kingdom of Ptolemy. Ptolemy’s style of rule was one of passive invitation and suggestion; similar to Alexander, Ptolemy believed that if you built it, they would come. However, Seleucus was bent on the domination of the Greek empire and wanted to be Greece’s new emperor of fame. As Seleucus pushed west, he went to war against Ptolemy and the southern kingdom fell to Seleucus. This changed the world of the Jews dramatically.

Seleucus’s style of leadership was starkly different from Ptolemy. Seleucus said, “Become Greek or die.” Massive persecutions were launched at those who would refuse to take on the Hellenistic world and its value systems (namely Jews). Seleucus was famous for the torture that was pursued in the city squares under his rule. People were boiled in oil, pulled apart limb from limb by horses, and skinned alive as they peeled one-inch strips of hide from their bodies.

This bloody mess only fueled the fire of resistance. One day, Seleucus stormed into the Temple of God, desecrated the holy place, and offered pigs on the altar. This was the last straw for many of the resistive Jews and they mounted a revolt, led by Judah “the Hammer.” We know him as Judah Maccabee and the Maccabean revolt. This revolt is also the story of Chanukah. The eight-day uprising led to the miraculous overthrow of what some might argue was the most powerful army in the world at the time. A little band of Jewish rebels took back the Temple and supposedly walked in to find the menorah out of oil, but still burning. This is the celebration of the festival of lights.

Let’s get back to the story. The Maccabeans took control of the Temple and the land of Israel and, for a brief time in history, the Jews had their land back. The Maccabeans turned control of the Temple over to the priesthood — the rightful rulers of God’s Temple system. The priestly family was known as the Hasmoneans and they were direct descendants of the family lines of Zadok, the high priest who was put in place at the opening of the Temple of Solomon (more on them later).

However, this priestly Hasmonean family, within a matter of years, became as Hellenistic as the Greeks. Josephus tells us that there were so many priests at the Greco-Roman mud-wrestling on the Sabbath that there were not enough left in the Temple to hold Sabbath services.

Let that sink in.

Yes, many of the Jewish people felt betrayed. After all of that work to push out the Seleucids and God’s miraculous provision to defeat their enemies, how could they simply compromise the way of God and become as Greek as their imperial counterparts?

And so, in disgust and dismay, those groups of fiery rebels headed north to the Galilee, which we have already discussed. They became people of fierce devotion and commitment to walking the path of God. They were people of the insula, the rabbi, and the synagogue. Set apart. Holy. Devoted unto the LORD.

They called themselves Hasidim, or “the Pious Ones,” and they were made up of two groups:


ZEALOTS

This group held on to the passion that led the Jews to revolt. They believed that the Kingdom of God would come through total devotion to God’s path, complete resistance and rejection of the Hellenistic world, and a commitment to redemptive violence. They believed that if they would rise up in faithful obedience — with the sword — that God would defeat their enemies. He did it at Chanukah. He did it with Joshua and the conquest. He would do it again.

One of the zealot sects that we know of was the Sicarii, known for their short daggers called sicae. They were known for hiding a dagger up their sleeve and taking a vow to kill any Roman they found who was alone. They saw any cooperation with Rome or acceptance of Hellenism as a rejection of God and complete idolatry. Their poster boys were guys like Phinehas, who speared the Israelite man and the Moabite woman who were having relations in front of God’s house.

Realize the teachings of Jesus that were committed to principles of forgiveness and loving your enemies would run counter to this worldview. Realize that every time Jesus interacts favorably with a Roman, it would be incredibly offensive to this group. Realize that Jesus called some of these guys to be His disciples. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.


PHARISEES

This group believed that the Kingdom of God would come through complete devotion to God’s path and completely resisting and rejecting the Hellenistic world. They did not believe that God would want them to take up the sword against their enemies, but that if they would simply worry about obedience, God would bring rescue to their situation.

You see, the Pharisees get a really bad rap in our teachings. Admittedly, this is for good reason: Jesus is ruthless against many Pharisees. But what we often fail to see is that, of all the groups that will be at Jesus’s disposal, He is going to insist, by His own choice, on working with this religiously pious group of leaders. Certainly, their piety bred a self-righteousness that prevented them from seeing those on the outside, those on the margins, and the very people who were forgotten in the stories of the Old Testament.

But this was a group of people who were fiercely devoted to God’s commands and walking the path well. Their commitment to God would put our personal walks with the LORD to shame ten times over.


The Hasidim were the pious ones. They headed north to start a new home for a new kind of Judaism. And it worked. When God showed up to do His work amongst us, He decided to set up shop right under the noses of the Hasidim. He didn’t build an apartment on the wing of the Temple in Jerusalem; He went right up to the Galilee and lived in Nazareth. He planted His ministry in Capernaum for three years — the Pharisee capital of the Jewish world. He called zealots and fishermen who were the sons of Hasidim to be His first disciples.

There is something here to learn from the fierce and zealous devotion of the Hasidim.