Matthew 23:13-15 Don’t lock people out.
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: July 29, 2019 Matthew 23:13 & 15
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
“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.
Verse 14 is not included in the ESV. Here it is from the KJV.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
(Understanding the Text) Now the list of woes starts. First, Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites. He says that in being hypocrites, they have shut the kingdom of God up from others. This is a warning to us today also. If we are not sincere, if we do not practice what we preach, if we do not teach the truth, if we do not act in humility and love, we are shutting the door to heaven in the faces of people who are searching for answers.
The woe in verse 14 is not included in ESV. It says that the scribes and Pharisees take from widow’s so that they do not have any shelter. This means that they push people who cannot afford it to give more than God wants while not caring for those people. They pretend to care about God by making long prayers, but in reality, they care nothing for God, and their long prayers separate people from God because sincere people think that they cannot be that holy simply because they get bored during the long prayers and cannot think of anything sincere to pray that long about, so they substitute rote formulas for communication.
The next woe is that they teach others to become just like them in their hypocrisy. They shut the door in the face of most people, but they search until they can find a person that they can create in their image and then they teach him to become a hypocritical legalistic representative of God to the people so that the people are faced with more bad examples and closed doors. Jesus calls these people children of hell. In other words, they are leading people to the grave and representing Satan rather than God.
(Application) We have to be careful of exclusivity, which discourages differences and encourages formalism. We need to focus on upholding Jesus, not rules and regulations. The rules are there to open our understanding of what it means to be a child of God and to bring us closer to Jesus and to keep us from hurting ourselves and each other, but they are not the end purpose of who we are. Our ultimate purpose is to love God and let Him love us.
(Revelation of God) We can learn more from these woes than just who the Pharisees were and what they did that we should not do. These woes can also teach us about who God is. In condemning hypocrisy, God was showing that He values sincerity. In condemning the Pharisees for closing the doors of heaven to people, God is showing that He wants everyone who chooses to enter. God wants the doors of heaven open to His children, the humans of earth. God wants us to come in. We shut doors. God comes knocking to get us to open them. God doesn’t want us to hover around outside the door blocking it for others and never coming in ourselves. God wants us to enter, and He wants others to freely enter into the kingdom of heaven. God wants us to teach people how to be close to Him. He wants us to understand Him and teach others to understand Him.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I need to always focus on holding up Jesus to the world. In every truth, rule, and admonition from the Bible that I give, I need to present it through the prism of Jesus’ love. If I present a truth without Jesus’ love in it, it is a half-truth, which is the same as a lie. I need to live what I say that others should do. Help me to love even when I don’t trust. I don’t know how to do that, I need Your help.