The New Pharisees are now online
Have you seen them?
There is a new kind of Pharisee today. Things like social media have paved the way for them. And they are not rare or quiet.
Here is a partial profile of the new Pharisees:
- They have seated themselves in the chair of Moses.
The tactic of the new Pharisees communicates that they are in the highest seat of judgment and above questioning. As such, they behave as if God has charged them to prosecute those who do not conform to their law. In this way, they make themselves and their standards well-known on social media. They hand out violations on partial information and without the full story. They lack grace and learning. They’re watching you, waiting in the shadows to trap you in a statement, plotting together how they might trap you in what you say.
2. They are judgmental in the true sense.
Ironically, the most abused verse in the Bible can safely be said of them: “Do not judge so that you will not be judged” (Matt. 7:1). In the name of compassion, they are judgmental. They need little data and a skewed view of the big picture to persecute and slander. Just one piece of a ten-piece pie is enough for them to smear you.
Similarly, they believe the worst and make presumptuous conclusions. They seem to not be concerned that their info is wrong or slanted. Rarely, if ever, do they ask, “Hey, so, you said this. What do you mean by that? It seems like you are saying A or B. But I want to avoid presumption and answering a matter before I hear.” No. That’s no fun. That doesn’t deliver the self-righteous high like putting you in a proverbial giant-suplex before their fanfare on social media. Instead of approaching issues with logic, humility, intelligent conversation, and asking questions, they come with hateful judgment, seeking prosecution on bits of information.
They seem to use a fear tactic. Words are carefully chosen so as to strike fear in those who might challenge them. Many are scared about being publicly labelled an “ ‘ist” or “abuser” (ironically) and so they often do not receive the challenge they need. They keep correction at bay by these careful tactics.
3. They are revilers of the brethren.
They are skilled at reviling. They do not call people out with the end of lovingly presenting others complete in Christ (Col. 1:28). We might wonder if they humbly and lovingly pray in secret for those they revile. They are not correcting others to help others become sound in the faith.
The reviling often comes from undealt-with bitterness. Many of us understand that. Hurt is real. People are really sinned against in bad ways. And yet, the love of Christ and the body of Christ is sufficient to bind up and have victory in such situations. He’s that good.
But what we must not do is let Satan get the foothold in our lives by becoming bitter. Reviling without humble question-asking is often a symptom of sinful bitterness. Though we experience real hurt and sin, our all-loving, all-sufficient Lord does not permit us to stew internally in bitterness and consequently spew externally with reviling. There is a more excellent way. But the new Pharisees haven’t travelled it.
4. They are experts at setting aside the commandments of God in order to keep their tradition.
These new Pharisees are sort of like really bad cable news. They often create boogeyman problems with what they say and post. Crying down often phantom issues with passionate, but baseless zeal, they and their followers rejoice in the heroic slaying of mythical dragons. They stir up anger and dissension by taking a myopic view of an issue and exploding them, demanding adherence to man-made standards.
Humbly submitting to, and plugging in with, a biblical local church is not adequate for them. God’s ways are too oppressive. Forget about the piles of commands for godly operations within the local church that are undergirded with humility (cf. Rom. 12:1-3; 1 Cor. 14:34-35; Phil. 2:3-5; 1 Tim. 2:11-12; Heb. 13:17; 1 Pet. 4:8, 5:5). Forget about the fact that God—not a man, not a pastor, not any human—but God gave commands for men and women to have order in Christendom; for the pastor/elder role to be filled by men, and for women to “quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness” (1 Tim. 2:11-12).
Nevermind that those verses are actually in the Bible, and the Bible was given by God. We seem to know better than God what God said. And for some, if you dare mention these things, you are prosecuted and sentenced without a trial. Yeah, those verses might be in the Bible, but you are a raging something ‘ist if you dare to bring them up. The irony could not be greater.
As such, these new Pharisees are experts at setting aside the commandments of God in order to keep their tradition. They have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. No one knows their law as they do. It’s everyone else who is below their bar of adjudication. Everyone else is the sinner unless they join their Bible-forsaking, man-made laws.
5. They are blind and unteachable.
They could never imagine themselves as the new Pharisees. Yet, they are more angry about a few cultural sins than they are over their extraordinary lack of biblical humility. When it comes to such sins, it’s not them. They, after all, are the guardians and enforcers of the law. Therein, they are tragically blind. They nearly break social media with irony when they speak. For every one probably-not-actually-a-sin sin they rage against, they commit ten actual sins.
If you question or confront them, they self-righteously accuse you too. You are guilty of an ‘ism simply by the fact of questioning them. They refuse to receive correction, notwithstanding some 30 verses in Proverbs commending the practice.
They have no time or toleration for pause, reflection, and objectively observing all the facts of a situation. They are too trigger-happy. It’s not as fun to wait. They don’t have the patience for pausing in case they might be answering a matter before they hear (Prov. 18:13).
They would read an article like this and could not imagine themselves as pharisaical. It’s someone else. It’s the other sinners. It’s the “crowd which does not know the law [who] is accursed” (John 7:49). They are all law and no grace towards anyone who would ask questions about the validity of their claims.
6. Much of their fruit is anger, condemnation, and unforgiveness.
If you do not conform to their man-centred, man-made standards, you will become the recipient of anger and unforgiveness, ironically. If you challenge them, even gently, brace yourself. You will become the object of hate-filled verbal violence. Your name will be drug threw miles of social-media mud.
But even worse is if you do sin against them in word. This is the ultimate infraction. Sins against them seem unforgivable. If you say something uncharitable in one of your less noble moments, you will pay dearly. Their Bible does not have verses like:
“If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Rom. 12:18).
“Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God” (Rom. 12:19).
“Why not rather be wronged?” (1 Cor. 6:7).
“Love does not take into account a wrong suffered” (1 Cor 13:5).
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7).
“Let your gentle spirit be made known to all men. The Lord is near” (Phil. 4:5).
“Keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).
In the way they condemn others, they are often quick to speak, slow to hear, and quick to anger. Many of them have forgotten Proverbs 17:27-28:
“He who restrains his words has the knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding. Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.”
They cannot forgive, perhaps because, for many, they have yet to experience the Lord’s forgiveness (cf. Matt 18:35, Eph 4:32).
7. They say things and do not do them.
There is often an abysmal inconsistency in the moral standard they demand and that which they exercise. As they patrol social media, they exercise an ethic inconsistent with the standard they exact from others. While they aggressively condemn others on social media, they commit those very things behind closed doors.
They demand compassion, but harshly disdain others.
They cry for justice but presumptuously condemn.
They insist on grace but punish those who disagree.
They demand equality but exercise partiality.
They insist on love while treating those who disagree with hate.
8. They seek to justify themselves and view others with contempt.
In this sense, the new Pharisees tend towards legalism. It’s difficult to attain to justification in their system. You can do it, but you must cling to their cultural commands. You can achieve justification in their system. But, you must achieve it.
Their law is tricky. You must be as angry at yourself as they are about you regarding sins you never committed. You must be able to speak and cry down the ever-growing lists of ‘ists that they keep. You must not keep silent. No, silent reflection; a heart that ponders how to answer; these are sins in this system.
You must answer a matter before its heard. You must be the first to plead a case. You must not look at the bigger picture. If you do, you are part of the evil, cursed crowds who do not know the law (cf. John 7:49).
You must hold to guilty until proven innocent. There is no time for humble, thorough truth searching.
Actual great sins—if anyone accuses another of such a sin—cannot be studied with a slow, objective examination of all sides from all angles so as to arrive at the truth. Truth is not really the goal. If your rage meter does not soar as high as theirs, well, you are guilty and unforgiven. Justification comes through equaling, or surpassing, their rally-cry in the latest preferential cultural fad; and joining them in graceless, baseless reviling of others.
They place a yoke upon others’ neck which no one can bear. Theirs is a burdensome system of salvation. Biblical justification by faith alone in Christ alone isn’t enough to admit you into their church and their heaven. Seeing, loathing, and confessing your personal sin; putting broken child-like confidence in Christ and his finished work on the cross for acceptance with God—all this is insufficient. You must join them in getting as angry, and as social-media patrolling, and worked as them, whatever the current standard happens to be. Then, maybe, you’ll be saved.
9. Their spirituality is only external.
The outside of the cup looks clean because of false spirituality. They cry down the easy-to-condemn fouls outside of them in the greater culture. In the meantime, they do not cry down the fouls inside of them. As such, they lack the true inner spirituality Jesus calls for (Matt. 5:3-5, 7:3-5).
The behaviour of some of the new Pharisees is telling. It’s almost like they are trying to live the photo-negative of Jesus’ beatitudes:
They act, not as impoverished of spirit, but self-made-rich in spirit. The way they disdain others who differ with their man-made ethic is revealing.
They do not mourn their own inner heart sins, but rage against others outside of themselves with no humility and compassion.
They do not hunger for inner, heart-holiness. They hunger for nothing as to their own inner righteousness. Instead, theirs is a hunger solely for others to conform to their skewed, sub-cultural standard. They hunger to be exalted by pushing the moral fences far away from themselves, and towards culturally fashionable faux pas. They are blind to their spiritual bankruptcy, crying for an external form of righteousness while utterly lacking true inward righteousness. They demand outward confirming to their narrow, standard while failing to conform to God’s inward beatitude brokenness.
10. Theirs is intoxicating external righteousness.
The new Pharisees have found a system of self-made righteousness that is rewarding. It’s not difficult to get it, which makes the moral buzz all the more enticing. They craft righteousness by fleeing the humble, sober, biblical spirituality of mourning one’s own heart-idols and rejoicing in the substitutionary atoning work of Jesus Christ.
They find an external, cultural issue to rally around. After all, that’s much easier than embracing Jesus’ true spirituality of examining and mourning one’s motives; of repenting of invisible heart idols; of seeing, loathing, confessing, and fleeing the secret lusts in one’s own heart. They loathe true spiritual loathing. They hate the true spiritual hatred Jesus identified as the genuine, living spirituality (cf. Luke 14:26).
So instead, they travel outside themselves to loathe on the far-too-easy-to-loathe cultural sins, some of which are no sins at all. Again, they patrol social media looking for the self-worshipping moral buzz. They find some poor individual who challenges their self-righteousness; who says, “Hey, Jesus said this also…” They tend to attack without asking questions for clarification. The buzz is there. You don’t ask questions when you’re a Pharisee. The intoxication is too good. Just jump. Just revile. Just cry foul. And, it’s all good because you will have plenty of others, also strung out on the self-actualizing crack, to affirm the utterly self-righteous, presumptuous tactic. And today, their spiritual crack is available for cheap on every corner of Twitter. It’s all so easy. It’s all so intoxicating. And it is all so utterly sinful and self-righteous.
In all this; in the self-righteous zeal, they miss the true mission of Christ of disciple-making through the humble, tactful, and biblical preaching of the gospel and repentance. As such, they are a poor witness to the great name of Christ.
These are the new Pharisees. Beware of their leaven.
