Matthew 23:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The scribes and Pharisees were diligent to make proselytes – those who came over to their position, disciples. These disciples were not Jews themselves, but were brought into the Jewish religion from outside. They were people from other nations, hence the need to compass sea and land to reach them – they live outside of Israel and sometimes overseas. Why was this a mark of hypocrisy? Because it seemed to the ordinary people to be a work that deserved to be admired. They spent themselves in recruiting to the Jewish religion those who were far off from God. They claimed that their manner of life and their teaching had attracted those who were outside the Jewish fold to come into it. This seemed to commend them as preeminent servants of God. Israel had indeed been made responsibility by God for reaching the nations with the word of God. Solomon had prayed, ‘Moreover concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake; ⁴² (For they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm;) when he shall come and pray toward this house; ⁴³ Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name. (1 Kings 8:41-43). She was the only nation with whom God had made a covenant, and to whom he had revealed his law and the rich illustrations of grace contained in the ceremonial law. It ought to have been a great blessing to any who were not descended from Abraham and born into the nation, to be allowed to join with God’s people. How commendable therefore that some in Israel worked so hard and would succeed in bringing outsiders in, or so it seemed!And yet, what did they end up making of them. Did they turn them into God fearing men and women, who loved and appreciated God’s mercy and truth, who understood the need for grace, who sought to obey God from the heart? No, they turned them into those who were worse than themselves. They did not produce Israelites indeed who were without guile like Nathaniel, but hypocrites. The character of a man is known by his children: wisdom is justified by her children, but hypocrisy is condemned by hers. In the zeal of their new-found religion, the disciples of the scribes and Pharisees were everything that their teachers were and more. They would be taught the same reliance on their own works, the same readiness to cut corners, the same laxity of morals, the same emphasis on externals, while leaving the heart far from God. They were ready for hell, like their teachers of whom Christ says later in this passage, ‘How can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ (Matthew 23:33). They were twice as much the children of hell as their masters. Was that something to be admired by the people? No, it was a cause for shame! So the proselytising zeal of the Pharisees ended up being a mask to cover their deviousness, but failed to do so – that was the mark of hypocrisy.