Luke 7: 29 – 30 And all the people that heard [him], and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.
In today’s scripture, we read that people like publicans, considered the worst sinners, answered to John the Baptist for repentance and being water baptised. But he did have resistance from the Pharisees and Sadducees (lawyers/experts of the Law of Moses).
Jesus, too, had problems with the Pharisees and Sadducees. But one will notice that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees but ignored the Sadducees. He saw hope with the Pharisees but not the Sadducees; thus answered their questions with a counter question. The Pharisees were religious people; they were passionate for God, but their leaders moulded them into hardened hearts with human doctrines and traditions. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were people who thought they knew everything that was to know; thus were unteachable. These so-called wise men did not have their basics right.
Today also we have the religious Pharisees and the hardheaded Sadducees. The interesting part is that most of them are amongst Church leaders rather than the congregation. They labour in the Kingdom of God, but their purpose is not to build but to just run it, and thus they become culprits who are destroying it. What Jesus warned then stands today also.
Understand that anything that is not growing is dying. So if they are themselves not growing, then how can dead things profess life?
[Prayer Starter]
Lord, You are Almighty God. You, Lord, are Life and Life is in You alone. You gave us life when You created us and made a way for us to live eternally. Lord, we pray that we understand that we have little understanding and there are oceans for us to conquer. Lord, let our hearts be always ready to learn and correct ourselves…
This prayer we make in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
[Reference Scriptures]
Matthew 23:25-33
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 [Thou] blind Pharisee, cleanse first that [which is] within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men s] bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
33 [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Matthew 22:23 The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,
Dated 04 Aug 2026
Bro Rollwyn