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Luke 20:45–47
“[Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’”
Luke’s description of our Lord’s disagreements with the Jewish leaders during Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem has stressed the theological differences between Jesus and the religious authorities. Luke has recorded disputes regarding the authority of Jesus, the question of the resurrection, and the leaders’ repeating the history of Israel in rejecting God’s messengers (Luke 20:1–44). In today’s passage, Luke records a point at which Jesus spoke against the behavior of some Jewish officials, specifically the scribes, who were experts in the Jewish law and also made copies of the Scriptures by hand for use in synagogues and to preserve the biblical text.
Jesus warns His disciples in the hearing of a larger crowd to beware of certain actions of the scribes, thereby telling them that people were not to repeat certain scribal ways. The first problem with the scribes was that they walked “around in long robes” (vv. 45–46). The scribes wore long, ostentatious robes designed to attract attention, and Jesus condemned this. Second, the scribes loved “greetings in the marketplaces” (v. 46). They expected elaborate hellos that made much of their position in society, exactly the opposite behavior than one would expect from those who lived according to the kind of humility that the Lord rewards (Prov. 22:4). Third, the scribes sought out the “best seats in the synagogues,” which were the seats located closest to the ark or box in a synagogue where the scrolls of the Law were kept. Fourth, they also wanted “the places of honor at feasts,” or the seats closest to the hosts (Luke 20:46). Earlier in Luke’s gospel, Jesus warned His disciples not to sit in a place of honor lest someone else embarrass them by later taking their seat (14:8). All these condemnations of the scribes indicate that many of them sought to exalt themselves pridefully, and Christian disciples must not do that.
Perhaps the worst of the scribes’ actions is recorded in Luke 20:47, where Jesus says that they devoured widows’ houses and made long prayers as a pretense. Somehow, the scribes defrauded widows and covered their sin with a show of piety, maintaining postures of prayer to hide their evil. For this, Matthew Henry notes, Jesus pronounced “a double damnation, both for their abuse of the poor widows, whose houses they devoured, and for their abuse of religion, and particularly of prayer, which they had made use of as a pretence for the more plausible and effectual carrying on of their worldly and wicked projects; for [wickedness-concealing] piety is double iniquity.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Christians are not to go out of their way to be recognized for their position, and they must not defraud others under a pretense of piety. Sadly, many of us have probably known professing Christian leaders who have actually stolen from people in the name of God and who have exalted themselves for their own gain. We must not follow such people and, insofar as we are able, must keep them from attaining office in the church.
For further study
- Proverbs 3:33–34
- Ezekiel 22
- Luke 22:24–27
- James 1:27
The bible in a year
- Isaiah 45–47
- Colossians 3:18–4:18