To avoid the trap of the Pharisees, we've got to guard the interconnection between our thoughts and our attitudes.
According to Miller, Pharisee Judaism is not a religion at all, but a secret society posing as a religion, a "sect with Judaism as a rite. " She cites Moses Mendelssohn who wrote "Judaism is not a religion but a Law religionized. "
My daughter, I see more Pharisees among Christians than there were around Pilate.
Tears are akin to prayer - Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade tears.
Sometimes we emulate the Pharisees more than we imitate Christ.
If you are not offending some Pharisees, you are not being effective.
Yet the order of the acts is planned And the end of the way inescapable. I am alone; all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy.
Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away.
The things closest to the heart of God are often the most offensive to the Pharisees.
The fierce words of Jesus addressed to the Pharisees of His day stretch across the bands of time. Today they are directed not only to fallen televangelists but to each of us. We miss Jesus' point entirely when we use His words as weapons against others. They are to be taken personally by each of us. This is the form and shape of Christian Pharisaism in our time. Hypocrisy is not hte prerogative of people in high places. The most impoverished among us is capable of it. Hypocrisy is the natural expression of what is meanest in us all.
The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about.
Pharisaism became Talmudism. . . But the spirit of the Ancient Pharisee survives unaltered. When the Jew. . . studies the Talmud, he is actually repeating the arguments used in the Palestinian academies. From Palestine to Babylonia; from Babylonia to North Africa, Italy, Spain, France and Germany; from these to Poland, Russia and eastern Europe generally, ancient Pharisaism has wandered.
A Pharisee is someone who is virtuous out of obedience to the Great Beast.
You don’t obey your way into faith (the Pharisees proved that); you believe your way into obedience.
I'm a committed Christian. I worship in my own way. That's my business. That's not the business of the pharisees who are going to preach to me about what I do and then do something else.
Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.
[On refusing to be silenced:] I do not pretend to be John the Baptist rebuking the Pharisees. I do not claim to be Nathan upbraiding David. I aspire only to be Balaam's ass, castigating his master.
I want to say to all you Scribes, Pharisees, heresy hunters, all of you that are going around pickin' little bits of doctrinal error out of everybody's eyes and dividin' the Body of Christ. . . get out of God's way, stop blockin' God's bridges, or God's goin' to shoot you if I don't. . . let Him sort out all this doctrinal doodoo!. . . I refuse to argue any longer with any of you out there! Don't even call me if you want to argue. . . Get out of my life! I don't want to talk to you. . . I don't want to see your ugly face!
We believe that Almighty God has sent us Adolf Hitler so that he may rid Germany of the hypocrites and Pharisees.
If God cared only about religious activities, then the Pharisees would have been heroes of the faith.
