You Fools! You Hypocrites! You Snakes 5
"WOE UNTO YOU, SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES"
Many times Jesus called the fraudulent religious leaders of the Church, "hypocrites." Here is the definition of a hypocrite:
"One who puts on a false appearance, to hide his real motives, one who feigns, a play actor, a fake, a fraud, a phony."
Jesus loathed the hypocrisy of these religious leaders and saw right through these play-acting fakes and frauds, just like looking through a windowpane.
"FOR HE TAUGHT THEM AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY"
I fully realize my papers grind on the spirits of those who oppose God’s Word. And well they should. Why shouldn’t we quote the Scriptures with authority--the Scriptures are authority.
"For He (Jesus) taught them as one having AUTHORITY and not as the scribes" (Matt. 7:29).
Jesus got His authority from His Father, and He used it. In fact, the very words He spoke were the words of His Father and not His own (John 17:8), hence the Father too uses sarcasm and anger in teaching us (our Lord and His God have more personality than most have ever imagined). What a broad range of colorful metaphors, parables, and colloquialisms they used. Add to these sarcasm, exaggeration, satire, irony, and true anger, and we have very powerful, persuasive language and teaching.
JESUS TALKED NATURALLY
First, let’s be clear that Jesus did not go around speaking as if He were a performer on a Shakespearean stage. Jesus did NOT speak in archaic King James English! Jesus never said:
"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not" (John 21:18, King James Version).
No, that is NOT what Jesus said in modern English. That is what He would have said had He been speaking archaic King James English to the residents of England back 1611. But to our ears this archaic English now sounds strange and affected. We no longer speak in archaic King James English. If Jesus were to speak to us today in the English of the 21st century it would sound more like this:
"The truth is when you were young, you were able to do as you liked and go wherever you wanted to; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and others will direct you and take you where you don’t want to go" (John 21:18, The Living Bible).
Jesus spoke the language of the people, the language of the day. He was natural, He was colloquial, He was precise, He was articulate, He was emotional, He was sincere. Jesus spoke EXACTLY AND PRECISELY as He was inside, because it is a Scriptural truth that, "…out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34).
First we will look at a few verses that describe Jesus and His ministry. Notice how mellow and tenderly He spoke to the poor and the humble, and how they record the history of His ministry.
Following this section we will contrast it with how He spoke to the religious leaders.