LEADERS ARE PRAGMATICMany Church leaders are afraid to ask themselves some hard questions
about their religiosity and church-anity. Their spirit of creativity in ministry
has been suppressed by denominational bias...bound by religious tradition...
and stifled by ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Much of their church activity is what
one critic called “the incarnation of irrelevant grandeur!” This critic and
skeptic further described the church where he grew up with these chilling
words: “We were faultily faultless, icily regular, and splendidly dull!” What a
devastating, but accurate, description of so much of traditional church-
anity! That kind of “incarnation of irrelevant grandeur” is perpetuated
when church leaders lose touch with the Incarnate Christ - Who was
constantly in touch with the needs of the people around Him. His life
was intensely practical.
In contrast to the very practical life and leadership of the Lord Jesus, most
of the Judaism of His day had become rigid, tradition-bound and lifeless.
Jesus was constantly in conflict with the religious leaders – the Scribes and
Pharisees – who refused to ask themselves the hard pragmatic questions
about the religion they were perpetuating. Jesus heaped Seven Woes upon
these “..teachers of the law and the Pharisees” who sat in the seat
of Moses and pontificated religious irrelevancy upon the people of God!
Jesus called them “hypocrites...blind guides...blind fools...snakes...
brood of vipers!” Not very complimentary titles – especially for the very
religious people who had been privileged to receive the “...adoption as
sons...the divine glory, the covenants...the law, the temple worship...
the promises...the patriarchs, and...the Christ” (Rom. 9:4-5). Some of
the most severe words of judgment and condemnation that ever came out
of the mouth of Jesus were directed to these very blessed and privileged
Jewish religious leaders! What He accused them of could equally be said
of much of traditional denominationalism in the Western World today.
“Woe to you...you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of
heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor
will you let those enter who are trying to...You travel
over land and sea to win a single convert, and when
he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son
of hell as you are...You blind guides! You strain out
a gnat but swallow a camel...You clean the outside of
the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and
self-indulgence...Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed