BEMA Episode Link: 80: Silent Years — Pharisees
Episode Length: 24:37
Published Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2018 01:00:00 -0700
Session 3
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings, with special guest Megan Gambino, near the end of our journey through the silent years and the context of Jesus’s ministry, examining the Pharisees.

Silent Years — Pharisees Presentation (PDF)

Addendum to BEMA 80 — Marty Solomon, YouTube

Discussion Video for BEMA 80

Megan Gambino on Instagram

Megan’s Website [no longer available]

BEMA 74: Silent Years — Synagogue

Transcript for BEMA 80

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

BEMA Episode 80: Silent Years — Pharisees

Title & Source Summary

This episode examines the Pharisees, the fifth and final Jewish response to Hellenism during the Silent Years. The episode explores how the Pharisees channeled their zeal into absolute devotion and obedience to God’s commands, settling primarily in the Galilean region where Jesus would conduct most of His ministry. The discussion reveals both the strengths of Pharisaic devotion to the Text and their critical failure: a lack of compassion.

Key Takeaways

  • The Pharisees emerged from the Hasidim (pious ones) who rejected Hellenism without separating into the desert
  • They settled in the Galilean triangle (Chorazin, Capernaum, and Bethsaida) where they created communities centered on Torah obedience
  • Their approach to Rome was to let God deal with Rome while they focused on absolute obedience to His commandments
  • The Pharisees believed that if Israel would just be obedient enough, God would deliver them from Roman occupation
  • Jesus focused His three-year ministry primarily on the Pharisees because they had every piece God’s people needed except compassion
  • The Pharisees are critiqued not for disbelieving Jesus’s message but for failing to repent and allow the message to change how they lived
  • Modern believers often combine the worst of Herodian culture (consumerism, comfort-seeking) with the worst of Pharisaic religion (lack of compassion)

Main Concepts & Theories

The Five Responses to Rome Reviewed

Sadducees: “We partner with Rome” — They formed a corrupt religious establishment that lined their pockets through collaboration with the occupying power.

Herodians: “We get in bed with Rome” — They embraced Hellenistic culture, loving what the Roman world brought them while struggling with idolatry.

Essenes: “Rome? What’s Rome?” — They separated into the desert to know and walk the Text, but removed themselves from God’s mission by isolating from the world.

Zealots: “We kill Rome” — They responded with militant violence, believing military might could overthrow the occupation while falling into the myth of redemptive violence.

Pharisees: “You’re asking the wrong question. Let God deal with Rome” — They focused on absolute obedience to God’s commandments, believing that when they became the people God asked them to be, God would rescue them.

Pharisaic Worldview and Practice

The Pharisees represented Orthodox Judaism in Jesus’s day. Their worldview was built on several key principles:

Textual Centrality: The synagogue sat at the center of Pharisaic towns, with the bema (reading platform) at the center of the synagogue. Text was absolutely central to everything they did, showing 110% commitment to Scripture.

Community Living: Pharisees lived in insulae (multifamily dwellings) rather than pursuing individual property ownership. This communal approach contrasted sharply with Hellenistic individualism. They shared resources and lived closely together, believing they could be more obedient to God as a committed community.

Practical Simplicity: Unlike the artistic mosaics and luxury of Herodian cities like Sepphoris, Pharisaic towns featured rough-cut stones, practical courtyards, and functional architecture. They weren’t there to enjoy Hellenistic leisure and luxury but to be devoted to God.

Zealous Obedience: The Pharisees channeled all the zeal that Zealots put into militant action into absolute devotion to obedience. Every ounce of passion was directed toward walking in God’s ways.

The Galilean Triangle

Three primary cities formed the heart of Pharisaic settlement:

Chorazin: A Pharisaic village featuring a central synagogue with practical, unadorned architecture reflecting their values.

Capernaum: The “Yale or Harvard” of the Pharisaic world — the intellectual and educational center where the best of the best were trained in rabbinical discussion and debate. This is where Jesus set up His base of operations.

Bethsaida: Home to Peter, Andrew, James, John, and possibly Philip. A small town of perhaps seven to ten families, though some scholars suggest it may have been larger.

Pharisaic Theology of Sin and Deliverance

The Pharisees developed a theological framework that connected Israel’s obedience to God’s deliverance:

  • They believed God would save Israel when Israel became fully obedient
  • Sinners (tax collectors, prostitutes) were seen as the reason Rome remained in power
  • This wasn’t mere judgmentalism but a genuine worldview: “You’re the reason God hasn’t delivered us yet”
  • The motivation was theological conviction, not just moral superiority
  • This created harsh treatment of sinners, which Jesus would strongly critique
Jesus’s Engagement with the Pharisees

Jesus’s relationship with the Pharisees reveals important dynamics:

Strategic Focus: For three years, Jesus worked almost exclusively with the Pharisees. He called Herodians and Zealots, but He didn’t spend three years teaching them. He only spent one week with the Sadducees (which led to His crucifixion). His primary teaching ministry focused on the Pharisaic world.

Why the Pharisees? They had every piece God’s people needed except one. They possessed:

  • Devotion to the Text
  • Passion for God
  • Commitment to obedience
  • Zeal for righteousness
  • Knowledge of Scripture

What they lacked was the one piece that matters most: compassion. Without it, everything else was ruined.

The Critique of Matthew 11:20-24

Jesus’s harshest condemnation of the Pharisaic cities reveals the nature of their failure:

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!” — Jesus denounces the very cities where He performed most of His mighty works.

The Problem Wasn’t Belief: The passage doesn’t say they didn’t believe the message. They understood Jesus’s textual brilliance. They recognized His teachings. The problem was that the message didn’t change the way they lived — they didn’t repent.

Two Condemning Witnesses:

  1. Tyre and Sidon — Prophetic symbols of arrogance (Isaiah’s passages about Satan falling from heaven actually reference these cities). Jesus says these arrogant people will rise up and judge the Pharisees because the Pharisees are even more arrogant.

  2. Sodom and Gomorrah — Known for lack of hospitality and failure to protect the foreigner. These cities that failed in compassion will judge the Pharisees for their similar failure.

The One Missing Piece: In their prideful, arrogant self-righteousness, the Pharisees lacked compassion. This was the critical component needed to do the work God wanted them to do.

Modern Application: Cultural Herodians and Religious Pharisees

The episode offers a challenging critique of contemporary Christianity:

Cultural Herodians: In shopping, consumption, and lifestyle, modern believers often embrace Hellenistic values — pursuing luxury, comfort, consumption, and individualistic “have it your way” living.

Religious Pharisees: Yet in religion, many exhibit Pharisaic tendencies without the Pharisees’ positive attributes. They lack compassion while also lacking the Pharisees’ devotion and textual commitment.

The Worst Cocktail: Combining the bad of the Herodians (consumerism, comfort-seeking) with the bad of the Pharisees (lack of compassion) creates a particularly problematic expression of faith. Modern believers often have neither the Pharisees’ devotion nor their compassion, making this mixture especially troubling.

Examples & Applications

Historical Context

The Insulae System: These multifamily dwellings demonstrate a radically different approach to community than modern Western individualism. Families sharing courtyards, resources, and daily life reflects a commitment to communal obedience over personal comfort. This stands in stark contrast to the “your own house, your own car, your own washer and dryer” mentality of Hellenistic (and modern Western) culture.

Capernaum as Jesus’s Base: When Jesus established His ministry headquarters in Capernaum, He wasn’t going to a random fishing village. He was setting up shop at Harvard — the intellectual center of Pharisaic thought. This demonstrates Jesus’s intentional strategy to engage the most educated and devoted segment of Judaism.

Architectural Contrast: The rough-cut stones and practical courtyards of Chorazin versus the mosaics and marble of Sepphoris illustrate the worldview differences. The Pharisees could have chosen Hellenistic luxury but deliberately rejected it for practical devotion to God.

Contemporary Parallels

The Knowledge-Transformation Gap: Like the Pharisees who understood Jesus’s teachings but didn’t repent, modern believers often accumulate biblical knowledge without allowing it to transform their lives. The measure isn’t belief in the message but whether the message changes how we live.

Theological Justification for Harshness: The Pharisees didn’t wake up wanting to be jerks — they had a theological framework that justified their treatment of sinners. Similarly, contemporary believers may develop theological rationales for lack of compassion, believing they’re defending orthodoxy when they’re actually missing the heart of God.

Consumer Christianity: The tendency to treat faith like a Hellenistic product — “have it your way” — directly contradicts the communal, sacrificial nature of Pharisaic devotion. Modern believers often want the benefits of faith without the communal commitment or personal sacrifice.

Missing Compassion: Churches may emphasize doctrinal correctness, biblical literacy, and moral standards while failing in compassion toward the marginalized, the sinner, the outcast. This mirrors the Pharisaic failure to combine their strengths with the compassion Jesus demands.

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

  1. Rabbinical Discussion Methods: How did Pharisaic education and debate function? What made Capernaum the intellectual center, and how did Jesus navigate these rabbinical discussions?

  2. Economic Systems in Insulae: How did the shared economic life of multifamily dwellings work practically? What can modern intentional communities learn from this model?

  3. The Relationship Between Obedience and Deliverance: How does the Pharisaic theology that connects Israel’s obedience to God’s deliverance compare to other biblical themes about suffering, exile, and redemption?

  4. Jesus’s Selective Ministry Focus: Why did Jesus choose to focus on the Pharisees rather than other groups? What does this reveal about God’s strategy for transformation and mission?

  5. Compassion as the Critical Component: What biblical theology supports compassion as the “one piece that matters”? How do mercy, justice, and humility relate to this central requirement?

  6. The Arrogance-Compassion Spectrum: How does pride specifically undermine compassion? What is the relationship between self-righteousness and the inability to show mercy?

  7. Repentance Versus Belief: What is the biblical distinction between intellectual assent to truth and genuine repentance that transforms behavior? How does this apply to contemporary discipleship?

  8. Cultural Herodians and Religious Pharisees: How can contemporary believers recognize and address this dual tendency in their own lives and church communities?

  9. The Galilean Ministry Geography: How did the specific locations of Jesus’s ministry (the triangle and surrounding areas) shape His message and methods?

  10. The Positive Legacy of Pharisaism: After the Temple’s destruction in 70 AD, Pharisaic Judaism became the foundation for Rabbinical Judaism. What positive contributions did the Pharisaic worldview make to preserving Jewish faith and identity?

Comprehension Questions

  1. Compare and Contrast: How did the Pharisaic response to Rome differ from the other four groups (Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, and Zealots)? What were the strengths and weaknesses of each approach?

  2. Analyze the Architecture: What do the physical differences between Pharisaic towns (like Chorazin) and Herodian cities (like Sepphoris) reveal about their respective worldviews and values?

  3. Interpret Jesus’s Strategy: Why did Jesus focus His three-year ministry primarily on the Pharisees rather than the other groups? What does this reveal about God’s priorities and methods for transformation?

  4. Examine the Critique: In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus says the Pharisaic cities will be judged more harshly than Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. What specific failures do these comparisons highlight, and why is compassion presented as the critical missing piece?

  5. Apply to Contemporary Context: How do modern believers exhibit the “worst cocktail” of being cultural Herodians and religious Pharisees? What would it look like to instead combine the best elements of Pharisaic devotion with genuine compassion?

Summary

The Pharisees represent one of the most complex and significant responses to Hellenism during the Silent Years. Emerging from the Hasidim, they rejected both cultural accommodation to Rome and separation from society, instead choosing to live in devoted communities centered on Torah obedience. Settling primarily in the Galilean triangle of Chorazin, Capernaum, and Bethsaida, they created a lifestyle of textual devotion, communal living, and zealous obedience to God’s commands.

Their theological conviction was clear: let God deal with Rome when God is ready; the people’s responsibility is absolute obedience. They believed Israel’s deliverance depended on Israel’s faithfulness, which led to harsh treatment of sinners whom they saw as preventing God’s intervention. This wasn’t mere judgmentalism but a sincere theological framework.

Jesus focused His ministry on the Pharisees because they possessed nearly everything God’s people needed — devotion to Scripture, passion for God, commitment to obedience, and knowledge of the Text. However, they lacked the one essential component: compassion. This single missing piece ruined everything else. Jesus’s critique in Matthew 11 reveals that the problem wasn’t intellectual belief but failure to repent and allow the message to transform their lives. Their prideful self-righteousness prevented them from showing mercy to those God cared about most.

The episode concludes with a challenging application: modern believers often combine the worst of both worlds, being cultural Herodians (pursuing comfort, consumption, and individualism) while being religious Pharisees (lacking compassion). This represents a particularly problematic expression of faith that has neither the Pharisees’ devotion nor their potential for transformation. The call is to examine where we possess knowledge, orthodoxy, and religious practice while lacking the compassion that makes everything else meaningful.

The Pharisaic story serves as both warning and invitation — warning against knowledge without transformation, and invitation to combine devoted obedience with the compassion that reflects God’s heart for all people, especially the marginalized and outcast.

Original Notes

Hasidim (ha-SEE-dim)

  • Two groups that moved north toward Galilee: Zealots and the Pharisees.
  • The Pharisees would settle in “The Triangle” that was made up of the three cities of Corazin, Capernaum, and Bethsaida.
    • Some would also include Geneseret and Magada.
  • The Pharisee takes the same zeal the Zealot channels into militancy toward Rome and instead directs it toward devotion to obedience.
  • What do you do about Rome?
    • Sadducee: “We partner with them. We line our pockets with them.”
    • Herodians: “We get in bed with them. We love them.”
    • Essenes: “Run away. Get away. Rome? What Rome?”
    • Zealots: “Kill them.”
    • Pharisees: “You’re asking the wrong question. Let God deal with Rome. What we have to focus on is absolute devotion and obedience to his commandments. When we are finally the people God asks us to be, then God will rescue us.”
  • When we understand the Pharisaical world view, we begin to understand why the Pharisees are so hard on the sinner and the tax collector. “If we would just be obedient enough, God would come and save us.”
  • Matthew 11:21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”
    • Jesus criticizes the Pharisees of The Triangle for their arrogance. Tyre and Sidon show up in Isaiah and is referred to as Satan falling from Heaven and it speaks of arrogance… Jesus says they will rise up ahead of you because you’re even MORE arrogant than they are.
    • The last group Jesus refers to is Sodom who is known for their lack of hospitality and for not protecting the marginalized. Jesus criticizes them for not having compassion which is the last piece they’re going to need to do the work Jesus wants them to do.
  • We the church struggle most with is that we are cultural herodians and religious pharisees.
    • We want to consume everything and live in all of the luxury.
    • We also lack all compassion when it comes to our religion.
    • I have everything else but I lack compassion for those that God cares about most.

Discussion

  • Remember
  • Head
    • Dig into the addendum video and lead a discussion about how we talk about pharisees and what that means historically.
  • Heart
    • What is your reaction to Marty’s statement that we are “the worst parts of the Herodians and Pharisees – that we’re cultural Herodians and religious Pharisees?”
    • Where have you experienced a more Pharisee-like worldview in the christian church?
    • What do the Pharisees look like?
    • What does it look like to incur the wrath of a more modern day Pharisaical worldview?
    • Do we associate as much with the Pharisees on a spiritual level as we do with the Herodians on a cultural level?
  • Hands
    • Are we associating with the Pharisees enough when we read the Gospels and the stories of Jesus and his disciples?
    • Do we read the Pharisees as another group of people or do we realize that the Pharisees are a group of people that we are supposed to associate with?
    • What happens when we get tied up enough in a faith expression that we claim to start acting like God’s gatekeepers?
    • When we’re reading the Bible and we notice the Pharisees, is it our knee-jerk reaction to ask ourselves what can we learn about what Jesus is trying to invite the Pharisees to see and to then to critique the Pharisee’s worldview?

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