Pharisee – Three Minute Bible

January 7, 2025January 7, 2025

Colossians 2:18a – True or False?

Do not let anyone who delights in false humility …

the arrogant pharisee and the humble tax collector in Luke 18:9-14

Summary: Paul’s warning about people who “delight” in “false humility” sounds rather general but is actually quite specific.

It is nice of Paul to warn us against people who “delight” in “false humility,” but how do we know who that is? In short, who is Paul talking about?

In Paul’s day, the church was a new thing. People had the Old Testament writings for reference, but the New Testament was still being written. The Gospel message about believing in Jesus was spreading fast. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people who tried to add their own rules to the Gospel.

The problem facing the Colossians in Paul’s day still faces us today: How do we tell who is speaking the truth?

November 16, 2024November 17, 2024

Colossians 1:26 – The Answer

… the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people.

Summary: There are different kinds of mysteries: Some are entertaining and some are troublesome. Real-life mysteries are meant to be solved. For the greatest mystery of all, Jesus is the answer.”.

January 4, 2024January 4, 2024

Galatians 1:16b – One-Eighty

… so that I might preach him among the Gentiles,

Summary: Change can be good, but it is always change, and change requires that we let go of the old and embrace the new.

November 13, 2023November 13, 2023

Ephesians 6:18c – Request Granted

… with all kinds of prayers and requests.

Summary: All who believe are called to be part of the body of Christ. As Paul reminds us, there are many different parts in the body. All of us need the armor of God, and all of us have questions.

July 1, 2023July 1, 2023

Ephesians 4:15a – AH-OO-GA!

Instead, speaking the truth in love …

Summary: Some phrases in the Bible set off alarms with this writer. Today’s passage is one of them. We need to carefully consider the nature of truth and the meaning of love to avoid misapplying Paul’s instruction.

December 27, 2022December 27, 2022

Hebrews 5:14 – Chewing on the Word

But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Summary: Living for Christ is a full-time job. When we first taste salvation, we are challenged to repent and taste the solid food of righteousness.

October 29, 2022October 29, 2022

John 8:44 — Bad Dad

… he is a liar and the father of lies.

Summary: They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Fortunately for humanity, our God is able to take bad apples and make them good again.

February 5, 2019February 3, 2019

Understanding … Not – John 10: 6

Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
”Very truly I tell you Pharisees…” but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

Understanding requires a willingness to see something that you have not seen before. Sometimes being able to “see” something you have not seen before requires letting go of your present point of view – at least for a moment or two.

The Pharisees held firmly to the point of view that they were God’s chosen people and that they, in particular, were chosen to keep control of the rules that others had to live by. Jesus did not follow their rules (man’s rules) and instead followed rules that they did not recognize (God’s rules).

For the Pharisees to understand what Jesus was telling them, they would have to at least pretend for a moment that Jesus could be who he says he is. If they could have done that, they might have been able to understand what he was saying to them.

January 24, 2019January 23, 2019

Disbelief

They still did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they sent for the man’s parents.

John 9: 18

What is a formerly blind man to do when people don’t believe he was blind? Even people who knew him or had at least seen him often argued about whether or not he was the same man. To my knowledge blindness was not one of the illnesses that would be considered “unclean” so there was no need for this man to go to the temple to be declared “clean” after he was healed. Even so, he was taken before the Pharisees by those who first encountered him after he was able to see. After explaining what happened to the Pharisees, they did not believe the man’s story.

January 9, 2019January 8, 2019

Guilty of Sin

Jesus is the only person who ever walked the earth and did not sin. Now to be accurate we need to realize that what is meant by “sin” in this context means to sin against God. As far as the Pharisees were concerned Jesus “sinned” all of the time because he did not follow all of their rules. Obviously just because Jesus didn’t sin against God did not mean he did not sin against the Pharisees.

Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?

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