Eight Woes: Jesus Condemns the Following Religious Hypocrisy

‘Woe’ according to Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary English is ‘’the problems and troubles affecting someone’’. The Dictionary further explains that woe literarily means ‘’great sadness’’. If something is woeful, it means it is very bad. Jesus Christ uses the word ‘woe’ in the Bible to condemn what is not good in the sight of God.

In the Book of Matthew 23:13-29 Jesus uses ‘woe’ eight times to condemn some practices of religious people that God disdains, and wants His followers to avoid.

First Woe: Religious people lord themselves over people. They preach to be respected and exalted by people. They give themselves all manner of titles and make people believe they have higher or superior anointing, and unless the members go through them, God will not answer their prayers. This amounts to shutting up the kingdom of God against men. God is the Father of all, and no one should hinder others from having access to Him. They are causing harm to the ignorant followers who will also not enter into heaven, because they ought to know this hypocrisy. Jesus says:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that entering to go in. Matthew 23: 13

Second Woe: Religious people do not visit widows to encourage them and share in their pains, but to take advantage of them. They disguise as righteous people and in so doing they commit immorality with the widows. They will ‘receive greater condemnation’.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive greater  condemnation. Matthew 23:14

Third Woe: Religious people go everywhere to convert people, but they end up feeding them afterwards with wrong doctrines thereby making the converts worse than when they didn’t know God.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Matthew 23:15

Fourth Woe: Religious people make unimportant important and important unimportant. In fact they call evil good and good evil.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Matthew 23:16

Fifth Woe: Religious people go after money and material things. They emphasise payment of tithes. They see tithes as the most important thing to give to God in other to receive His blessings. To them love, justice, mercy and faith without tithing do not guarantee salvation. It’s unfortunate that many Christians understand this woe to mean Jesus has approved paying tithes by His followers. The three things Jesus mentioned, namely: mint, anise and cumin are not money. Jesus mentioned seasonal crops this people used to bring to their religious temples as tithe. The currency of any nation is in note and coin. In America it is Dollar and Cent; in United Kingdom it is Pound and Shelling, in Nigeria it is Naira and Kobo; so the three things mentioned by Jesus are not money and cannot be replaced with money. Under this era of grace, God does not bless through the window of heaven. Jesus is the Door and He has opened the door for the righteous which no person can shut.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Matthew 23:23

Sixth Woe: Religious people judge people based on the appearance. They see righteousness as ability to give to church and pastors. They place value on wealth and teach that riches are a sign of righteousness, and blessings from God.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Matthew 23:25

Seventh Woe: Religious people appear righteous, but secretly, they commit all manner of sins. They have no love and their hearts are full of evil thoughts.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto white sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Matthew 23:27

Eighth Woe: Religious people claim to be more righteous than their forefathers who killed prophets in their time. But the sins they commit in their time are worse than what their forefathers had committed out of ignorance.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

And say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Matthew 23:29-31

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