Can someone explain Matthew 23:16-21?

Question

Can someone sum this all up about what the Pharisees was tring to teach others? The gift on the altar was it the animal sacrifices this is talking about? What was making a oath all about as well?
Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

An oath is an appeal to God, to his omniscience and justice; and to make this appeal to anything is to put that thing in the place of God.

They distinguished between an oath by the temple and an oath by the gold of the temple; an oath by the altar and an oath by the gift upon the altar; making the latter binding, but not the former.

They preferred the gold before the temple, and the gift before the altar, to encourage people to bring gifts to the altar, and gold to the treasures of the temple, from which they hoped to gain.

Answer 2

Yes, it was the animal sacrifices on the altar and the donations of money and goods to the temple. The Pharisees were very diligent about performing these rituals, and in obeying, very strictly, the law of Moses.

What Jesus was trying to teach them was that they were going through the motions without understanding the principles behind them. Specifically, Jesus explains this a couple of verses later:

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and canise and cummin, 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.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

In otherwords, they were far more worried about donating exactly the right amounts of materials, per the law, to the temple, than they were about being good people (ie showing good judgment, mercy, and faith).

Hope that helps! :-)

Answer 3

I've copied and pasted the same verses from The Message Bible. I often use it as a companion to put some of these scriptures in words of today. I hope this answers your question.

Passage Matthew 23:16-21:

16 -22"You're hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, 'If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that's nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.' What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: 'If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless.

Answer 4

As I read this it has to do with the arrogance of the Pharisee`s who as Jesus said loved to parade thier good deeds in public to gain praise for themselves, so too they relegated the sacredness of the altar by teaching that it was the greatness and splendour of the gift that mattered to God.
This was pure snobbery and was one of the many ways that the Pharisees`s kept the poor subjected to the rigidness of the law.

Answer 5

If I understand this passage correctly, the Pharisees were saying that the gifts, the tangible things, were more important than the meaning of those gifts. They were putting the physical over the spirtual, which is why Jesus tells us not to do the things they were doing.

Answer 6

Jesus was merely pointing out that the high holy people of that time had lost sight of what or rather, who was most important. They began preaching of God at a golden alter but over time, the alter itself had become more important than God and then the sacrifice became more important than the alter. Just as it is today, you will hear someone say they are a devout Catholic or Jew but neither believe nor have any desire to draw closer to God. These are the people who Jesus will say to, "I never knew you, depart from Me".

Answer 7

the temple is the body of the humanbeing.the pharisees believe in the giving of offers to the church,that is a building,that dont need it.the poor people that are the children of God,that must eat because of humanity,they were not supposed to eat from it,and have to stay hungry,like verse 19 what is more the gift,meaning what is given,or the person that is supposed to recieve it.the pharisses thought that if they give the food and wine to the church,that God would be happy,but they forget that the food was supposed to be given to the poor children of God,that is what it was intended for.what it means is that you must give to God what God asks of you.not for him in the sky,because he dont need anything.you must give to his people,and not to a priest or the church,because the priests and pastors are getting rich and say ,look how God is blessing me through making me rich.in the meantime the money that is supposed to go for charity work through the church,goes into the pocket of the false preacher,that is stealing from God.

Answer 8

Christ was making the point that those who worship the things Of the Temple, but not the Temple of God itself, are blind to the truth of God.