This Sunday's text will see Jesus turn His full attention to the problems with the scribes and Pharisees. They've been badgering Him with manipulative questions for several chapters, and He's been perplexing and silencing them with His answers. In Matthew 23, Jesus warns the people to avoid imitating Israel's religious leaders, and goes for an all-out verbal attack on their hypocrisy, greed, and arrogance. No wonder they wanted to kill Him!

Lucky for you, your pastors and officers are perfect and never do anything with less than perfect motives. So I'm sure this will all be just an academic, historical exercise. Otherwise, you'd probably have to think about how you respond when one of your leaders is not perfect, and decide whether you will still obey God when a pastor's life screams, "Do as I say, not as I do."

Plus if you come Sunday, I'll let you know why having your phylacteries too broad is a problem; I'm sure you've always wondered :)

-Dave