This week we are going to deal with the section of Matthew 23 where Yeshua/Jesus takes the Pharisees and Scribes to task about doing the dishes. Really? Well, not exactly. Being ritually clean at the dinner table was super important to them, but once again, they were missing the larger issue of how much more important it is to be clean on the inside of their hearts.

The longer podcast version of this teaching is available at https://characterincontext.podbean.com/e/episode-17-woes-part-6-the-inside-of-the-cup-and-the-circumcision-of-the-heart/

This week I did a short video about something very frustrating that the first century Pharisees were doing. You see, they had some special rules for oaths and vows (types of promises) that allowed them to get away with not doing what they promised to do if they changed their mind later. Yeshua/Jesus was so angry about it that He told them they were dishonoring God and shouldn’t swear oaths at all–because God told them to swear all their oaths in His Name and they weren’t doing it. We’re going to talk about what this means for us as believers, because this is still a problem with people in general today.

The extended version of this teaching is available for download as a podcast here:

https://characterincontext.podbean.com/e/episode-15-woes-part-4-blind-guides-and-fools-the-maze-of-oath-rules-in-first-century-phariseeism/