Pharisees from the inside

When you think about it, the Pharisees were the most theologically educated people of their day. They had gone to religion classes and had ample access to the Scripture and to commentaries. They sound...awfully familiar.

I've thought about the Pharisees a lot this year, since I am one and since I recognize them in many well-catechized and well-educated church people. As a general rule, I think Pharisees were probably nice people. They knew a lot about Scripture and the various commentaries on it. It probably would have been very easy to be friends with them (at least as long as you kept on the right side of their doctrine). I think many of them woke up every morning fully assured of their place in the divine covenant, and just as sure that those who disagreed with them in any point were NOT assured a place in said covenant. Not all Pharisees were wicked people, and probably all of them would have been considered moral people. Nicodemus was probably not the only one to become a follower of Christ. But what does Jesus say to him? "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?" He confronts Nicodemus with his lack of understanding because that was his stumbling block. That was the obstacle he hadn't known existed. Nicodemus had been following God, yes. But he had also been following Nicodemus. God could have let him keep on blundering around on his own, but instead Jesus brought humility to Nicodemus, right where he lived. Hundreds of years later, we modern-day Pharisees can look to the same source of deliverance.

It is God, not you or I, Who is the Keeper of Knowledge. Yes, He has chosen to reveal some of His knowledge to us (praise be unto Him!), but even revealed knowledge is His, not ours. May we use it faithfully.