The Word Alive | Week 3: Herod, the Pharisees & the Voice in the Wilderness

How to Study Your Bible Series | The Higher Pursuit Podcast

What do a murderous king, a wild man in the desert, and two groups of religious leaders who despised each other have to do with your faith today?

More than you'd think.

In Week 3 of The Word Alive: How to Study Your Bible, Cecily takes you deep into Matthew Chapters 2 and 3 — and what unfolds isn't just ancient history. It's a mirror.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:

• The chilling parallel between Herod and Pharaoh — and what Matthew is quietly saying about what Israel had become
• Why Jesus began His life as a refugee, and why that detail is far from incidental
• The truth about John the Baptist that most people overlook — including a fascinating connection to a mysterious desert community that may have shaped him
• Who the Pharisees and Sadducees really were, where they came from, and why they matter to your everyday spiritual life
• The one question from this passage that might make you uncomfortable — but could change how you see yourself as a believer

The Question This Episode Will Ask You:

Four hundred years of silence. Then a lone voice in the wilderness calls out the most powerful religious leaders in Israel and essentially says: You're not who you think you are.

The Pharisees had added 613 man-made rules on top of God's Word — and called it holiness.
The Sadducees had quietly traded their convictions for comfort and political safety.

John didn't let them hide behind their titles or their traditions.

He won't let you either.

After You Listen:

Open your Bible to Matthew 3. Read it slowly — and ask yourself these two questions:

1. Where have I added my own "fence laws" to my faith — elevating tradition or religious performance above what God actually requires?
2. Is there any area of my life where I've compromised my convictions to protect my comfort, my finances, or what others think of me?

Sit with the answers. Then bring them to God honestly. That's not just Bible study — that's transformation.

A New Place to Go Deeper

If this conversation resonates with you, Cecily is now sharing additional reflections, teachings, and spiritual insights on Substack — a space dedicated to helping believers pursue a deeper, more vibrant walk with God.

There you'll find both short reflections and longer teachings that expand on many of the ideas shared in the Livestream.

 Follow along here

Connect with Cecily

 Podcast: The Higher Pursuit Podcast Website: higherpursuitministries.com Substack: cecilylachapelle.substack.com

If this episode encouraged you, follow the podcast and share it with someone who might need this message today. Sometimes the simplest invitation can change more than we realize.

 If The Higher Pursuit Podcast has blessed, encouraged, strengthened, or liberated you, would you consider partnering with Cecily to keep it going?

Every episode takes time, prayer, and financial resources — from hosting fees to equipment, editing, and beyond. Your monthly support helps cover these costs so she can continue bringing you life-giving, faith-building content.

Together, we can keep spreading the truth of God's Word and helping believers step into the fullness of their calling.

 Sign up today and let's pursue higher together!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yes. So they believed that they were the true remnant of Israel, and they also believed that the Messiah was going to come out of that remnant. And so most scholars believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered at Qumran, remember we just saw that on the Atlas, that they were written, handwritten, handscribed by the Essenes. Because where you saw Qumran, that was very, it was wilderness.com. You can also find me on YouTube at Cecily LaChapelle with Higher Pursuit Ministries. Okay, now let's dive into the podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the Higher Pursuit Live Stream. In the Higher Pursuit Live Stream, this is a community where we are pursuing more of the Lord together, more of his voice, more of his presence, more of his truth. And in this new series that we're doing on the live stream called Word Alive, How to Study the Bible, we are pursuing more of the Lord through the word and learning how to find him in the pages of scripture, how to study the Bible. And we're using the book of Matthew as our text for our study. So if you're new here, I'm Cecily LaChappelle. I'm the happy host of this crazy live stream. And I'm so glad that you're joining me. So make sure to tell me in the chat where you're tuning in from and if you've had an opportunity to answer any of those questions on our homework from last week, if you chose to accept the mission, we were reading Matthew chapter three, which we're going to be diving into tonight. Hopefully we'll get all the way through it, but I'm not sure because there's so much to unpack. But anyway, if we don't get all the way through it, we're going to get most of the way through it. But I was just wondering when you were reading Matthew chapter three, did you circle the words king or kingdom or see anything about kingdom? Because if you remember what Matthew is doing, Matthew the author is speaking to his people, the Jewish people, either converts or seekers, and he is teaching them that Jesus is their king, their messiah. So that's what the book is all about. All right. Well, let's just dive in. I don't see anybody responding in the chat yet about what they found last week, whether you looked up any Greek words. Sorry, I have like a cat fuzz on my face. I just took my cat out of this room and put locked him in my bedroom because I don't know if you all heard it last week, but he was scratching with his little claws. It was so distracting. He was trying to get into my office and get to me. And I'm thinking, oh, Cecily, just ignore it. So tonight, Ollie is in timeout. And uh to wrestle him in there, I had to get a little cat fur on my face. All right. So Colleen is here. She's on the couch. She's in Dover. Wow. So nice girl. So glad that you are joined that you joined me from the couch. That's wonderful. All right. So open your Bibles, guys. Open to the uh, let me see, where are we starting tonight? Um okay, so we're gonna actually start right in the beginning of chapter three. Are we?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

My hair died.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yes, we are starting right in the beginning of chapter three. So, quick recap. The magi have come and gone. We didn't have time to really, oh, Kate O'Neill is here. Awesome. So we didn't really have a lot of time to dive into the magi, and that's a whole nother cool story of where they came from because they were obviously receiving the word that Daniel, hundreds and hundreds of years before, had taught the Persian people, and they were looking for that star, and they were using Old Testament scripture to put all the pieces together. So they show up in Jerusalem. And um, oh, sorry, actually, we are in chapter two. I thought I was a little ahead of myself here. Um, so they show up in Jerusalem, and all of Jerusalem gets all worked up because they come saying, We're looking for the king of the Jews. And there is a king of the Jews already sitting on the throne, and that's Herod. John La Chapelle is here. Fantastic. So then we uh read further down in verse 13 that um that Joseph was warned in a dream to take Jesus and flee to Egypt. It's so interesting that he had to flee to Egypt because right in that, well, I'm gonna get I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just get to, I don't want to get ahead of myself. We're gonna stay in order here. We're gonna talk about Herod. Let's start with Herod first. Herod is the quintessential bad guy. All right. So here I am trying to write in 4,000 font on my board. I don't know about you, but when I started reading my Bible, I thought Herod was his name. But then you see more Herod as it goes on, and you think, is this the same guy? Are we talking about the same man? But no, Herod is a title like the name Pharaoh or the name Caesar. So Herod is actually his title, and Herod is a very bad guy. First of all, one of the things you need to know is that he's an Edomite. Okay, so he is from Edom.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

These are the descendants of Esau.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And if you follow this story back, Esau, the Bible says, um, God said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. It was because of the character of Esau and the things that these people did. Esau knew that it was against God's law to marry uh Canaanite or Moabite woman, and that's exactly who he married, just despite his parents and despite God. And as a result, the Edomites and the Israelites always were factions that did not agree and that were at odds with one another. And so here you have Herod, who is a descendant of Esau. He's a descendant of the rebellious sort of spirit of rejection part of Israel that was kind of cut off. And he's sitting on the throne of Israel, ruling Israel. And so then he's told that the king of the Jews has been born. And you can imagine every generational spirit, every familiar spirit from the tribe of Esau is rising up and freaking out in this moment. So the Herod is not, um, he's not a good guy. So he was evil by any measure. One of the things you need to know about him is that he was a murderer. He loved murder. He killed his own wife, he killed his own sons, he killed, when I say his wife, he killed his favorite wife. And so for him to order a decree to kill all the boys in Bethlehem, age at two years and under, is nothing to him. But think about it. When he orders the murder of these infant babies, what does that make you think of? What do you hearken back to when you think, hmm, infant boys being killed by a ruler, their death being ordered? You think about Pharaoh, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Pharaoh from Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

So here you have Herod acting like Pharaoh. And if you know the backstory of Israel, you know that Pharaoh is their quintessential bad guy. And God set his people free from the evil of Pharaoh. And yet now here is the king of the Jews sitting on the throne in Jerusalem, and he's acting exactly like Pharaoh. And then what happens when he starts killing all the baby boys in Bethlehem where Jesus had been born? Joseph is warned in a dream to escape. Where does he escape to? To Egypt. And so now Israel is the bad place. Israel is the place that's unsafe with the king who's killing babies. And now Egypt is the place of refuge with the ruler who will let him stay there safely. And so Matthew is bringing all this up because he's talking to the Jewish people and he's trying to show them your king came, you didn't see him, you didn't recognize him, and you did not receive him. So that he's showing this play, taking the old testament scripture that's where um Matthew brings up, he says, Out of Egypt, I have called my son. That was an old testament scripture. So Father God had to send Jesus to Egypt to be safe. All right, let's move on from that. So Jesus begins his life as a refugee. So many people think that Jesus can't relate to us, that Jesus doesn't understand our pains. Well, even as a baby, he's already having a very hard life as a small child before they move back to Nazareth. And then there's also a brief note on uh Matthew 2.23 with a scripture that says he shall be called a Nazarene. I know I've been asking you all to note circle or star or um put a box around it in a colored pencil every time you see an old testament reference. And don't just look at the Old Testament reference. Go back and read that Old Testament reference, see what was happening and why the author of that gospel is bringing up that Old Testament reference, especially in Matthew. Remember, I said he uses what, 93 Old Testament references? It's crazy. He's dropping them left and right because he's trying to show the Jews that Jesus is the fulfillment. I mean, what are the statistical chances of one man fulfilling all of these scriptures perfectly? But anyway, on this one right here where it says, and he shall be called a Nazarene, Matthew is saying this as if it's a quote, but it's not an Old Testament quote. So if he doesn't have a scriptural quote, then it must have been an idiom that they understood. And that's one of the things that we're going to find as we go through the book of Matthew. And this is one of the reasons why I love studying this book, because there are a lot of Jewish idioms that we read right past, because it doesn't mean anything to us. If somebody from another country said, I have a dream, would that register with most people in, I don't know, uh Pakistan? But here in the United States, if somebody says something like, I have a dream, we all know what that refers back to. We can actually probably picture it on our mind. MLK Jr. standing on the mall in Washington, D.C. saying giving that speech. We might not know the whole thing, but we know the reference, right? So there are tons of idioms where a gospel writer will drop a line and his hearers understand exactly what he's talking about. And so when it says he shall be called a Nazarene, what that basically is saying, like he's gonna, he will be coming from the poor side of the tracks. Nazareth was not the nice part of Israel. It's he wasn't born in Jerusalem, he didn't grow up in Jerusalem, he grew up in a very simple sort of backwater town of Nazareth. And in fact, later on we're gonna hear, I think it's it's Philip say, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Another idiom concerning Nazareth. Okay, so I want to ask you this question. When you read about Herod murdering baby boys in Bethlehem, what is your gut reaction? Does it shake your faith or does it deepen it? Knowing that Jesus entered this world as a refugee, knowing that he entered this world, this broken world, and had to endure its impact from day one. What is your initial reaction to that? Oh, hey, Joan Breading, so good to see you, Joseph. Thanks for joining us. Fantastic, fantastic. Well, we're just talking about Herod, and we're talking about the evil of this man and who he was, and that Herod was not his name, it was his title, and how Jesus entered this world in hardship right from day one. Being born in a stable, wasn't it? It went on from there. Okay, so now let's talk about enter John the Baptist. Who is this guy? Let's talk about him now.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I'm gonna have to spray this down.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So put in the chat if you know what you know about John the Baptist. Tell me all the facts that you know about him before I put up the slide to give you a hand. So I'm just gonna call him John the B. Whoops.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Just because it's a lot of writing. Okay. So John the Baptist. What do we know about him?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Okay. Well, first of all, Matthew frames it out for us in chapter three. We are now in chapter three officially. And so the who, remember we have those five questions the who, what, when, where, and why. So the who is John the Baptist. The when, he tells us right in the beginning, in those days, and he's gonna tell us in what days, the days that John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. So that's the where. So, guys, remember I told you we're gonna be talking about tools and resources for you to study the Bible. So when you went to get your handout from the link that is in the chat, and if you're on my email list, you also got it in your email prior to this live stream. So you could have it either up in your computer or even print it out. But right underneath that is a resource that says map of Israel in the days of Jesus. So let me share my screen and pull that up for you.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Here we go. That's not the one I wanted. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Okay. So as you can see, we've got Galilee. Does Galilee sound familiar to any of you? That is where Jesus spent most of his time. We're gonna learn about that as we keep going through the book of Matthew. That became his home base. It was the home base of most of his disciples, and it became his home base. And then below that, we have Samaria, and then below that is Judea. And over on the other side of the Jordan, right over here, is Perea. And we will hear a little bit about that, but this is what I want you to see right here, because we're not going to probably get to the baptism of Jesus in this episode, but when it says Bethany beyond the Jordan, that's where that would be, right on this side. And just so you know, Perea was mostly a Gentile region. And so what many Bible scholars believe that when Jesus was baptized, the reason he crossed the Jordan, because John the Baptist was baptizing on the west side of the Jordan. He crossed over to the east side and was baptized in Gentile country, probably as a way of saying, I am opening up the forgiveness of sins, not just to the Jew, but to the Gentile as well. So this is Judea, and the wilderness of Judea is probably somewhere around in this region here. It's either here, or some people say it could have been over in Perea, but it's probably down in this region down here. And so that's where John the Baptist was. And he also was over here, like over in this area, Bethany east of the Jordan. And Origen, uh, who was a writer from 185 to 284 AD, identified that location east of the Jordan in this region right here. Now, also note this place right here on the map, Qumran. How many of you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Put a thumbs up in the chat if you have ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's where they were found. And we're going to be talking about Qumran in one second. So that is let me uh stop sharing that screen.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Um okay. All right, Colleen has heard of it. That's great. Let me go back. Oops, that is not what I wanted to do. Escape. Full screen. There we go. Okay. So add my slides back. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Okay. So John the Baptist, he was born to Elizabeth, who was very old, couldn't have kids, and Zechariah. Now his father, Zechariah, was a priest. How do we know that? Because when he found out that they were going to have a baby, he was told that while he was doing his priestly duties. How many of you know? Tell me in the chat, give me the name of the tribe, the only tribe that was allowed to be a priest ministering in the temple. Only one tribe out of the 12 was allowed to have priestly duties. Tell me if you're in the chat if you know. Come on, come on, come on, my Bible scholars, I know you know this. There you go. Colleen's got it. Woo, woo, woo. Levites. So if Zechariah, John the Baptist's father, finds out that they're going to have a child by an angel. Nice job, Joe and Redding, Levites. Awesome. So if Zechariah finds out while he's doing his priestly duties, then John is from what tribe? He's from the tribe of Levi. But what's really interesting is from the time that he is born until the time he dies, he does no priestly duties. Did you ever think about that? He did not follow in his father's footsteps. Yet God called him from this mother's womb into service. So he switches teams, so to speak. And we're going to find out exactly what that entailed. So he was born to Elizabeth and Zechariah. And then he is also the fulfillment of Isaiah 40, verse 3, that says, a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Listen, Matthew wants you to feel the weight of 400 years of silence. He wants you to feel the weight of the fact that God has not spoken to his people through a prophet, through a priest, through a king in 400 years. And it ends here with John the Baptist crying out Prepare ye the way of the Lord, repent and be baptized. God comes blaring on the scene, doesn't he? With angels, with stars, with John the Baptist, with angelic appearances in the temple, in dreams. He is like using every method. And mechanism. He's speaking in a big, big way. So another thing you need to know about John is that he took a Nazarite vow, like Samson and Samuel. No wine, no razor set apart from birth, that this was, and this was announced by the angel when before he was born in Luke chapter one, which is another point I want to bring up. Remember, I told you guys, check out that resource I gave you last week on the Synoptic Gospels. Put a thumbs up in the chat. If you had checked it out, Kate said, Yes, I knew like Levites. That's great. Fantastic. And John got it too. So, guys, um, tell me in the chat, put a thumbs up if you checked out that resource that I put up there for you on the comparison chart in the Synoptic Gospels. So every single story and account is listed there, and then you see which writers included them. And it's really great to go and read certain stories in other gospels. Because, like I said last week, some writers include certain details and other writers leave out certain details based on their audience. Okay. So um he wore camel hair clothing, leather belt. He ate locusts and wild honey. That's disgusting. But guys, what we need to know about this is this is intentional costuming. He's dressing like Elijah. Did you know that? 2 Kings 1:8 tells us that the Jews would have recognized this immediately. Immediately. And John is that fulfillment. So cool. All right. So if John is not a priest, then what is this that's happening? Well, one of the groups, there are a number of groups that are mentioned, and we're going to go through a few of them in this live stream, but one is not mentioned, and that is a group called the Essenes. Put a thumbs up in the chat if you have ever heard of the Essenes. So the Essenes were a sect that emerged about 150 years before Jesus. So sort of around the time of Hellenization, sort of around the time that the Septuagint, remember, I told you about the Septuagint. That's the LXX, the Septuagint. That was written by 70 rabbis, where they took the Torah and the all of the scriptures, the um writings and the poets, and they translate it into Greek. So around that same time frame, this group, this sect emerged, and they were monastic, they were celibate, they were intensely, intensely devoted to scripture. And they believed that they were the select group. They also believed that the messiah would come from them. You know, let me move this over here. Give you all these notes. Yes. So they believed that they were the true remnant of Israel, and they also believed that the Messiah was going to come out of that remnant. And so most scholars believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered at Qumran, remember we just saw that on the atlas, that they were written, handwritten, handscribed by the Essenes. Because where you saw Qumran, that was where it was wilderness. And they could have, they went up into the mountains and they lived a celibate and a monastic life up in the mountains. So oddly, it's a big mystery. Nobody knows why, but the Essenes just disappeared in AD 70. And that's a very important date, guys. Know this date. 70 A.D. This is one of the most important dates of the New Testament because this is the destruction of the temple. This is when Israel, I mean Jerusalem was overrun by the Romans and their temple was destroyed. After 70 AD, there's never been a sacrifice system. They've never had a temple. They're talking about rebuilding it now, but this is when the temple was destroyed. Do you remember when Jesus looked down over Jerusalem and he wept? And he said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I've longed to gather you like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but you would not have me. He's weeping because he knows that their destruction is at hand in at 70 AD. So the Essenes, they go away in AD 70. So let's talk about. So many Bible scholars believe that John was an Essene, at least at one point. And I think I agree with the at least at one point part. Here are the similarities between John and the Essenes, right here. John lived in the wilderness. They were a community based in the wilderness. He uh there was frequent baptism for repentance. That's another thing I didn't mention about them. They believed in constant baptism, not just one, not just a couple, but ritual baptisms. So they practiced ritual immersive baptism. Then uh John, separate ascetic lifestyle. They had a monastic lifestyle removed from society. John studied and proclaimed scripture, and the Essenes devoted scripture. They were devoted to scripture, they were copyists, they were scribes, and they were scholars. But here's the differences. So this is why I think that John was an Essene for a period of time. Because he certainly was not, he didn't act like a Levite. He didn't follow in his father's footsteps. He lived a totally different life. And if he's out in the wilderness, who's he hanging with? Probably a group of Essenes. But he had to have separated from them because there were some very big differences. He preached Jesus as the Messiah, who, as you know, was not an Essene. He was descended from the tribe of Judah. We read his genealogy in week one. Um, and the Essenes believed the Messiah would come from them. Uh, he uh John went into Jerusalem. He even confronted Herod directly, but the Essenes completely withdrew from society. John's message was for all people, and the Essenes lived a very exclusive, uh separated life. They were just their own little community. So you can see how there were some similarities, but there were some really important differences. So John might have been raised among the Essenes, like he might have grown up spiritually among them. And they were, he was at least deeply influenced by them. His lifestyle was deeply influenced. But at some point he had, I think he had to have broken away. Because his commission wasn't to stay hidden in the desert. His voice was to be one crying out in the wilderness, but to be heard of all men. And yes, they came out to the wilderness to him. So he was definitely living that sort of nomadic lifestyle, but he was not hidden away in caves like the Essenes. Okay, so I've got a question for you. This is a question for you to type your answer in the chat. The Essenes retreated from a corrupt society in order to stay separate, to stay pure, spiritually pure. They believed that living that monastic lifestyle would keep them pure and holy. But John the Baptist took another approach. He had time alone in the wilderness with God, but then he also confronted sin. He also spoke the good news of the coming Messiah. Which group do you see yourself in the most? Do you see yourself more inclined to be like an Essen to say, I just want to stay in my own little place, just stay in the comfort of my home, mind my own business, just, you know, just us four, no more? Or do you feel a compunction to, yes, you you have your time alone with the Lord and you refresh in solitude and in the secret place, but to go and share what you know, even if it means confronting sin. John, awesome. Go, Kate. Yes. Yes, I know that. That is very true about you, my friend. I do know that. You know, listen, one of the things we've talked about is the importance of personal application as we're reading. And I don't care who you're reading about, even if it's some really seriously serial killer like Herod or the Essenes or John the Baptist, we need to be going to the Lord and saying, Lord, am I in here somewhere? I mean, just this afternoon, oh, I love that. Joe said, I'm moving more towards community involvement. Very good. Very good. You know what? I don't think any of us have ever arrived, but if we can understand what the goal is and we can say, like Joseph just said, I'm moving toward it, I recognize that that's the goal. I'm moving more towards that. That's that's so awesome. So today was a lovely afternoon, and I knew that I had like 45 minutes before I had a call. And so as I was walking and I was meditating on what we're going to be talking about in this episode, I I had my personal reflection time and I had my time of repenting before the Lord and saying to him, Lord, where am I like in a scene? And repenting for the times and in places where I am. I mean, I'm home all day in my house, and it can get super easy to just lose your mojo to go out and be a part of the community, to join a group and make new friends or branch out and make connections in a way where you have the opportunity to share your faith. I even send my husband to the grocery store because sometimes I am just that lazy. And I just started feeling so convicted and saying, Lord, help me make more opportunities to connect with people all around me so I can take this word that I know and share it face to face with more people and not live a life like in a scene. So, okay, enough of that. All right, so I just want to do a real quick commercial here. Oh, between Colleen says in between. Good job, girl. Um, so I hear from a lot of people that you're watching the live stream, you're watching the podcast, and this is especially for people who are watching the replay. And yet I hear people say, Well, I haven't subscribed to your channel, or I know you don't know that I'm watching because I haven't commented or I haven't shared the episode. And I just want to encourage you to please do that. If you're watching this or you're listening on your podcast platform and you haven't rated the podcast or you haven't subscribed, please do that because it helps me get the word out. I'm sure you know that this live stream and this podcast take a lot of prayer and a lot of time. And I do it because I have a passion for sharing the word. And I'm I'm doing my part. I promise you, if you subscribe, I'm gonna give you my best every single time. I will show up and I will give you my best. So if we could just make this arrangement that you will subscribe and that you will like it, you will comment, you'll share all those things. Tell the algorithm to push this content out to more people who are looking for what you look for, the same kind of content you're looking for. So thank you for helping me with that. Okay, commercial over. Now we're gonna talk about two more groups of people, real quick, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Put in the chat if you could explain to um explain to your mom who the Pharisees are. Tell me if you know while I clean the whiteboard. Could you explain to your mom or your husband or your wife or your best friend who the Pharisees are? Because I don't know about you, but for years I read Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrin, and I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know who they were. I just knew they were a group of people, and Jesus used to always seem to always be like hashing it out with them. They seemed to always be gunning for him. And I'm like, what is their problem? And that's why we're studying this because we're gonna find out what their problem was. We are gonna find out who the Pharisees are. So let's go. You ready? Let's go. So the Pharisees, their name actually means the separated ones.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Oh wow, already they're so holy. Pharisees, and they mean it means separated ones.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Wow. Okay. So um it was a man-made sect. This is not something, it wasn't like the twelve tribes of Israel that God had ordained, or the Levites that were the tribe that served in the temple that God ordained. That was really the the leadership, the spiritual leadership that God put in place was the Levites. The Pharisees were not that. The Pharisees were a man-made sect and not ordained by the law of Moses. They emerged during that 400 years of silence. Wow, God was silent, but man got busy during that time with a lot of things. And that was also during the Maccabean period that they they came up. And so they accepted the word of God as written as inspired. And they, but here's the problem: they gave equal authority to oral tradition. Oral tradition. Okay, so if you hear Jesus, he's gonna be talking a lot about this. So this is a word you should probably write somewhere a margin in your Bible and start looking for this word tradition, because Jesus is gunning for this word right here. Because during that 400 years of silence, the Pharisees and the rabbis came up with 613 extra laws on top of the laws of Moses. And then on top of those 613 laws, they created what are called fence laws. Fence laws are things that um, I'm trying to think of a good example. I should have probably thought this through a little bit more. Um, let's just say it is against the law of Moses for me to drink cup uh water from a cup with a straw. Okay, so the offense law would be that not only I'm not allowed to drink from a cup with a straw, I'm not allowed to own a cup with a straw. Because if you don't own one, you'll never drink from one, right? So that's a safe fence. So that would keep me far away, hopefully, from drinking out of this sinful cup with a straw. If I don't even own one, and if I don't ever touch one. And if I do touch one, I quickly run and make a sacrifice to get clean and then make sure I'm never anywhere near a cup with a straw. Those are fence laws. So they elevated those laws equal to the word that God spoke out of his mouth and gave to Moses. Those were their traditions. Give me a thumbs up in the chat. Um, so Joe, Joseph said they were the religious faction of the Jews. Yes, they were one of the religious factions of the Jews. Very, very true. So within the um Pharisees, there were two schools, the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. And let me see, I'll write over here now. Shemmai is S-H A M M A I, and then Hillel. And it's it's on your, whoops, it's on the uh PowerPoint, I believe. So you can see them there. So the school of Shemai was very legalistic, very doctrine-based, and the school of Hillel was a little bit looser in their interpretation of laws. So the school of Shemai would be all about those fence laws, man. And the school of Hillel would be a little bit more relaxed. Now, what you have to understand is as you're reading through the book of Matthew, you're gonna see that the Pharisees were very influential. However, they were a minority in the legal council, the legal court of the Jews called the Sanhedrin. S-A-N H-E-D-R-I-N. They the Sanhedrin, this is legal, this is not religious. The Sanhedrin and Sanhedrin was like their supreme court, and the Pharisees were a minority in this court system, however, they carried the most weight with the people. Why? Because of the two sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the Pharisees were the more religious group, and the people related to them more. So the other group that we talked about, oh, and they believed in the resurrection of the dead. We'll find out later on in Matthew why that's important. Okay, now let's talk about the Sadducees. I've heard so many people say, Oh, it's too bad to be a Sadducee because they're sad, you see. Okay, so really quickly, we're gonna fly through this. The Sadducees were wealthy, aristoc, aristocratic, priestly class. So they ran the temple. They held the majority of the 70 seats in the Sanhedrin. But here's the issue: they were more politically aligned with Rome. Why? Because Rome kept their pockets greased and Rome kept out of their business. They wanted to be able to run their businesses and be left alone by Rome. So they decided to appease Rome and be aligned with Rome. And so the average Jew hated that in the same way that they hated tax collectors who were aligned with Rome. So the Sanhedrin, I mean the Sadducees are a religious sect, but not so much. It's really more about, they're more about political power. And they walked the line, kind of like walked the fence between Roman interests and Jewish ones. And they were not relatable to the Jewish people at all. They were not known for personal piety, and they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, which most Jews did believe in. So what you have to understand is these two groups, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, on a normal day before Jesus, hated each other. They were against each other. But Jesus shows up on the scene, and now they all want Jesus gone. What is how's that phrase go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That's what happened with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You'll see a couple times in Matthew where Jesus sort of pits them against each other, so that I mean, then he extricates himself from the scene. However, the um the Pharisees and the Sadducees united to put Jesus to death. So let's see, what is a personal application? Is there a Sadducee in me? The question we want to ask ourselves is Am I walking the fence, maybe on the job? Am I dumbing down my belief in Jesus when people are talking about things that are completely in the Antichrist agenda? Do I just stay silent and pretend like I don't, it doesn't bother me or that I don't know. An opinion? Am I a Sadducee in my family? Trying to just walk the line. I'll be, I'll be just like you, so you don't give me any pushback for my Christian beliefs. We need to ask ourselves these questions. And as you're reading and as you're studying people in the Bible, turn it right back around. And not just the negative. Turn the turn the positive around. Do I have faith like that? Yes, I've believed like that. You know, if you see somebody that has faith, or you see somebody who is trusting, or you see somebody who's generous, allow the Holy Spirit to show you who you are, but don't miss the personal application part. So important. All right. So the last group that we you need to know is the Sanhedrin. And we're not talking about them tonight, um, because, well, we're out of time. But uh, like I said, that was their Supreme Court. So understand this that these sects that I talked about, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and even the Sanhedrin, they are simultaneously religious and political groups. So they they're both at the same time. So when John speaks his words in um verses 7 to 10 of chapter 3, when he the Pharisees and the Sadducees come out to where he is baptizing by the on at the River Jordan, he says to them, You brood of vipers, this is not mild. This this is not mild. He's calling them serpents. That's not a good call, that's not a good moniker. He sees right through their religious performance. So did God, so did Jesus. And he said, Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, repentance that isn't a feeling, repentance that wasn't for show, true repentance. And then when he said, We have Abraham as our father, this was their trump card. Ethnically, they were right. They did have Abraham as their father, but God doesn't look at that, he doesn't look at our ethnicity. That's we're not getting to heaven based on what our mother believed or our grandmother's religion. We have to have our own faith. And as you're we're gonna hear Jesus say to them later on, your father is the devil. You don't have Abraham as your father, because if Abraham was your father, you would believe in me. You would recognize me. So that's um, oh, and then one other point that I want to make before we close this down. There's two two more points I want to make. Um those verses, verses seven to ten, are only found in Matthew. So this is why it's so important for us to go back and compare different accounts of the um of the story of like right now, we're reading about John the Baptist. You would find that that the that whole chunk isn't in Mark or in Luke. Why would Matthew include that? Why would Matthew include the chastisement of the Pharisees and the Sadducees? Put it in the chat while I move on to another point. Tell me in the chat if you can if you can identify why Matthew would include that, and other gospel writers would leave it out. So I'm gonna make this next point while you're typing. The Old Testament echoes um our the Jewish audience would catch immediately. So in the um, let me see which verse is it right here. Okay, in verse 12, he said John says to everyone standing there, not just the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he says, his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Those are all Old Testament references that John is making. He is dropping literally five, four different scriptures because it resonates with his audience, Kate said. Yes, absolutely. Because the Pharisees and the Sadducees were well known to his Jewish audience, and that's why he would put that chastisement in there. Absolutely. So winnowing fork is quoted in Jeremiah 15, 7. Thres is quoted in Hosea 9, 2. Chaff comes from Hosea 13, 3 and Zephaniah 2, 2. So these were not random metaphors. He's not just pulling, like, oh, I'm gonna think about wedding fork and threshing floor and chaff, like, oh, these are good metaphors that I'll use to just say what the Son of Man is gonna be like when he comes. No, he's literally picking these verses from Jeremiah, Hosea, and Zephaniah to make his point. And like I made, like I said in that I have a dream example, these people know these scriptures, these are their favorite prophets. So they know exactly what he's talking about. They can go back to those references, and they're realizing the imagery is about the Messiah, and that is the imagery that John the Baptist is evoking. It's so cool, guys. So cool. All right, so one of the things that I want you to be aware of, and we talked tonight about um looking up an atlas. Uh, I found that atlas about the time of Jesus. This is your handout. This is the one that I showed you a minute ago. That I found, I just found online. I just Googled a map of Israel at the time of Jesus, and I came up from conforming to Jesus.com. So if you can't find an atlas that can really explain the area so you can see what your scripture is talking about, Google it. You'll find one eventually. And I put that one up in your resource. We also talked about um going back to the old testament, to those references. And if you have a question, you can go on biblehub.com and you will see all those Old Testament references listed at the very bottom. If you read through the entire chapter, when you get to the bottom, it's gonna show you every single Old Testament reference. So you can go back there. It becomes a study Bible for you. So, guys, I hope that you enjoyed tonight's study of we got most of the way through chapter three. I knew we weren't gonna get to the baptism of Jesus and we didn't. So that's what we're gonna pick up next week. So, your homework for this week is going to be to start chapter four and to read the accounts in the other gospels. So, look up, for instance, the baptism of Jesus and read about that in all the other gospels, and then read chapter four and find those stories in your comparative, um, in your synoptic gospels comparison. So, and make notes in your journal or in your Bible about some of the things that our other gospel writers included that are so interesting that fill in gaps, or why maybe Matthew included things he did. All right, everybody. Well, let's just pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. Jesus, we see you in the word. We see you as the Messiah that came to make things right. You didn't come in a palace, you didn't come with the easy life of royalty. You were God who left your glory to come down and be a human baby who needed care. You needed protection, you needed God to supernaturally save your life. You started as a refugee. And right off the bat, Herod is trying to kill you before you have even spoken a word. And then, Lord, we see how you have sent your Elijah, your messenger before you, and he has fulfilled all of the Old Testament scriptures about him, and he is dropping Old Testament references about you because you are the fulfillment of the promise. So we worship you, Jesus. We worship you, we worship you as the Son of God, the Son of David, the Lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world. Truly, there is none like you, Jesus. And we are so grateful that we have our Bibles. We are so grateful that we live in a country where we can still open our Bibles, we can still talk about our Bibles, we can still broadcast the Word of God, we can still study the Bible together. And I pray that your people will take it seriously, that the days are short. We may not be able to do this always. So let us dig into your word now while we have time, while we have the ability to store your word in our heart. I thank you, thank you, thank you for that freedom in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Well, guys, thanks for hanging out with me, and I will see you next week in the next episode of the Word Alive and the Higher Pursuit Live Stream. God bless. Hey, family, I pray that you were blessed and encouraged by that episode, and that you took away something you can use in your walk with the Lord starting today. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So I thank you for making me a part of your pursuit. Until next time, abide in Him.