Matthew 23, The MSG

Religious Fashion Shows

^{1 -3} Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer.

^{4 -7}"Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend.'

^{8 -10}"Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of 'Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven. And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.

^{11 -12}"Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

Frauds!

¹³"I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either.

¹⁵"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.

^{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.

^{23 -24}"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

^{25 -26}"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.

^{27 -28}"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds.

^{29 -32}"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.

^{33 -34}"Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.

^{35 -36}"You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I'm telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.

^{37 -39}"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me. And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, 'Oh, God has blessed him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'"

The Message by Eugene Peterson

주님께서 나와 같은 목사를 보시면 한국말로 뭐라 하실까?

"개자식?" "사기꾼!"

주님. 잘못했습니다. 주님 욕하시지 않도록 열심히 하겠습니다.

비전

"저는 리더십들과 중장기 플랜을 좀 나누기 원합니다. 짧게는 일년, 길게는 한 3년을 내다 보면서 중장기 목표를 설정하는 것이 중요하다고 생각하는데요. 물론 한 두 번 미팅으로 그것이 다 나누어 질 수는 없습니다만 좀 더 터놓고 본질적인 문제를 리더십들과 상의하는 것이 중요할 것 같습니다. 그래야 공동체 전체에 비전을 제시하고 거기에 맞는 사역구조와 리더십을 세울 수 있을 테니까요. 방향과 구조가 잡히지 않으면 단발적인 행사진행에 에너지를 소비하다가 결국 리더십들이 화를 내고 배신감을 느낄 것입니다. 부교역자들도 마찬가지이구요. 방향과 구조가 잡히지 않은 채 숫자가 불어나면, 그 다음은 정말 손을 댈 수 없는 조직이 되어 버립니다. 그저 조직 자체를 끊임없이 움직이기 위해서 막대한 에너지를 쏟아야 되지만 영향력은 미미한, 덩치는 크지만 어린아이같은 조직이 될 것입니다.아니 정말 무서운 것은 한 두 사람의 꿈을 위해 공동체의 유기적 관계와 삶의 과정이 희생당하는, 신앙공동체가 아닌 기업조직이 되어 버리는 것입니다.

어느 회의중에 bk