Although the Pharisees had high positions, in order to protect their status and prestige, they resisted God and even nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. It can be seen that if we want to be successful in our faith in God, we should avoid walking the path of the Pharisees. Here we select ten Bible verses about the essence of the Pharisees to help Christians discern the essence of the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and walk the right path of believing in God.
Matthew 23:27-28
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like to white washed sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
John 5:39-40
Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me, that you might have life.
John 8:40
But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
John 8:46
Which of you convinces me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do you not believe me?
Matthew 10:16
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the middle of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Matthew 15:3-9
But he answered and said to them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honor your father and mother: and, He that curses father or mother, let him die the death. But you say, Whoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatever you might be profited by me; And honor not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. You hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draws near to me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Matthew 23:5
But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
Matthew 23:23-24
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone. You blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Matthew 23:33-35
You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell? Why, behold, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall you whip in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar.
Share Jesus’ Commands to Us
Matthew 22:37-39
Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.