Question #5, Nov. 16th, 2010

Friend, we can't afford to conform to the world's thinking. Choosing to believe just one stinky thought will pollute our thought closets. Unless biblical thinking fills us, we won't have the mind of Christ. If we don't have the mind of Christ, any lying label will stick! Unless we tell ourselves Scriptural truths we will conform to the world through faulty thinking.

Your life's wardrobe is directly affected by what is in your thought closet. You must "renew" your mind and tidy it up.

The Pharisees were a prominent sect of Jews. The Hebrew name "Pharisee" means "separatists, or the separated ones."
It's critical that we guard the sanctity of our minds and maintain clean, pure thought closets so we will be protected from their trap of polluted thought closets. 

What do Matthew 15:1-9  and 21:33-46 say about Pharisees? 

Matthew 15:1-9 (New International Version)

Matthew 15

That Which Defiles

 ¹ Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

 ³ Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’^[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’^{[b] 5} But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ ⁶ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

   ⁸ “‘These people honor me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me.
⁹ They worship me in vain;
   their teachings are merely human rules.’^[c]”

Matthew 21:33-46 (New International Version)

The Parable of the Tenants

    ³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. ³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

   ³⁵ “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶ Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. ³⁷ Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

   ³⁸ “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ ³⁹ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

   ⁴⁰ “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

 ⁴¹ “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

 ⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

   “‘The stone the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
   and it is marvelous in our eyes’^[a]?

   ⁴³ “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. ⁴⁴ Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”^[b]

 ⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.