Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made… The term "proselytes" is used, and not "converts" or "disciples." it is employed when the idea to be conveyed is "persuasion" to accept some particular opinion or hobby, or to join some particular system or party. "Conversion" suggests an inward change and renewal; "proselyting" suggests outward association with a party. "Conversion" is full of hope; "proselyting" is full of peril. The word was used by the Jews for persons who had been heathen, but had accepted Judaism, and they distinguished between (1) proselytes of the gate, who received the teachings of the Old Testament, but not the ceremonial Law; and (2) proselytes of righteousness, who conformed to the whole Law. Our modern term "pervert" conveys something of the idea our Lord attached to "proselyte." Dean Plumptre gives an historical reference, which skilfully brings out the point of our Lord's reproof. "The zeal of the earlier Pharisees had shown itself in a propagandism which reminds us rather of the spread of the religion of Mahomet than of that of Christ. John Hyrcanus, the last of the Maccabean priest rulers, had offered the Idumaeans the alternative of death, exile, or circumcision. When the government of Rome rendered such measures impossible, they resorted to all the arts of persuasion, and exulted when they succeeded in enrolling a heathen convert as a member of their party. but the proselytes thus made were too often a scandal and proverb of reproach. There was no real conversion, and those who were most active in the work of proselytizing were for the most part blind leaders of the blind. The vices of the Jew were engrafted on the vices of the heathen. The ties of duty and natural affection were ruthlessly snapped asunder. The popular Jewish feeling about them was like that of the popular Christian feeling about a converted Jew." I. THE PERIL OF MAKING PROSELYTES FOR THOSE WHO MAKE THEM. Open such points as these: 1. A man must exaggerate sectarian differences before he can try to win proselytes to an opinion. 2. A man must make more of the outward form than the inward spirit. 3. A man is only too likely to use bad means in gaining such an end. 4. A man who makes proselytes honours himself rather than God. 5. And such a man is only too likely to be deceived in the result he attains. II. THE PERIL OF MAKING PROSELYTES FOR THOSE WHO ARE MADE. Open these points: 1. Men may be overpressed to accept opinions on which they have really formed no judgment. 2. Perverts notoriously exaggerate the formalities of the new creed they adopt, and become bitterest partisans. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. |
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