The Measure of Your Fathers - Matthew 23:32

Matthew the apostle wrote how Jesus in addition to other warnings said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like unto whited 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 unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous. And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore you are witnesses unto yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets”, and in chapter twenty-three and verse thirty-two of his book Matthew shared how Jesus said the “scribes and Pharisees” “fill up then then the measure of your fathers” where we read:

Fill you up then the measure of your fathers.

The verse reads, “Fill you up then ...” Matthew began with the words, “fill you up then” which means “the scribes and Pharisees therefore and consequently make full and complete the following”. Matthew shared how by saying they would not have been participants in killing the prophets of old and yet being their “children”, they have in effect completed everything Jesus is about to declare.

The verse continues, “... the measure of your fathers.” Matthew added the words, “the measure” which means “the proverbial rule or standard of judgment” “of your fathers” or “belonging to the scribes and Pharisees progenitors and ancestors”. Matthew shared how Jesus said the “scribes and Pharisees” “made full and completed” the “standard of judgment” of their forefathers.

When we think through Matthew's words in this verse, we see how these “scribes and Pharisees” were actually just like their ancestors from whom they distanced themselves. Though they thought they would not have killed “the prophets”, their inward ways told an opposite story. Jesus the Messiah was among them, and they used every opportunity to discredit Him or destroy His ministry. They, in effect, were as murderous as their forefathers. God desires to have a relationship with every person through His Son Jesus, and even when people think one way and are actually quite the opposite, He is willing to forgive them if they humble themselves and ask. Jesus exposed these fraudulent “religious leaders”, and He knows what resides in every person. Let those who read these words examine themselves and yield to Him as their personal “Savior and Lord” today.

Next time we see Matthew write how Jesus calls the “scribes and Pharisees”, “you serpents, you generation of vipers”, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

Until tomorrow…there is more…

Look for the daily devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation”, the marriage book “So, You Want to Be Married”, “One Year in the Sermon on the Mount” and the new poetry book "Random Mushrooms Volumes I and II" and the new novel "Elizabeth County" in all major bookstore sites, http://www.amazon.com ; http://www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore.