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Commentaries
English
Luke
  
JESUS WARNS AGAINST THE TEACHERS OF THE LAW
(Luke 20:45-47)
45Then in the hearing of all the people, He said to His disciples,46"Beware of the scribes, who desire to walk in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts,47who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation."


No one answered Christ’s decisive question, fearing his glory, as coming from God and taking the form of a man. The leaders remained silent, the people also kept silent, and the disciples did not testify.
Then the Son of God spoke to the hearers who were near to him, and condemned the professional scribes, doctors of the law, who ought to know exactly before anyone else the meaning of the verse in (Psalms 110:1), but failed in due time, in spite of their high knowledge.
Jesus warned his followers against the professing hypocrites who loved boasting before the people, as teachers of the way of God. In fact, they had paved the way to hell through their strict, scrupulous interpretations of the law. They did not recognize Christ, the straight way to God.
However, they were self-conceited, broadening their phylacteries, lengthening the tassels of their garments, expecting peoples’ submission to them, and giving them the first place at feasts and meeting rooms, as if they were minor gods, sitting at the right hand of God, and making long prayers full of grandiloquent, resounding words.
Many distressed widows were deluded by these specious pretences. Finding no spiritual advice or illumination, they resorted to the scribes, who condescended to receive considerable amounts of money from those poor widows in exchange for giving advice to them. They agreed to sit at their rich, fatty feasts, pretending reverence, and abstinence from the food of the poor. At the same time, they stuffed their stomachs with delicious food and drink.
Christ said that those hypocrites would receive a more abundant judgment, both for denying his glory, and for becoming more hardened against him. Furthermore for their abuse of religion and particularly their spiritual office which they had made use of to cover their wicked projects.