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November 26, 2024 |
| The Seat Of Moses | ||
The picture you see is supposed to be a rock that looks like a seat, maybe like an armchair. This study is going to look at something odd that Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, that they "sit in the seat of Moses". Many people don't understand what is meant by that. So that will be our focus.
The answer isn't complicated, but first we need to understand a difference between the Old Testament preachers and teachers and those of our time. That's where we will start.
We're going to start with Jesus preaching in Nazareth, his. I'm going to focus on something that you've probably never even noticed at all before in the Bible.
And he came to Nazareth where he had been raised, and as he was accustomed, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of Isaiah the Prophet was given to him and Yeshua opened the scroll and he found the place where it is written: 18 "the Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, and because of this he has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor; he has sent me to heal broken hearts and to proclaim liberty to captives, vision to the blind, and to restore the crushed with forgiveness, 19 and to proclaim the acceptable era of the Lord Yahweh.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll and he gave it to the minister and he went and sat down, but all who were in the synagogue fixed their eyes upon him. 21 And he began to say to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.” 22 And all of them were testifying to it, and they were amazed at the words of grace that came out of his mouth. (Luke 4:16-22)
I want you to notice the words "stood up" and "sat down." Jesus had been sitting with the rest, but he stood up to read. I think he stood up to volunteer to do the reading for that Sabbath day's meeting.
The book (scroll) of Isaiah is given to him by the person in charge. So it appears that the reading had already been selected; Jesus didn't choose it. He stood up to read it, which seems to be their practice.
That's not our focus in this passage. It's that "he went and sat down," and then everybody was staring at him, waiting for him to say something, to teach them something about the reading that he just read. That's interesting. Once he sits down, they expect him to say something. In our church service culture, if a person reads the scripture and sits down, we know they are done, and we expect no more, because if they had more to say, they would continue standing.
They know who he is, and they know that he's been healing people and restoring vision to the blind. They also know this passage he just read is a prophecy about the Messiah. They have to be amazed that he would be the reader for this passage. What are the chances of that? So their eyes and ears are dead fixed on him to see what he's going to say.
When Jesus speaks, all that he is recorded as saying is, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears." All the people in the synagogue were testifying to the truth of what he had said, which means they agreed with what he said. He just made a claim to be the fulfillment of that prophecy, a claim to be the Messiah, and they are OK with that. But surprisingly, about three verses later, they decided they needed to kill him.
But our focus is on the fact that they expected him to teach after sitting down. We wonder if this is a pattern? Is this how things are done in the church and in other places?
I got the idea from someone else who said that they always did it this way. He brought up a couple of verses to make his point. I'm going to bring up every verse that talks about this idea of sitting down and then teaching.
But when Yeshua saw the crowds, he went up into a mountain and when he sat down his disciples came near to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and he was teaching them (Matthew 5:1-2)
We don't see any intention to teach them. He went up to a mountain, then they sat down, and the disciples decided that this was a good time to see if he had something to teach them.
But that day Yeshua went out from the house and he sat down by the seaside. 2 And great crowds were assembled to him so that he embarked, seating himself in a ship, and all the crowds were standing on the beach by the sea. 3 And he was speaking much with them in parables (Matthew 13:1-3)
First, he sat down by the seaside. He was planning to do some teaching there. But too many people arrive, and that arrangement doesn't work anymore. Probably the people are pushing to get near him, but that means the rest can't see or hear him because he is seated. Instead of standing to teach, he gets on a ship, and he seats himself in that ship to continue teaching.
And Yeshua departed from there and he came by the seaside of Galilee and he went up the mountain and sat down there. 30 Many crowds came to him who had the lame and the blind and dumb and the crippled and many others, and they laid them at the feet of Yeshua and he healed them. (Matthew 15:29-30)
Jesus sat down, and people saw that, and they decided that he's ready to do the things that he does, such as healings. It sounds like he may even do these healings from a seated position. I'm sure you've seen artists' conceptual drawings of Jesus healing. They show him standing up. But it seems like it was normal for him to be sitting down, probably on a rock.
And when Yeshua sat on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came and they were saying among themselves and to him: “Tell us when these things will be and what will be the sign of your advent and of the end of the world.” (Matthew 24:3)
Jesus had been walking along with them on the Temple Mount for a while and had said some things about what was going to be the future of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. He got to a place and sat down. That's when his disciples approached him to ask him questions about what he had said. So again, once he's sitting, they see that as an opportunity to ask him questions.
But when the Governor sat on the judgment seat, his wife sent to him and she said, “Have nothing to do with that righteous one, for I have suffered greatly in my dream today because of him.” (Matthew 27:19)
This time it's Pontius Pilate, the governor, not Jesus. The governor was also the judge of the law. When it came time to do his judging, he sat down. They wouldn't have had the fancy judicial desks that we have now, but our judges also judge while seated.
At that time, judging was less structured and more about teaching the plaintiffs, the accused, and the onlookers how the law should be applied, and demonstrating the wisdom to judge and the justice of the judgment. Remember that Pilate interviewed Jesus himself and discussed sentencing with Jesus' accusers.
And Yeshua sat down and he called the twelve and he said to them, “He who wants to be first shall be last, and the servant of every person.” (Mark 9:35)
This time, Jesus sat down with the intent of teaching. Having sat down, he called the twelve and began teaching them.
And one of [the boats] belonged to Shimeon Kaypha, and Yeshua went up and sat down in it, and he said to take it out a little from the land into the water, and he sat down and he taught the crowds from the ship. (Luke 5:3)
This verse is a little different because it has Jesus sitting down twice in the boat. That seems to be an emphasis of the idea that he was in a position to teach. Perhaps the emphasis is on the idea of teaching from a boat, which would have never been done by a Rabbi.
But when Pilate heard this statement he brought Yeshua outside and sat down on the judgment seat (John 19:13)
In this one from John, Pilate has been interviewing Jesus inside, and now that he has determined that Jesus is no threat. He is prepared to sit in the seat to discuss the judgment.
But on a notable day, Herodus was wearing the royal garments and sat down on the judgment seat and was speaking with the multitude. 22 All the people were crying out and saying, “These are the sayings of God and not of men.” (Acts 12:22)
This is not Herod the Great; it's one of his sons. He is a Jew from Idomea, but he's a weak Jew, a Romanized Jew. This Herod has a crowd of sycophants around him. They're pumping him up with wonderful words about his judgments, even to the point of claiming he has the wisdom of God. They must be getting something from him in return. Of course every judge wants to hear approval, but Herod sucks it up with a straw instead of giving credit to God, and that gets him in trouble.
He had sat down in his judgment seat - the seat he sat in while judging cases presented before him. In doing that, he explains the reasoning behind his judgments.
And I saw seats, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them, and these souls who were cut off for the testimony of Yeshua and for the word of God, and because they did not worship the Beast (Revelation 20:4)
Even though this is a symbolic description of judging, we see judges sitting on the seats and making judgments from those seated positions.
In this section, we've seen a lot of evidence that it was normal, even expected, to teach and judge from a sitting position. We also saw with Pontius Pilate that not only was judging done while sitting, but there was a specific seat for sitting in while judging, which was called the judgment seat. We also saw that judging had more in common with teaching at that time.
Now it happened the next day that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood about Moses from the morning until the evening. (Exodus 18:13)
We see here that Moses sits himself down, and he's going to be judging from this seated position. Maybe he had found an armchair-shaped rock, like the one in our picture, and padded it with blankets. The Bible doesn't say. The people who are there to hear the judgments are standing around Moses. In judging these cases and explaining why his decision is correct, he is also teaching the people God's law, what we now call the Law of Moses.
Then Yeshua spoke with the crowds and with his disciples: 2 “The Scribes and the Pharisees have sat on the [seat] of Moses.” 3 Everything therefore that they will tell you to observe, observe and do, but you should not do according to their works, for they are saying, and they are not doing. (Matthew 23:1-3)
Just as we saw Moses judging and teaching, the scribes and Pharisees were doing the same. As we saw with Pilate having a particular seat that was the judgment seat, it appears the scribes and Pharisees also had a particular seat at the temple for this purpose.
But Jesus wasn't really referring to the seat for sitting; it's just a seat. He was referring to having the authority to sit in that seat and judge. Jesus made it clear that the scribes and Pharisees had that right. At another time, he criticizes them for judgments that increase the load on the people, but he doesn't say they have no right to judge.
So, saying "the seat of Moses" is really talking about a position of authority to judge and teach.
We've seen that sitting to teach or to judge, was never about the seat. Sitting was the symbol of authority being vested in people.
In Catholicism, we see quite the opposite. They have a chair that they claim to be the chair that Peter sat in while, as they also claim, he was the leader of the church in Rome.
This chair is considered to be the source of authority. Only a Pope is allowed to sit in it. When a Pope sits in this chair, he is clothed in a special authority that gives him the ability to speak infallibly. The Roman Church was never good at symbolism or spiritual discernment.
A seat was just a place to sit to teach or to judge. There wasn't necessarily a specific seat that was called the Seat of Moses. For their own reasons, human judges preferred to have a specific seat and place where they judged cases.
So “sitting in the seat of Moses” wasn’t about the seat. It was about having the authority to sit and judge, the same authority to teach as Moses.
Where did the Scribes and Pharisees get this authority? They didn't get it from being a descendant of Aaron. None of the scribes, Pharisees, or even the Sadducees were descended from Aaron. Otherwise they would have been Priests or Levites.
If we look back to Moses, we see that he appointed ordinary men, who knew the law, to take some of the load of judging off of him. It seems that the scribes and Pharisees were also appointed and authorized to judge in that way.
I've never seen a church where the pastor / teacher sat down, … except for myself. All churches have the pastor standing, usually at a pulpit. From what the Bible says, I don't see a reason to think that sitting to teach is a requirement for church meetings, though I do see some advantages to it.
Even so, we have to wonder how this change came about. It almost certainly comes from Greco-Roman culture, where orators stood in front of seated people, as much to display their oratory skill as to deliver a message.