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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Luke 18:9 - 18:12
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The Pharisee and the Publican.
The Pharisee:
v. 9. And He spake this parable unto certain which trusted themselves that they were righteous and despised others:
v. 10. Two men went up into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican.
v. 11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not I other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
v. 12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
During the last journey of Jesus, representatives of the Pharisees were present almost continually. It is probable that some of these had given some evidence of their imagined superiority again, or there were other that had their way of thinking and acting They trusted in themselves that they were righteous; they firmly believed themselves to be perfect; they felt only the deepest contempt for the others whom they supposed to be in a class far beneath them, below the consideration of all decent people. They were representatives of the self-righteous, self-sufficient people, with both inherent and carefully educated Pharisaic tendencies. The parable of Jesus was intended to open the eyes of this pitifully blind class. Two men went up into the Temple to pray. The third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day were observed by the Jews as the hours of prayer, Dan_6:10. If possible, they went up into the Temple for that special prayer, or turned toward the Temple in making it. The chief places of prayer were the halls, or porches, or the inner courts, where there was little or no distraction or disturbance. The first of these two men was a Pharisee, a member of the strictest sect among the Jews. He stood, he made it his object to be as prominent and conspicuous as possible, for he felt his self-importance and intended to convey to others this same impression. He prayed to himself, literally: his words were more in the nature of congratulation and praise of himself than a communication to God. What he said was the firm conviction of his own heart. He proudly enumerated his supposed virtues, thanking God, incidentally, that he was not like other people. The poor man did not know, in the arrogance of his pride, that he might do whatever he chose, "yea, if he sweat blood and had himself burned with fire, it would still before God an abomination and the greatest of sins. " The Pharisee boasted that he had done no harm to others; he was no extortioner, no robber that openly took his neighbor's property; he was no unjust person, he paid his debts and gave to every man his due; he was no adulterer, he had never openly lived in sins of the flesh; he was not on a level with the publican, whose many transgressions were proverbial. But he also had positive virtues; he observed all the ordinances of religion, both those commanded by God and those enjoined by the elders. Only one day in the year had been set aside by God as a day of fasting for the entire people, the great Day of Atonement. But the Pharisees of the stricter kind added voluntary fasts on Mondays and Thursdays; the latter, because on that day Moses was said to have. ascended on Mount Sinai; the former, because they believed he had come down on that day from the mountain. This Pharisee was also very strict about giving tithes, the tenth part of all that he possessed, down to the smallest vegetable in the garden, Mat_23:23. The Pharisee is a type of all self-righteous people of all times, of every person that has pleasure and delight in himself, in his own wonderful being and doing, that boasts before God of his civic honesty and blameless reputation, of some outward, glittering virtues, and despises others.