A Spotless Bride in a Mixed Field
There is tension in the scriptures. The issue is, many modern readers rarely ‘feel’ it; some do, but then the reality of it is that it is rarely resolved by the reader. They shutter to think, maybe, that the Messiah was ever ‘harsh’.
The truth of Scripture is, however, that Yeshua was at times very harsh, and very offensive. He offended those in his home town of Nazareth so much that they tried to drive Him off a cliff. Based on an English translation of what He said, the response of His own townspeople, presumably including all his many siblings [four brothers, several sisters born of Miryam and Yosef], seems to be way out of proprotion. But, when we look at it from a Semitic perspective in the Aramaic/Hebrew, we can see why they responded so ‘drastically’, wanting to kill Him.
Yeshua read a very compelling Messianic passage. The Isaiah scroll was given to Him to read, and He opened it and read from what we have sincle labeled chapter 63:1-2a. He stopped at “to proclaim the acceptable year of יהוה .” This was mid-sentence. And up to that point, everything was very nice and very merciful. He did not read, “V’yom Nakam Eloheinu”, “and the Day of the Vengeance of Our Elohim.”
So, He stopped short there, allowing the hearers to perhaps bask in the mercy about which He declared He was anointed to bring. But the same Messiah that would be anointed to declare God’s Mercy and Compassion, would also be anointed to bring Vengeance. But it wasn’t time for that.
However, all He said afterward was, “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your ‘ears’. That’s the way most people read it. In the Aramaic, we read ‘in your hearing‘. This was offensive to the Galilean ‘clergy‘, the Pharisee Rabbi was set aside and this former ‘carpenter’ actually had the audacity to declare that He was the “Anointed One” of God, the “Messiah”, which the rest of the world now calls “Christ”, better called “Messiah”. De-judaizing the language makes Yeshua’s statement less impactful.
Yeshua, a town citizen, did not go to the Rabbi; He did not go to the elders; He had not been trained by them. He did not ‘dance around’ the question, but plainly stated He was God’s Messiah to Israel. He did not offer homily, He simply stated fact. Fact outside the realm of religious opinion. And it was offensive.
Initially they seemed to speak ‘well of Him’, recognizing His humanity: “Is this not the son of Yosef?” We read it as if they were complimenting Him and honoring Him as one of their own, but the ‘tone’ is better understood as, “Who does He think He is?” It’s almost as if they are saying, “Know your place”. They want Him to fall back in line.
That’s when He said, “No prophet is acceptable in his own city”. In Aramaic this is an idiomatic accusation, not a resignation on Yeshua’s part. He’s preparing to rebuke them for not believing in who He is.
And then He expounds from the history of Israel: “For truly I say to you, there were many widows in Yisra’el in the days of Eli-Yahu The Prophet [HaNavi] when Heaven was closed for three years and six months and there was a great famine throughout the land; yet Eli-Yahu was not sent to one of them, but to Zarefat of Tzidon, to a widow. And there were many lepers in Yisra’el in the days of Elisha HaNavi, and yet not one of them was cleansed except Na’aman the Arami.”
The two Israeli stories He selected are not coincidental. A Tzidonian widow, and an Aramaean statesman: Gentiles. This is reminding Israel that they were prone to reject the truth! This is a judgment. That’s why they were so incensed. They were angry because they were being convicted by God’s very Messianic Spirit that He had just poured out onto His Son. It was prophetic of the ultimate rejection of the Son of God, an apparent ‘ordinary man’; this was signaling rejection by most Jewish people, such that when the remnant of Jews who did believe became significant, and the rest of the majority of Jewish people were rejecting the Gospel, Yeshua then visits Paul and Peter and opens the gospel door to Gentiles, fulfilling what He said in Nazareth to start His ministry.
The point is, Yeshua did not make any friends that day, because they were content in their ‘religion‘ and not interested in the coming Messiah and Son of God. And they knew full well that next phrase; “the day of the Vengeance of our Elohim.”
This was a statement of possible judgment, to go along with the plea to accept God’s mercy. Today, people want mercy outside the biblical boundaries of judgement.
Yeshua was often very, very confrontational. He had to be. We have inherited from generations now the idea that Yeshua would never offend anyone. That is a misreading of the texts of scripture. He was often very offensive, to people who should have been learning His Word but were not interested in humbling themselves before God.
The most obvious group with which He had confrontation was the Pharisees. This was throughout His tenure as an itenerant teacher and preacher, but at the very end, He was very, very scathing in a confrontation with the Pharisees, and did not fear at all to call them out, in public, in front of the Pharisees’ followers and other religious Jews: they were in the Temple [Matt 21:23, 24:1].
Yeshua said the following statements to the Pharisees, and these are the people who were responsible to lead the Jewish people in faith. Yeshua told the ordinary Jews listening by that they needed to hear the Pharisees because [when] they sit in the Seat of Moses. That was the place where the person who would read the Torah sat. This is a known, historical fact. Several of these actual chairs have been unearthed [made of stone]. Yeshua posited that when they were in that seat, they were reading the Torah, and that is when one should ‘hear‘ them; but He said do not do as they do! Why? Because the Pharisees did not and still do not teach the Torah.
To upbraid His argument and make it stick, He said some shocking things in the hearing of them all:
“Woe to you, Sofrim and P’rushim, you hypocrites!”
This rendering, and probably no other modern rendering, would not give an English-speaking person the tone of this phrase. אוֹי לָכֶם “Oy Lakhem!” “Grief upon you! This is going to end badly.” This is a cry from Yeshua’s heart for the Pharisees’ impending judgment if they don’t repent. “Oy” is so much more to the ancient Jew than it is to us today. Isaiah said “Oy li” because he felt like he was ‘undone’ and doomed. In Lamentations 5 “Oy nah lanu” is used, ‘grieve for our undoing, please‘ would be the tone of that. Jews were already suffering under judgment there. Worse than any of us have ever seen.
And after crying out about coming doom, and telling the whole congregation that the Scribes and Pharisees are hypocrites is why He’s crying out from His heart, then He goes on:
“For you consume the houses of widows, and with pretense you make long prayers; because of this you shall receive a greater judgment.” These are not ‘nice words’. They are very, very confrontational, and not said with a smile. Yeshua was in deep consternation and warning the religious class of judgment if they don’t repent. Yeshua’s ‘sorrow’ for their indifference to His Truth is causing HIM to become confrontational. His face could not possibly have been smiling, or kind, but stern, and corrective, and His voice likely raised somewhat in volume.
He goes on: “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees [Sofrim and P’rushim], you hypocrites! For you have shut off The Kingdom of Heaven against men; for you do not enter into it yourselves, and do not permit those who would to enter. Woe to you, Sofrim and P’rushim, you hypocrites! For you traverse sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him the son of Gehinom twice more than yourselves.
Gehinom was a stinking, rotting place where infant sacrifice used to occur. It was the Valley of the Sons of Hinom. Jeremiah told us they used to sacrifice children there. [7:31, 19:5-6].
Yeshua is thus telling the religious class of Israel’s congregation, to their faces and in the hearing of hundreds if not thousands [Passover was almost starting] that they were children of CHILD SACRIFICERS! This was NOT NICE. The tone was NOT SWEET. I dare say, His voice was probably elevated. Yeshua is speaking as a prophet who cannot be ignored because the stakes are eternity itself. And that is compassion.
“Woe to you, blind guides, for you say, ‘Whoever swears by the Temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold which is in the Temple, he is bound!’ O you fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold, or the Temple that consecrates the gold?
Yeshua was not mincing words here, but He called them blind fools. This is speaking to a group of people who were supposed to teach about God’s light, and to understand God’s Word, but Yeshua, an itinerant, untaught “Rabbi” called them not only blind, but fools. Fools is harsh to us, but to those Rabbis, it had an even deeper meaning:
Blind in this criticism was metaphorical in the natural realm, but actual and literal in the spiritual realm. They read the Torah and do not understand it or teach it. This was utterly offensive to the Pharisees, who were all aged over the age of thirty. They’re not ‘young punks’, but seasoned religious people who know some stuff. The issue is, they cannot see God’s Word as He teaches it, because they are not listening to His Messiah! Their spiritual ‘eyes’ are obstructed by manmade ideas and conclusions. Saying this to one who is a teacher was as offensive as Yeshua could get.
The fact that He added “fool” to it makes it even worse, and even more offensive, and this is why they start plotting and planning to KILL HIM.
כְּסִיל is His word for “fool” here. כְּסִילִים וְעִוְרִים is “Fools and blind!” in verse 17. An English person just thinks ‘fool’ is about being jocular and unserious. But a biblical, Hebrew ‘fool’, which these Pharisees knew, was one who does not hear the Torah. [Prov 1:7, 10:8]. This is someone who is spiritually irresponsible, especially since they are supposed leaders. This was tearing at the fabric of their “Rabbinic Honor” because Yeshua was telling them and the crowd that they are unfit to teach.
When you put the two words together, it gets even worse. ‘You cannot perceive the truth of God because your spiritual eyes are obstructed by spiritual malady; you deliberately mislead others and act without fear of God, and your reasoning is inverted: you are a mere man.’ The overarching charge that the whole crowd ‘felt’ that day was: “You are entrusted with God’s light, but you are incapable of seeing it yourselves. Worse, you are leading others into darkness.”
כְּסִיל K’sil in Hebrew is about moral inversion: deafness to God’s covenant, creating ‘lost sheep’ in the House of God. Isaiah spoke in this vein as well, to Israel, and it got him killed too. [Is 42:18-20, 44:18] Ezekiel did the same, with the same results. [Ezekiel 34:2-3] Jeremiah said the same thing [Jer 5:31]. All of these men paid the same price as Yeshua: executed as a criminal against religious Israel.
If this were the only account of Yeshua being so harsh, it might leave it to question as to whether or not He ever got so animated. But, Mark and Luke both give us parallel stories. [Mark 12:38-40, Luke 11:39-52]
In other verses, both Yeshua and Yokanan HaMatbil called this same group of people a ‘brood of vipers’, and called them evil. [Mat 3:7, 12:34]. This alone is a tell-tale moment of offense. The Aramaic/Hebrew word there is ‘nakhashim” נָחָשִׁים. This is the very word for the ‘serpent’ that was in the Garden, who twisted God’s words and caused death to enter humankind. “Nakhash” is rooted in the idea of ‘divination’, controlling people through the perversion of truth. The fact that He calls this group a “brood” of them means that the whole community was corrupted by that chosen behavior!
This did not mean that Yeshua did not want to save them all, but only ONE Pharisee that we are aware of ever bothered to have an actual conversation with Him. Nicodemus! He had to come to Him in the dark of night to do so, even though it was very early on in Yeshua’s ministry. And he struggled to understand the very simple message that Yeshua is the Son of God, and that salvation is from SIN, not ‘Rome’, or other earthly problems. Yeshua did not call him a Nakhash [viper] as a person, but He found in Nicodemus a willingness at least to attempt to ‘hear’, and to consider Yeshua a valid teacher. He called this untrained Nazarene a “Rabbi” and “teacher” sent from God. Nicodemus was very high up in the Pharisee realm. Yeshua, knowing all men, called him a ‘Ruler of the Jews” as well as a teacher of Israel. And as such, Yeshua got very pointed with him:
“You are a teacher of Yisra’el, and yet you do not understand these things?” This is spoken to a very, very well educated man, and a member of the ruling class, and Yeshua is basically telling him, “You hold the highest place of respect in Israel, and I’m talking about Torah 101, and you don’ get it?”
Yeshua actually used the Rabbinic method of using questions to reveal gaps in the student’s thinking, where slight shame is a ‘pedagogical’ tool. As much as we honor Yeshua for being so kind and compassionate to the masses, He was still a Jew. And Jews are very passionate people who say things in ways that burn at the consience of more reserved, timid people.
Nicodemus was not flustered by the snark of Yeshua. He continued to listen, he didn’t get defensive, he didn’t scold Yeshua for being overly rude, and the conversation obviously had an affect on him, because later he defends Yeshua, saying, “Does our Torah convict a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he has done?” using the same method of gap-filling and shame to try to prevent the Pharisees from killing Yeshua. And, He was one who helped bury Yeshua. He did not take it personally that Yeshua challenged the religious norms, or the authority of the Pharisee institution.
So, Yeshua was often ‘harsh’, ever slightly so with a person who was curious about His teaching. But, He was very harsh to people who corrupted the worship of God, and that was not reserved only to the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were a very small percentage of the people of Israel in the 1st century, and they were not the only ones who did things that brought about what people today would call ‘ugliness’ from Yeshua.
“And Yeshua entered into the Temple of God [Elohim], and put out all who were buying and selling in the Temple, and He overturned the trays of the money-changers and the chairs of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer;’ but you have made it a bandits’ cave.” [Matt 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46]
The Hebrew/Aramaic there for ‘bandits’ is לִסְטִים , and this is a loaded word. This is not implying petty theft. This is predatory and violent crime that creates chaos by exploiting religion or power. This is extortion of the highest order by people who take by force, even if the force is under the guise of religion. To the English reader, the word ‘bandit’ can even have a heroic, Robin Hood tone to it, but this is actually the Sherrif of Nottingham in tone: an unjust extortion from a position of authority. And Yeshua is using this loaded word against the religious leadership that is bilking the average worshipper out of his hard-earned money in the name of God. He’s basically accusing them of organized crime, what is more akin to Mafia in our modern minds.
This was such an insult, that the priests, the ‘shepherds’/’pastors’ of Israel, immediately wanted Yeshua dead. It was utterly insulting and confrontational on Yeshua’s part to say, and it engendered offense, extreme offense, from the people to whom He said it. And this is God’s way:
“Is this house, whereupon My Name is called, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”
That was Jermiah’s message directly from יהוה to the forebears of the Pharisees, whom Yeshua chided for being just like them, and Yeshua increased the severity of the rebuke by changing the word from ‘paritzim’ to ‘listim’, where ‘paritzim’ is ‘those who make a breach’. So, God’s ‘tone’ got even more harsh with the Pharisees through Yeshua.
Yokhanan [John] gets even more detailed about Yeshua’s ‘tone’ in his account of the same/similar story:
“And the Passover [Pesakh] of the Yehudim was nearing, so Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. And He found in the Temple those who were buying oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting. And He made a whip of cords, and drove them all out of the Temple, even the sheep and the oxen and the money changers; and He threw out their exchange money and turned over their trays; And to those who sold doves He said, “Take these away from here; do not make The House of My Father a house of trading.” And His Talmidim remembered that it is written, “Zeal for Your house has devoured me.”
Look at the determination and intent of Yeshua: He ‘made a whip of cords’. We don’t know how long that took. But, he wove a whip. That is how leather whips for beasts even today are made, by weaving strands of leather together. Regardless of the unnamed material, it would have taken some fair amount of time for Yeshua deliberately to ‘make a whip’ of multiple ‘cords’ of something. His anger did not ‘flash and burn’, it ‘brewed‘.
He lashed out quite literally not just at the animals, but at the men selling them. He was furious, but controlled. His anger ‘devoured‘ Him. Was it misplaced? Did Yeshua break the mold that God had made for Him to be the compassionate savior of the world?
So, our Messiah, the one who was sent by God, from the very heart of God, rebuked people harshly, and here even whipped them, after having fashioned the instrument of judgment Himself. He came to declare repentance, and yes, to the lowly and and the sinner He was very kind and compassionate, but to those not evincing obedience to God while claiming to follow His Way all the while saying they were His representatives, He was more than ‘rude‘.
There were whole cities that Yeshua ‘threatened’ because they were not hearing Him. “Then Yeshua began to reproach the cities in which His many works were done, and which did not repent. And He said, “Woe to you, [remember the depth of Oy lakhem! ?] Korazin! Woe to you, Beit Tza’ida! For if in Tzor and Tzidan had been done the works which were done in you, they might have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be easier for Tzor and Tzidan in The Day of Judgment [Yom HaDin], than for you. And you, Capernaum [K’far Nakhum, village of safety], which have exalted yourself up to heaven, you shall be brought down to She’ol; for if in S’dom had been done the works which were done in you, it would be standing to this day. But I say to you, it will be easier for the land of S’dom in The Day of Judgment [Yom HaDin], than for you.”
Capernaum had a major synagogue, and was the center of Torah teaching in Galilee. They thought they knew The Word better than anyone, and Yeshua said they were bound for the realm of the dead. Bethsaida was the home of Peter and Andrew, and Phillip, and lots of ‘priestly’ families. It was a smaller but still signifant Judaic religious center. There were many teachers there, and lots of spiritual discussion and Messianic expectation, but Yeshua is warning them about the coming Judgment Day. The same was for Korazin, which was also a significant Torah-teaching center. He’s not beckoning the poor and the broken hearted to come to salvation, He’s scourging those who say they are saved to look more deeply at their own walk!
Again, Yeshua is echoing His Father’s words that were spoken to the forebears of the Jewish people in His day:
• Isaiah 5:8–23 – a whole series of covenant “woes” against cities and elites
• Habakkuk 2:6–20 – repeated “woe” judgments against nations
• Zephaniah 3:1 – “Woe to the rebellious city…”
This is not lament only; it is the language of a coming verdict. Yeshua is informing them that apart from repentance, they will perish. And they will perish in a very, very harsh and unsettling way.
When Yeshua referred to Tzor and Tzidan, it was shocking to the Jews who heard him. These were pagan cities rife with immorality. When He compared them to Sodom, it was even worse. These are not kind words, and this was not a ‘veiled threat’. It was obvious and offensive rebuke, to ordinary congregants, citizens of nice little, beautiful villages where everyone went to the assembly every week. He was rebuking all of them. And insulting them. Calling them less likely than pagans to hear the voice of God.
“You will be brought down to She’ol” He’d said. This is, again, echoing the ‘tone’ of the prophets [Isaiah 14:12–15, Ezekiel 31:14–18, Lamentations 1–2]. It is directed at ordinary believers and worshippers, the ‘masses‘ of worshippers in these cities, and it is a pronouncement of judgment upon them. It is not ‘nice and sweet’. He’s giving these diatribes in covenantal lawsuit structures:
• He calls out the city by name.
• States the evidence.
• Compares legal precedents
• Pronounces a verdict.
Yeshua’s tone was a tone of finality in warning. Hurry up and repent! This was not a friendly little reminder, and there was no gentility in it.
Is it possible, even bearable, to find Yeshua offering a scathing tone to another group of people? Yes.
If a religious person causes another person to ‘stumble’. In other words, if a leader is teaching things that are leading people in the wrong direction, actually causing them to break God’s Word instead of adhering to it, He was very, very ‘unkind‘, and even a bit morbid in his rebuke:
Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2
“Whoever misleads one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for him that a donkey’s millstone were hanged on his neck and he were sunk in the depths of the sea.”
This, again, is not a veiled threat. It is open, it is obvious, and it is shocking. Why? Because bad doctrines destroy souls, and Yeshua is telling His own talmidim [Torah students] that their doctrine and teaching had better be sound. A donkey’s millstone is huge, and there would have been zero chance of escape for someone to be tied to it and cast into the sea. They would have immediately had their neck broken, and their plunge into the waters would have probably broken other bones, so there was no way a person would recover from it. It was damning. He’s not just alluding to teaching children, either, as some think. “Little ones” is a teaching tool, and in ancient Judaism it represented the spiritually vulnerable, those new to the faith, and those who need a teacher. This was a warning to teachers who presume to teach The Word, and Paul echoes this warning over in the book of Hebrews, and strengthens the wording!
“He who transgressed the Torah of Moshe, on the word of two or three witnesses he died without mercy: how much more punishment do you think he will receive who has trodden underfoot The Son of God, and has considered the blood of His Covenant, through which he had been consecrated, as ordinary blood, and has blasphemed the Compassionate Spirit [Ru’akh HaKhesed]? For we know Him who said, “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” And again, ” יהוה shall judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living Elohim.” Heb 10:28-31
Teaching people false doctrine carries with it blood-guilt. Teachers who neglect the congregations by being soft on them are in danger for themselves, because they are putting their congregants at risk of eternal suffering. Again, the millstone warning was given to Yeshua’s Talmidim, the men who would first teach the Gospel. This harsh warning is presumably part of what kept them in line and caused them to write all the many letters of correction to their congregants in the future. So much so that they said things like, “not many of you should become teachers”, and “beware, lest you follow the error of those without Torah, and fall from your own steadfastness.” In fact, the book of Hebrews has many staunch warnings against ‘soft teaching’:
“Therefore we should give earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time they be lost. For if The Word spoken by Messengers has been affirmed, and every one who has heard it and transgressed it has received a just reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect the very things which are our life, and which were first spoken by Adoneinu..” Heb 2:1-3
He writes of those who have once been saved, but fall away…
“But this is impossible for those who have once been immersed, and have tasted the gift from heaven [Spirit], and have received The Ru’akh HaKodesh, and have tasted the good Word of God [ D’var from Elohim ] and the powers of the world to come, for them to sin again and be renewed again by repentance, for they execute Ben HaElohim a second time and put Him to open shame.” Heb 6:4-6
Paul was not writing to outsiders, nor about outsiders. He was speaking of redeemed, blood-bought people, in the context of bad teachers who are too soft in teaching [Heb 2, 10, 12], and saying that they are putting people in danger. The overarching idea is that the life of faith is communal, and when one person strays, everyone else is in danger of straying, and then possibly of perishing. Paul’s words are not ‘nice’ words. They do not tickle the itching ears. They bring discomfort, and offense.
On the heels of Yeshua’s words of warning to teachers to avoid the millstone fate, He instructs us as individuals in a very harsh, almost morbid way:
“If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…”
“If your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out…”
He had just warned His teachers, and now He turns to the average ‘students’, the average congregant. He’s saying, what most people miss, “If misleading others is so serious, then misleading oneself by continuing to err is also damaging, if not lethal.”
Yeshua often spoke in hyperbole. Jewish teachers often speak in hyperbole. It was done to encourage ruthless self–honesty, to divert the hearer away from looking at others [teachers, congregants], and to look at their own hearts to keep themself from going to a similar fate as an irresponsible teacher! He’s basically telling all of us, “anything that poisons your walk with God must be dealt with violently — because the cost of not dealing with it is worse.”
Yeshua was very harsh with His own Talmidim even in private conversations!
“From that time Yeshua began to make known to His Talmidim that He will shortly have to go to Yerushalayim, and suffer a great deal from the elders, and the chief Kohanim, and the Sofrim, and be killed, and rise up on the third day. So Kefa took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, and he said, “Far be it from you, My Adon, that this should happen to you.” But He turned and said to Kefa, “Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling-block to me; for you are not thinking of the things of Elohim, but of men.” [Matt 16, Mark 8].
Kefa was standing in the way of the very purpose of the Son of God, and Yeshua warned Him again about the millstone! When we divert people off the core message and purpose of the gospel, even through passive, soft preaching, we are standing in the way, and that is the work of the adversary.
And there was one time when Yeshua seemed to jab at all twelve of the Talmidim at once:
אַף אַתֶּם עַד עַתָּה אֵינְכֶם מְבִינִים
Colloquially this would have been “Even y’all, even now y’all don’t get it?” This is Rabbinic, blunt-force language, and not cruelty. The Jewish people may have been more accustomed to it than modern English-speaking people. And the issue with translation is that it can come off softer than it does in the Hebrew. Translators may have even tried to soften His words, to align with the image of the “Jesus” they wished to portray. Yeshua was often very harsh!
And the apostles were just has harsh, and even more so at times, as Yeshua. It amazes me that so many people think that there is no ‘offensive’ language in the Bible. Especially given that Paul said that the gospel itself is offensive! To those who ‘are perishing’. Well, people who walk in religion but do not follow God, according to all the previous warnings, are in danger of perishing.
Paul said to Corinth, “You are arrogant, when you should be mourning [over your sins]”. And immediately he writes that the sinner in question should be ‘removed from among you‘. Today, teachers/leaders are content to have everyone stay. To ‘let the wheat and the tare” grow together in the congregation.
When Yeshua gave that analogy, He was not instructing His Talmidim to allow all the ‘sinner folk’ to stay in church. He was instructing them that the congregation, the wheat, would still be in the world with the ‘tare’, the other people who were not walking after God, but in fact opposing Him. We are “in the world, but not of the world”. And He says that at the end, God would sort them out. He was in no way telling them to allow those in the Congregations who would not walk uprightly and become Holy to keep ‘coming to church’.
And Yeshua outright said this, but people who are trying to soften the ministers and weaken the body misuse His ‘mashal’.
“He answered and said to them, “He who sowed good seed is The Son of Man [Ben HaAdam/Yeshua]. The field is the world [NOT the congregation]. The good seed are the Sons of the Kingdom [born again, transformed], but the tares are the sons of The Evil One.” [Matt 13:37-38].
Does anyone think for a second that Yeshua wants the ‘sons of The Evil One‘ sitting in the Synagogue with believers every week? By no means. And the letters of the Apostles prove it:
“Now I beseech you, my brethren, beware of those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have been taught; keep away from them. For those who are such do not serve Adoneinu Yeshua HaMashi’akh, but their own belly; and by smooth words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple people.”
This is a direct and beckoning plea to keep certain ‘believers’ out of the fellowship! Those with ‘smooth words and fair speeches’ who are spreading bad doctrine, like a slippery-tongued serpent. “Keep away from them“. Paul is warning believers about silver-tongued teachers who teach bad doctrine. And it is not a soft warning.
Similarly in Galatians, Paul says that anyone preaching a false or different gospel, or a false or different Yeshua, should be ‘accursed’. In Galatians 1:8-9, Paul repeats himself to emphasise breaking fellowship with someone who does not adhere to the teachings of the Gospel of Yeshua according to the Apostles, and even warns that those who preach that way are doomed to She’ol.
“Put away from among yourselves those wicked persons”. 1 Cor 5:13
And in verse 11, he instructed the congregation, “Do not even eat with such a one.” This is not just a shunning, it is a ‘divorce’. “Put away” is divorce language. This is absolute severance. And they are not ‘tares’, they are believers who are ignoring Torah. “You will not go up to your father’s couch.” “You will not commit adultery.” In the Torah era, they would have been stoned. In our era, they have to be expelled, like a divorce, and never fellowshipped with again, until they repent [which this guy did, as seen in 2 Cor].
The above is in the context of sexual immorality by a congregational leader who was committing incest, and the congregation actually approved it. They were unrepentant. It was publicly known, and the leadership tolerated it. In verse 5, Paul said of that man to ‘hand him over to Satan’. He tells Timothy that he had done the same thing to two other believers in 1 Tim 1:19-20! Paul said these men had ‘lost their faith‘ and blasphemed, so he handed them over so God could use Satan to punish them! What was their blasphemy? False, ‘soft‘ teaching! People were teaching a different ‘doctrine’ other than the Torah, they were teaching myths [giants] and endless geneologies [DNA salvation], and he was specifically repudiating the teachers, and calling their behavior blasphemy and deserving of punishment. [1 Tim 1:3-7]
In the interest of time and efficiency, we will summarize many other places where the apostles use harsh language and strong disciplinary tactics to preserve the unity of the Body:
1 Timothy 5:19–20
Elders who persist in sin: “Rebuke in the presence of all.” This is public correction with impending possible removal.
Titus 3:10–11
“After you have admonished the heretic once or twice, shun him, knowing that he who is such is corrupt; he sins and condemns himself.” The language is decisive: there is no ambiguity here. Shun means to ‘put out and dissassociate‘; ‘put him far away from you’.
2 John 9–11
“Do not receive him into your house, nor give him a greeting.” This is concerning those who do not understand who Yeshua is relative to His Father. We are not even to let them into our houses! This is community exclusion because of doctrinal corruption. John adds: “The one who greets him participates in his evil deeds.” So, just even a salutation to such a person is acknowledging his doctrine as ‘acceptable’, and the one who does so is participating in his heresy! That is serious guilt-by-association logic.
3 John 9–10
In this passage, one named Diotrephes refuses apostolic authority, expels faithful believers wrongly and John condemns wrongful expulsion, which proves rightful expulsion was expected when justified.
Yeshua Himself, who is our only Rabbi and arbiter of doctrine: Matthew 18:15–17
This is foundational. “If he refuses to listen even to the assembly, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” That is removal from covenant fellowship. Every apostolic instruction above is an application of this teaching from Yeshua, who never said a harsh word according to some minds.
There are many, many other places in the letters of the New Testament where hard, offensive language is used, and harsh measures employed in order to preserve the Sanctity of the Assembly, the Body of Messiah. Yeshua even once rejected and denied His own mother, to make a point about the Body of Messiah and who it is made up of: people who listen to the words of the Master.
And many of those offensive words come in the context of dealing with syncretism. Harlotry in most of Scripture is syncretism, not sexual deviance.
The prophetic use of “harlotry” (זָנָה / זְנוּת) is covenantal language, before it is moral language. “You shall worship no other god… lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and play the harlot after their gods.” Exodus 34:14–16
This is not prostitution. It is syncretism—the blending of worship, allegiance, and trust. The prophets consistently invoke a plural–singular tension, where Israel is portrayed as a singular ‘harlot’ when they blended the worship of God, יהוה , with all the religions around them, and were very casual about it.
“You have played the harlot with many lovers.” (Jeremiah 3:1)
“I will go after my lovers… then she shall say, ‘I will return to my first husband.’” (Hosea 2:5, 7) Here, Israel had many lovers, but was supposed to have only one husband.
The issue is divided loyalty, not merely immoral behavior. Sexual imagery is employed because covenant betrayal is relational, not abstract. The covenant of marriage is the most intimate and frequent earthly covenant, and all men understand the severity and nature of it. Our covenant with God is a marriage. When Yeshua offered the cup at Passover, He was making a marriage contract with us, just like God made with Israel in the desert. When we blend other religion into our worship of God, we are playing the harlot, just like ancient Israel did.
Yeshua warned us about playing the harlot Himself, and again spoke very dire words of warning to us about it: “Notwithstanding, I have a few things against you, [a congregation with His Spirit in it] because you allowed that woman of yours, Jezebel, who calls herself a Prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit harlotry and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, but she did not repent from her harlotry. Behold I will cast her into a coffin, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.
This was not only about a wayward woman bringing bad doctrine into that congregation, it was written to all congregations of all times to warn us about ongoing syncretism: mixing the worship of God with idolatry. And the warning is that anyone who teaches people to do so will die personally, without hope, and those who follow them will go through ‘great tribulation’, which is at the end times. It is ahead of us. There is cause to warn people about syncretism: harlotry.
These harsh warnings are all through the “New Testament”:
“You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”
(James 4:4) Again—syncretism, not sexuality.
Scripture’s end goal is not tolerance, inclusion, or religious peace. It is unity in One Body.
“Mashi’akh loved His assembly and gave Himself up for her, that He might consecrate and cleanse her by the washing of water and by The Word, in order to build for Himself a glorious assembly, without stain or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she should be consecrated, and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27)
This is bridal language. It is covenant language. A bride divided among lovers is not spotless, and she is not free; she is enslaved to perversion. The prophetic voice is not cruel when it confronts that reality of syncretism—it is a faithful voice. True compassion is embodied in the courage to warn believers of coming judgment due to those sins, which Yeshua Himself did, many times, in very harsh, almost terrifying language.
This is why Yeshua warns: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘My Lord, My Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
And why Paul trembles: “I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Messiah.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)
Last, and perhaps the most sobering, Peter pronounced a sentence of DEATH on two BELIEVERS for lying to the Ru’akh HaKodesh, making themselves out to be more than they were, and God honored that pronouncement by striking both of the dead, because even after a warning, they did not repent.
3And Shimon said to him, “Khanan-Yah, why has HaSatan so filled your heart that you should lie to The Ru’akh HaKodesh and hide part of the money of the price of the field? 4Was it not your own before you sold it? And after it was sold, had you not the sole authority over its money? What made you think to do this thing? You have not only lied to men, but to Elohim.” ~Acts 5
Peter’s words were anything but ‘nice’.
A true prophetic voice does not shout for spectacle, nor whisper for approval. It stands between God and man, bearing the weight of both:
•God’s holiness
•Humanity’s fragile position
Paul asked of a congregation that was wandering from the truth in both doctrine and behavior, “Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” (1 Corinthians 4:21) He came at them with the rod of discipline. That was another use of a Rabbinic teaching tact.
Love and severity are not opposites. They are equal tools, chosen according to the need. To go “soft” where Scripture speaks sharply is not compassion—it is abdication, and it leads to blood-guilt on the teacher for not being courageous enough to tell the truth.
Ya’akov/James said it: “My brethren, let not many teachers be among you; but know that we [teachers] are under a greater judgment. For in many things we all stumble.” ~James 3:1-2
And God told Ezekiel to warn Israel, or their blood would be on his [Ezekiel’s] hands: “When I say unto the wicked, ‘You shall surely die’; and you do not give him warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.” ~Ezekiel 3:18
The prophets, Yeshua, and the apostles walk the narrow path between love and severity. We strive to as well. So, in an era where comfort often trumps conviction, teachers of the Word must wield hard language as a necessary instrument of truth, mirroring the unflinching rebukes of Yeshua and His apostles to uproot falsehood and safeguard the flock. A shepherd who will not engage the wolves is useless. Yet, far too many today sidestep all these many, piercing verses in the New Testament—those stark warnings against hypocrisy, syncretism, and doctrinal drift— ie, harlotry, preferring palatable messages that soothe rather than sharpen. This evasion is profoundly dangerous, leaving congregations exposed and ill-equipped to discern and dismantle bad doctrine, fostering a diluted faith that invites spiritual harlotry, division, and ultimately the peril of eternal judgment, as the Scriptures relentlessly attest.
Harsh words and warnings are sometimes used here in our congregation, just as Yeshua would, “in order to build for Himself a glorious assembly, without stain or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she should be consecrated, and without blemish.” He is going to reject the harlot, but receive the Bride who walks in the beauty of submission and humility. Humility often only comes through rebuke. That is the human condition.