This is an extract from Ravi Zacharias' podcast "Ichabod, Where is the Glory? (part 2 of 4)"
"Righteousness became a set of laws and they measured themselves by a piece of paper. If they could check off a, b, c, d, and e externally, then they saw themselves righteous, they never wanted to look into their hearts if internally they were right before almighty God. Let me show you how this developed:
"In the 3rd century, there was a plurality of questions being raised by people about what righteousness really was. And the Israelite sophisticated thinkers began to say, you know we've got all these laws but we don't understand them. So they began to develop a kind of a scholarship, or a hierarchy that would explain to the masses what righteousness really was. And the scholarship began to deal with laws and more laws and more laws, commentaries and commentaries and explanations and illustrations all to explain the laws.
"And so they came up with the Mishna. The Mishna had about 800 pages in it discussing the Law. Now after the Mishna was written, they still had problems, so they wrote the Talmud. And the Talmud began to explain the Mishna, which in turn had explained the Law. And do you know how many volumes they had in the Talmud? 72 volumes in the Talmud, 60 in the Babylonian Talmud, 12 in the Jerusalem Talmud. What is interesting is, you see, how could they do this? Do you know that one Rabbi spent two and a half years studying one commandment -- to keep the sabbath holy? He spent two and a half years studying one commandment and wrote an hundred and fifty six page dissertation on what it means to keep the sabbath holy!
"Now I have been in to many academic institutions and i've heard about what they called padding. You write and write and write hoping that the professor will grade you on the basis of weight rather than on the basis of content and you hope that somewhere if you write with the abundance of words some possibility remains that you will nudge in the direction of the truth and you could get a passing grade. I don't know what he wrote on the 156 page as in what he did over the two and a half years but i can give you one paragraph from it and that gives you an idea what he wrote in the rest of the 155 pages.
"One of the questions raised was, in the Sabbath it says, you shall not do any work, but the question arises what does it mean by work? And the answer is many many fold. One of the things is you are not allowed to lift any weight on the sabbath day. Because if you lift a weight your body is working and your muscles are involved and you will therefore be working, which means you are violating the law. But then that's not good enough explanation, the question is what is a weight? Because if i lift my foot i am lifting a weight. Now granted some may be weightier than others in this but you are lifting a weight. When you are lifting your shoe, you are lifting a weight. So this Rabbi decided he was going to try and answer it. Please listen to how he answers it, I just want to give you a few examples here:
"What is a burden you may ask? Milk enough for a gulp. You cannot lift any milk that is voluminously more than a gulp that you can gulp. If it's too much for a gulp, then you are lifting too much of milk. Honey enough to put on a sore. Oil enough to anoint on the smallest member, which is further defined as a little toe of child one day old. I suppose there was some agreed idea on what a child one day old should weigh. Water enough to rub off an eye plaster. Leather enough to make an amulet. Ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet. Course sand enough to cover the plaster of a trough. Reed enough to make a pen. A pebble big enough to throw at a bird and anything that weighs as much as 2 dried figs. And he goes on and on and here is the winner: If your child falls on a sabbath and skins his knee, you are allowed by the law to take a bandage and tie it over that knee but you are not allowed to take any medicine and put it on the wound and then tie the bandage because if you put the medicine the wound would start to get better which means the body is working and your body is not allowed to work on the sabbath, so tie a bandage to keep it from getting worse but do not put any medicine to help it get better.
"Now can you see what it took to be a righteous man? You have to know all of that stuff! Which means the Theologians became the dominant power of the day on what righteousness was all about and the common man had completely lost out he was just trying to do his thing and the scholar was just formally endowed and saying you are not a righteous man, neither do you know the law nor do you understand it. Fascinatingly, Jesus comes as the Messiah. And they didn't understand him, they castigated him. They missed the fact that righteousness was an internal matter."
"One of the questions raised was, in the Sabbath it says, you shall not do any work, but the question arises what does it mean by work? And the answer is many many fold. One of the things is you are not allowed to lift any weight on the sabbath day. Because if you lift a weight your body is working and your muscles are involved and you will therefore be working, which means you are violating the law. But then that's not good enough explanation, the question is what is a weight? Because if i lift my foot i am lifting a weight. Now granted some may be weightier than others in this but you are lifting a weight. When you are lifting your shoe, you are lifting a weight. So this Rabbi decided he was going to try and answer it. Please listen to how he answers it, I just want to give you a few examples here:
"What is a burden you may ask? Milk enough for a gulp. You cannot lift any milk that is voluminously more than a gulp that you can gulp. If it's too much for a gulp, then you are lifting too much of milk. Honey enough to put on a sore. Oil enough to anoint on the smallest member, which is further defined as a little toe of child one day old. I suppose there was some agreed idea on what a child one day old should weigh. Water enough to rub off an eye plaster. Leather enough to make an amulet. Ink enough to write two letters of the alphabet. Course sand enough to cover the plaster of a trough. Reed enough to make a pen. A pebble big enough to throw at a bird and anything that weighs as much as 2 dried figs. And he goes on and on and here is the winner: If your child falls on a sabbath and skins his knee, you are allowed by the law to take a bandage and tie it over that knee but you are not allowed to take any medicine and put it on the wound and then tie the bandage because if you put the medicine the wound would start to get better which means the body is working and your body is not allowed to work on the sabbath, so tie a bandage to keep it from getting worse but do not put any medicine to help it get better.
"Now can you see what it took to be a righteous man? You have to know all of that stuff! Which means the Theologians became the dominant power of the day on what righteousness was all about and the common man had completely lost out he was just trying to do his thing and the scholar was just formally endowed and saying you are not a righteous man, neither do you know the law nor do you understand it. Fascinatingly, Jesus comes as the Messiah. And they didn't understand him, they castigated him. They missed the fact that righteousness was an internal matter."
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