Matthew 23:27-28 - “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.

Former President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech of his party’s nomination for the November US elections, was an hour and thirty-two minutes long, according to CNN. It was the longest acceptance speech ever, CNN said. However, the news network reported, there was little new but a great deal of Trump’s old false claims. The biggest falsehood was that the 2020 elections were rigged, CNN said.

CNN’s fact-checking brings to mind Jesus’ criticisms against scribes and Pharisees recorded in Luke 11:37-54 and Matthew 23:1-39, Mark 12:35-40 and Luke 20:45-47.

These series of criticisms are known as the Woes of the Pharisees. The woes criticise the Pharisees for hypocrisy and perjury. They illustrate the differences between the inner and moral states.

Jesus, Matthew says, criticised them for taking the place of honour at banquets, for wearing ostentatious clothing, and for encouraging people to call them rabbi. Jesus portrayed the Pharisees as impatient with outward, ritual observance of minutiae which made them look acceptable and virtuous but left the inner person unreformed.

The eight woes are recorded by Google as:[3]

1. They taught about God, but did not love God – they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.

2. They enriched themselves by the estates of widows using the appearance of devoutness.

3. They preached God but converted people to dead religion.

4. They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness?

5. They taught the law but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices, but not the weightier matters of the law.

6. They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), but they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, and carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.

7. They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law but were, in fact, not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones.

8. They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets when, in fact, they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.

As we read these criticisms, we cannot avoid thinking how each of us would measure up in our own roles as leaders of our families, villages, businesses, political parties, church - whatever.

As for the global stage, whenever I see the president of Ukraine in his t-shirt, I think of that old saying - clothes maketh a man – and think – did people really believe that?

As I listened to Former President Trump I can’t help asking: what would the world be like with this man as the so-called leader of the Western world? He did not do so well in his first time as president of the United States and his claimed friendship with President Putin of Russia and his bromance with President Un of North Korea, both dictators, confirmed the thoughts of many Americans and others, that Trump wanted to rule like them. In fact, Trump is on the record that he will be a dictator for only one day – the first day of his new presidency if he wins.

As far as the Republican Party is concerned he has already won. He has definitely won over those who criticised him severely early on in the campaign Those who branded him as a pathological liar, an idiot, and unfit for office and other names now sing his praises as they voice outright support for him.

He is of course a convicted felon.

As things stand, it looks like Trump will win in November.

In that event, we will have to ask: Has nothing really changed since the woes of the Pharisees?

Will the blood of the Ukrainians and the Palestinians be all on our heads?

Sorry about that. But have a happy Sunday anyway.