Jesus frequently found Himself at odds with the two major religious factions of His day. These were the Sadducees, an influential group among the wealthy and powerful in first-century Jerusalem, and the Pharisees, who at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry held the high priesthood and dominated the Jewish courts.

The Sadducees would, in political terms, have been considered the liberal party. The Sadducees disregarded everything spiritual — they did not believe in the soul of man, or in resurrection, or an afterlife, or even in angels (Acts 23:8). Jesus said of them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Because of their disavowal of eternal consequences, the Sadducees were hedonistic and worldly.

The Pharisees, conversely, would have been regarded as the more conservative faction. The Pharisees believed in everything the Sadducees did not — including a resurrection, and human spirit, and heaven and hell. They were noted as rigorous interpreters and observers of the law. Even Jesus acknowledged them as being capable teachers to a certain degree, but poor examples: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do” (Matthew 23:2-3).

(There was actually a third party, the Essenes, who were even more strictly pious than the Pharisees. By the first century, however, their influence had waned, and by the end of the apostolic period their membership had mostly been absorbed with the Pharisees.)

In one of His disputes with the Pharisees, Jesus pronounced condemnation on them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” (Matthew 23:23). As faithful as they strove (or at least pretended) to be in many areas, the Lord found the Pharisees lacking in several more that truly counted.

The Pharisees failed in justice. They were so fiercely concerned with their own position and reputation that they willingly trampled over others to elevate themselves: “All their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’”(Matthew 23:5-7). They had forgotten that one of the foremost requirements of God is to treat others justly (Micah 6:8).

The Pharisees failed in mercy. Jesus said of them, “They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:4). They robbed poor widows of their charity (Matthew 23:14). They even denied their own aging parents the benefit of their material support, by claiming their possessions were dedicated to God and therefore could not be given away (Mark 7:9-13). Again, they forgot the words of the prophet Micah, that God requires that His servants “love mercy” (Micah 6:8).

The Pharisees failed in faith. Their problem was not a lack of belief in God, but a failure to allow that belief to draw them closer to Him in submissive obedience. The did not learn the lesson of their ancestor Abraham, whose faith was accounted as righteousness because it caused Abraham to obey the Lord in everything (James 2:20-24), or as Micah put it, to walk humbly with his God (Micah 6:8).