Quotes about Pharisee

For the pharisee the emphasis is always on personal effort and achievement. The gospel of grace emphasizes the primacy of God's love. The pharisee savors impeccable conduct; the child delights in the relentless tenderness of God.

If we continue to focus solely on the sinner/saint duality in our person and conduct, while ignoring the raging opposition between the Pharisee and the child, spiritual growth will come to an abrupt standstill.

My indwelling pharisee has devised a way to disembowel my true self, deny my humanity, and camouflage my emotions through a fraudulent mental maneuver called "spiritualizing.

But the vicar of St. Botolph's had certainly escaped the slightest tincture of the Pharisee, and by dint of admitting to himself that he was too much as other men were, he had become remarkably unlike them in this - that he could excuse others for thinking slightly of him, and could judge impartially of their conduct even when it told against him. [from Middlemarch, a quote my mother thinks describes the kind of man my father was]

Pharisee-type believers unconsciously think they've earned God's blessing through their behavior. Guilt-laden believers are sure they've forfeited God's blessing through disobedience or lack of discipline. Both have forgotten the meaning of grace - God's unmerited favor to those who deserve only His wrath.

A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself.

God, I thank thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this publican. It is in that which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is in the very thanksgiving which we render to God, it may be in the very confession that God has done it all, that self finds its cause of complacency. Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself.

Joseph is the wearisomest and self-righteous Pharisee who ever ransacked the Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbor.

He was, and is yet, most likely, the wearisomest, self-righteous pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself, and fling the curses on his neighbours.

He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.

See how ye Pharisee in the Temple stands, And justifies himself with lifted hands. Whilst ye poor publican with downcast eyes, Conscious of guilt to God for mercy cries.