A lay reform movement and the popular party, not a priestly elite. Paul was one and never renounced it, and that changes how to read Matthew 23.
The honest answer to who were the Pharisees is that they were a lay reform movement, not a priestly elite, and they were the popular party. Roland Deines calls them the people's party of the first century.
Their project was making the law livable for ordinary people rather than keeping it in the temple. Paul was one, and stayed proud of it after his conversion. So was Nicodemus, and so was Gamaliel.
That does not cancel a word Jesus said about them. It changes who you think He was talking to, and it should change how the word gets used in church.
That was the Sadducees, the temple aristocracy. The Pharisees were mostly ordinary men with day jobs who took study seriously.
Deines describes them as “popular in the first century; they were the people's party”. Josephus says the same, and he was writing for Romans with no reason to flatter them.
Their interpretations frequently made purity regulations easier to keep for people without temple access, which is close to the opposite of the caricature.
Resurrection of the dead, angels, a coming age, and the authority of the whole Hebrew Bible. The Sadducees denied all of that. On doctrine, the New Testament sits with the Pharisees.
When Paul is on trial in Acts 23:6 he says I am a Pharisee, present tense, and uses it to split the room. He never renounces the label.
The Gospels are not uniformly hostile, and the exceptions are easy to miss because nobody preaches them.
John 3, then John 7:50 defending due process for Jesus, then John 19:39 bringing burial spices in public when the disciples had scattered.
Acts 5:34. He talks the council out of executing the apostles with an argument for restraint, and he is described as honoured by all the people.
Some Pharisees come and tell Jesus to leave because Herod wants to kill Him. They are trying to protect Him.
Agrees with Jesus about the greatest commandment, and Jesus tells him he is not far from the Kingdom of God.
Jesus also eats at Pharisees' houses repeatedly in Luke, which is not what you do with people you regard as enemies. Luke 7, Luke 11 and Luke 14 are all dinner invitations, and He accepts every one.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
The first is that Matthew 23 is real and we are not softening it. Jesus says woe to you seven times, calls them whitewashed tombs, and says they shut the door of the Kingdom in people's faces. That is in the Bible and it is ferocious.
But read what He actually charges them with. Loading burdens on people they will not carry themselves. Doing things to be seen. Tithing herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. Making converts and then ruining them. Every charge is about what their religion does to other people, not about caring too much about holiness.
The Pharisaic stream is the one that survived AD 70 and became rabbinic Judaism. Which means that when Pharisee is used as a slur, it lands on the ancestors of living Jewish people, and it has been used that way for centuries with results everybody knows.
We are going to be blunt. Preaching that treats Pharisee as a synonym for Jewish legalism, or sets a grace-filled Jesus against a joyless Judaism, is bad history and it feeds something ugly. Jesus was a Jewish teacher having a Jewish argument with other Jewish teachers, in a tradition where that kind of argument was normal and expected. Prophets talk to their own people that way. Amos and Jeremiah say harder things than Matthew 23 to their own nation.
And the modern use of the word in church is almost always aimed at the wrong target. It gets thrown at people who take Scripture seriously, want careful doctrine, or ask uncomfortable questions of leadership. None of that is what Jesus charged them with. If you want to use the word accurately, aim it at anybody laying weight on people they will not carry, or running a ministry that requires an audience.
The honest application is uncomfortable, which is the sign it is the right one. The Pharisees were the committed ones. The people who showed up, gave properly, studied and cared about getting it right. If a first century religious movement is going to correspond to anybody in a modern church, it is not the people at the back.
What does Jesus actually charge the Pharisees with in Matthew 23?
The third answer describes the Sadducees, not the Pharisees. Every charge in Matthew 23 concerns what their religion does to other people, which is a different accusation from taking obedience seriously.
If Pharisee simply meant hypocrite, one man in the New Testament makes that impossible.
“My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”
Acts 23:6I am, not I was. Decades after Damascus, on trial for his life, he identifies as one, and he does it to claim common ground on the resurrection.
In regard to the law, a Pharisee. He lists it among his credentials, then says he counts it loss compared to Christ. Loss, not lies.
Trained under Gamaliel, thoroughly in the law of our ancestors, zealous for God just as all of you are today. He grants his opponents sincerity.
He says he would be cut off from Christ if it meant his own people were saved. That is not how anybody talks about a group they despise.
Here is what makes sense of the whole thing. Jesus argued hardest with the Pharisees because they were the closest to Him.
They believed in resurrection. He did. They took Scripture as authoritative. He did. They thought God cared about ordinary life outside the temple. So did He. On the things that divided first century Judaism, they were largely on the same side, which is exactly why the remaining disagreements mattered so much.
You do not have a long argument with somebody you have nothing in common with. The debates in the Gospels are close-quarters debates between people using the same texts, and that is why they are heated.
So the useful question is not who were the Pharisees. It is what happens to a serious, committed, correct religious movement over time, and whether the thing it produces still reaches the people it was meant for. That question has never stopped being relevant, and it was never aimed only at them.
For related ground, see haughty eyes, righteousness, who Barabbas was, the apostle definition, Old Testament and New, pride in the Bible and the new covenant.
A lay reform movement and the popular party rather than a priestly elite, holding doctrines the church kept, producing Nicodemus and Gamaliel and Paul, charged by Jesus with burdening people rather than with taking holiness seriously, and misused as a slur that lands on living Jewish people.
It usually gets aimed at people asking careful questions, which is not what the word means. Send it in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will work through it with you.
A lay reform movement rather than a priestly elite, and by most accounts the popular party of the first century. Roland Deines describes them as the people's party, and Josephus says the same while writing for a Roman audience with no reason to flatter them. Their project was making the law livable for ordinary people rather than keeping it confined to the temple.
Resurrection of the dead, angels and spirits, a coming age, and the authority of the whole Hebrew Bible alongside oral interpretation. The Sadducees, the temple aristocracy, denied most of that. On the doctrines the church kept, the New Testament sits with the Pharisees rather than against them, which is why Paul could appeal to them on trial.
Matthew 23 is ferocious and should not be softened, but read the charges. Loading burdens on people they will not carry. Doing things to be seen. Tithing herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. Making converts and then ruining them. Every charge concerns what their religion does to other people, not about caring too much about holiness.
Several. Nicodemus argues for due process in John 7:50 and brings burial spices in John 19:39 when the disciples had scattered. Gamaliel talks the council out of executing the apostles in Acts 5:34. Some Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill Him in Luke 13:31. Jesus also accepts dinner invitations from them in Luke 7, 11 and 14.
Because the Pharisaic stream is the one that survived AD 70 and became rabbinic Judaism, so the slur lands on the ancestors of living Jewish people and has been used that way for centuries. Jesus was a Jewish teacher having a Jewish argument with other Jewish teachers, in a tradition where prophets spoke to their own people that way.