Luke 20:45-47

In the hearing of all the people he [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

I don't know that Jerusalem in the first century had a ghetto, but I'm willing to bet it had some pretty shady people. Thieves. Murderers. Rapists. Alcoholics. These aren't new things, people have regarded themselves as god or found ways to solicit others for their own benefit since Cain and Abel. And yet who does Jesus warn us about? He doesn't say to his disciples, "Hey don't hang around 5th and Lincoln, you might get the junk beat out of you." Instead he says "Beware of the scribes."

Who were the scribes? Originally scribes were those who were trained in writing skills and were used to record events and decisions. During the exile to Babylon, they became heavily relied upon for the handwritten preservation and teaching of scripture. Ezra was a scribe who was called on by God to "study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. " (Ezra 7:10) Doesn't sound like much of a punk does he?

Well, hundreds of years pass and something must have happened for Jesus to dub them dangerous. In this text Jesus reveals their hearts: that being a scribe is no longer so much about honoring God as it is about exalting oneself. The term scribe became a professional title only belonging to the religious elite who loved to bask in their own glory instead of God's. See the tendency of Jesus' disciples is not to become a criminal, it's that our hearts will become proud.

Jesus is saying to beware of pride in your heart. In my heart. Where is it that we can become proud in our lives? The easiest place to become proud is at church. When we begin to think that we are in any greater standing before God than the world around us because of our morality, or the extent of our knowledge of scripture, or whether or not we've read the ancient texts of Augustine, that is when we have already compromised the gospel of grace.

Beware of anything that can lead you into pride and approach humbly the throne room of God.