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A Day in the Life · The World of the Pharisees
No group in the Gospels is more misunderstood. We use "Pharisee" as an insult, but in their own day they were the most respected, most devout men in Israel. Let us walk through the life of one honestly: his real zeal, his crowded schedule of devotion, the good in it, the danger in it, and the surprising few who left it all to follow Jesus.
His World at a Glance
A lay movement devoted to holiness; the name most likely means "the separated ones."
Alongside Scripture they followed "the tradition of the elders," a body of oral rules (Mark 7:3).
They tithed with such care that it reached even garden herbs like mint and cummin (Matthew 23:23).
A devout Pharisee fasted "twice in the week" and prayed at the set hours (Luke 18:12).
They bound Scripture in phylacteries and wore fringed garments (Matthew 23:5).
Unlike the Sadducees, they confessed the resurrection, angels, and spirits (Acts 23:8).
A word before we begin, and it matters here more than usual. It is easy, and unfair, to paint every Pharisee as a scheming villain. The Gospels do not. They show real devotion alongside real hypocrisy, and they record Pharisees who became disciples. So we will be honest about both the good and the danger, and careful not to slander sincere men. Some details, such as their numbers, come from ancient Jewish historians and are estimates; the oral law they followed was spoken in Jesus' day and only written down much later. The Bible is our anchor, and it treats these men with both severity and mercy.
A Life Ordered by Devotion
He rises before the sun and washes with care, for purity governs his whole day. He binds the small Scripture cases to his arm and forehead, wraps himself in his fringed garment, and turns to prayer at the appointed hour. Much of his day is given to the Law: reading it, reciting it, discussing its finest points with other learned men, and measuring every action, what he eats, whom he touches, how he tithes, against both the written Law and the traditions handed down from the elders. Twice this week he will fast. He is not a fraud; by every visible standard, he is one of the holiest men in his town.
That is the thing to grasp first: the Pharisees were admired, and often deserved it. They loved the Scriptures, guarded the Sabbath, gave generously, and longed for God's kingdom. Any honest study has to start there. Now the real questions.
The Questions You'd Actually Ask
They were a movement, not an office. Unlike the priests, who were born to their role, the Pharisees were mostly laymen, teachers and devout students of the Law, bound together by a shared commitment to keep the whole Law with great strictness and to live set apart for God. Their name most likely comes from a Hebrew word (perushim) meaning "the separated ones." They were highly respected by ordinary people and carried great influence in the synagogues, well beyond their actual numbers.
Chiefly two things. First, they held to "the tradition of the elders," a large body of oral rules built up around the written Law to help apply it to daily life (Mark 7:3). They treated this tradition as binding. Second, unlike the priestly Sadducees, they firmly believed in the resurrection of the dead, and in angels and spirits: "the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both" (Acts 23:8). On those points, the Pharisees were closer to the truth than their rivals, which is one reason Jesus engaged them so directly.
He pursued holiness in the details. His day was framed by set times of prayer and by constant attention to the Law: study, recitation, and scrupulous obedience. He was careful about ritual washing and about what made a person clean or unclean. He tithed meticulously, so meticulously that Jesus noted they paid tithe even "of mint and anise and cummin" (Matthew 23:23). He fasted twice a week and gave alms. It was, by any measure, a demanding, disciplined religious life.
They were ways of literally wearing the Word of God. Taking commands like "thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes" (Deuteronomy 6:8), they wore small leather cases (phylacteries) containing Scripture on the arm and forehead, and they wore the fringed garments God had commanded in the Law. None of that was wrong in itself. The problem came when some began to "make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments" (Matthew 23:5), turning signs of devotion into a display to be "seen of men."
Not simply villains, and this is important. Jesus' sharpest words were not aimed at devotion but at hypocrisy, and at a handful of specific errors. They let their oral tradition override God's actual Word, "making the word of God of none effect through your tradition" (Mark 7:13). They majored on tiny details while neglecting "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith" (Matthew 23:23). They did their good works "to be seen of men," and were clean on the outside while unclean within, like "whited sepulchres" (Matthew 23:27). And many trusted in their own righteousness (Luke 18:9–14). It was the gap between the outward show and the inward heart that Jesus condemned, not the desire to obey God.
Yes, and that is one of the most hopeful threads in the Gospels. Nicodemus, "a man of the Pharisees... a ruler of the Jews," came to Jesus by night, defended Him, and helped bury Him (John 3:1; 7:50–51; 19:39). Gamaliel, a respected Pharisee, urged caution against fighting the apostles (Acts 5:34–39). Some Pharisees openly believed (Acts 15:5). And greatest of all, a zealous young Pharisee named Saul, who once hunted Christians, was met by the risen Christ and became the apostle Paul. No one was too religious, or too far into the wrong system, for grace to reach.
Where It Lands
Here is the lesson the Pharisee presses on us, and it is a searching one. It is possible to be sincere, moral, disciplined, biblically knowledgeable, and admired for your holiness, and still not be right with God. The Pharisees prove that religion at its most devoted is not the same as being saved. That is not a comfortable thought for anyone who takes faith seriously; it is meant to drive us deeper than outward devotion.
Watch what Jesus said to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a ruler, a good and serious man: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God... Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:5, 7). All of Nicodemus's devotion could not substitute for the new birth. And Paul, once "touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless," came to "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ" (Philippians 3:6–8). The whole Pharisee story points the same way: not to less devotion, but to the one thing devotion cannot manufacture, being born again of water and Spirit. That is why the apostles preached repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus, and the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38). It is the very thing the most religious man in Israel still needed, and so do we.
For You
It is easy to read about the Pharisees and feel superior, which is exactly the trap. The honest question is not "aren't they awful?" but "am I doing the same thing?" Do I care more about looking right than being right? Do I keep the small rules while neglecting mercy, honesty, and love? Is my religion mostly outward?
Let the Pharisee send you past mere performance to the real thing. Ask God for a clean heart, not just clean hands. Trust in Christ's righteousness, not your own record. And make sure you have not only admired the truth or obeyed a list, but have actually been born again of water and of the Spirit. That new birth is the one door no amount of devotion can replace, and it stands open to you.
Carry It With You
John 3:7 KJV
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."
For the Historical Notes
Scripture is quoted from the KJV. The description of the Pharisees is drawn from the New Testament and standard scholarship on Second Temple Judaism. Estimated figures and later-written sources are noted as such in the study.
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