“The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” follows “The Parable of the Persistent Widow”. This is the last parable that is unique to Luke’s gospel. Three more follow. However, they are in another gospel account and thus not unique to Luke.
Luke supplies a comment at the beginning, as he had done with former parables. He states that Jesus gave this parable to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. The arrogant and proud were addressed.
The self-righteous are well-defined. They are contrasted with a tax collector. The two have somethings in common. They are men. They are Jews. Most notably, both went to the temple to pray.
Periods for prayer were scheduled daily at the temple in connection with the morning and evening sacrifices. People could also go to the temple at any time for private prayer. This was probably the former time and not the latter. So more would be present than the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee would be sitting with those like him during the public prayer time. The Parisees would not permit others to be near them, which is sadly often true of congregations today. “Birds of a feather flock together”, as the old saying goes. In this case, the saying can be, “The self-righteous put others in cages.”
A difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector is that the Pharisee stood up by himself to pray about himself. This can also read that he prayed to himself. Though he gave thanks to God, the topic of thanksgiving is how much better he was than others. He specifically mentioned that he was thankful that he was not like the tax collector who was obviously in sight of all those with him.
The Pharisee gave two examples of how he was better than others. First, he fasted twice a week, which was not required in the Law. The only fasting in the Mosaic Law was during the Day of Atonement. Secondly, he gave a tenth of all he got. In addition to tithing earnings required by Mosaic Law to support the Levites (Numbers 18:21), the Pharisee had tithed everything that he possessed, even in the smallest matters like mint and cummin (Luke 11:42). In short, the Pharisee had the appearance of great piety for the sake of bragging rights.
Tomorrow’s BDBD will look at the tax collector and Jesus’s conclusion.
