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Defeating Pharisaism: Recovering Jesus' Disciple-Making Method
Pharisaism (legalism, dogmatism, separatism, judgmentalism, etc.) is alive and well and a destructive force in too many evangelical churches.
This plague hinders effective outreach, burns out professional and lay leaders and has contributed to the mass alienation of tens of thousands of young people from evangelical churches to the point where they have no church affiliation at all or they associate with churches that may have compromised the gospel in their attempt to be culturally relevant.
This book makes the point that the key to defeating Pharisaism is by proactively steering people away from Pharisaism while at the same time showing them the life-giving truth that is found in true kingdom living, beautifully communicated through the Sermon on the Mount. As Jesus trained his disciples, he kept pointing at the Pharisees and saying, "Do not be like them."
Part Understanding Pharisaism
1. Who Were Those Guys?
2. Bad Blood
3. An Inconvenient Truth
Part Understanding the Sermon on the Mount
4. Location! Location! Location!
5. You Gotta Pay Your Dues!
6. Coming Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 5
7. Weight Where It Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 6
8. "I d Rather See a Sermon": Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 7
Part Using the Sermon on the Mount to Defeat Pharisaism
9. This is How Business Gets Effective Disciple Making in the Contemporary Church
10. Brass How to Defeat Pharisaism in Your Church
This plague hinders effective outreach, burns out professional and lay leaders and has contributed to the mass alienation of tens of thousands of young people from evangelical churches to the point where they have no church affiliation at all or they associate with churches that may have compromised the gospel in their attempt to be culturally relevant.
This book makes the point that the key to defeating Pharisaism is by proactively steering people away from Pharisaism while at the same time showing them the life-giving truth that is found in true kingdom living, beautifully communicated through the Sermon on the Mount. As Jesus trained his disciples, he kept pointing at the Pharisees and saying, "Do not be like them."
Part Understanding Pharisaism
1. Who Were Those Guys?
2. Bad Blood
3. An Inconvenient Truth
Part Understanding the Sermon on the Mount
4. Location! Location! Location!
5. You Gotta Pay Your Dues!
6. Coming Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 5
7. Weight Where It Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 6
8. "I d Rather See a Sermon": Jesus, the Pharisees, and Disciple Making in Matthew 7
Part Using the Sermon on the Mount to Defeat Pharisaism
9. This is How Business Gets Effective Disciple Making in the Contemporary Church
10. Brass How to Defeat Pharisaism in Your Church
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2009
2 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 28, 2019
Rather than rating the book as a whole, I'll rate each of it's 3 parts:
Understanding Pharisaism: 4 stars.
Understanding the Sermon on the Mount: 5 stars.
Using the Sermon on the Mount to Defeat Pharisaism: 2 stars.
In the first section, Tyra provides an excellent history of how the Pharisees came into being, their distinct beliefs, their role in Jewish society at the time of Jesus, and the points of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees. In this section he also provides a brief history of evangelical religious systems, and how we can tend toward Pharisaism. There are interesting parallels between synagogue and church, teacher of the law and pastor, law and Bible.
The second section Tyra argues that the gospel of Matthew, and specifically the Sermon on the Mount, was written to remind first century disciples of the difference between Pharisaical discipleship and discipleship to Jesus.
Judaizers, and religious Christians since then, have been tempted to turn discipleship into a system of spiritual certainty. Tyra asks the question, "Could it be that at the heart of historic Pharisaism there existed not simply a concern for integrity but also an inordinate need to be certain, to be in control, to be able to determine precisely who was pleasing to God and who was not?" He shows how the pursuit of control and certainty can be spiritually dangerous - then and now.
Tyra demonstrates how Jesus targeted the heart while the Pharisees focused on ritual. Additionally, the Pharisees had put the law at the center of their spirituality. For contemporary Christians, the subtle deception of Pharisaical religion is that it replaces commitment to a Person with commitment to a book, tradition, or sub-culture. On the surface Pharisees look like the true and committed believers. Pharisaical religion sells.
Lastly, Tyra provides a curriculum for using the Sermon on the Mount as a disciple making catechism within the local church. His summary of Barna's four observations regarding disciple making churches is helpful, yet he implies that the primary responsibility for discipleship is in the hands of the church leaders, the context for discipleship is the local church, and the process is a program.
In my opinion, Tyra's recommendation to use the Sermon on the Mount as a disciple-making curriculum doesn't go far enough. It remains a church-centered, Bible-centered discipleship in contrast to the relational, Spirit-led discipleship that Jesus practiced. Though the title of Tyra's book is about "Recovering Jesus' Disciple Making Method," he actually focuses more on Jesus' "Disciple Making Content." This is important, but it's not the whole story.
A better application of the first two sections would have focused on making disciples the way Jesus did rather than the content of his teaching. Though Jesus taught in the synagogues, the synagogue isn't presented in the gospels as the primary place where discipleship happened. How can we recover disciple making that happens at weddings, in homes, while walking down the street or crossing a lake in a boat?
The first two sections are very important for anyone who believes discipleship should be at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Skip the last section and instead, spend some time in the gospel of Matthew learning from the life of Jesus how he made disciples. While putting these things into practice yourself, then use the Sermon on the Mount as the topic of conversation with your family, your neighbors, your colleagues.
This book helped me see the Pharisaical tendencies in my own life and tribe. It also reminded me that discipleship to Jesus will often result in confrontation with those who claim to follow him.
Good book.
Understanding Pharisaism: 4 stars.
Understanding the Sermon on the Mount: 5 stars.
Using the Sermon on the Mount to Defeat Pharisaism: 2 stars.
In the first section, Tyra provides an excellent history of how the Pharisees came into being, their distinct beliefs, their role in Jewish society at the time of Jesus, and the points of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees. In this section he also provides a brief history of evangelical religious systems, and how we can tend toward Pharisaism. There are interesting parallels between synagogue and church, teacher of the law and pastor, law and Bible.
The second section Tyra argues that the gospel of Matthew, and specifically the Sermon on the Mount, was written to remind first century disciples of the difference between Pharisaical discipleship and discipleship to Jesus.
Judaizers, and religious Christians since then, have been tempted to turn discipleship into a system of spiritual certainty. Tyra asks the question, "Could it be that at the heart of historic Pharisaism there existed not simply a concern for integrity but also an inordinate need to be certain, to be in control, to be able to determine precisely who was pleasing to God and who was not?" He shows how the pursuit of control and certainty can be spiritually dangerous - then and now.
Tyra demonstrates how Jesus targeted the heart while the Pharisees focused on ritual. Additionally, the Pharisees had put the law at the center of their spirituality. For contemporary Christians, the subtle deception of Pharisaical religion is that it replaces commitment to a Person with commitment to a book, tradition, or sub-culture. On the surface Pharisees look like the true and committed believers. Pharisaical religion sells.
Lastly, Tyra provides a curriculum for using the Sermon on the Mount as a disciple making catechism within the local church. His summary of Barna's four observations regarding disciple making churches is helpful, yet he implies that the primary responsibility for discipleship is in the hands of the church leaders, the context for discipleship is the local church, and the process is a program.
In my opinion, Tyra's recommendation to use the Sermon on the Mount as a disciple-making curriculum doesn't go far enough. It remains a church-centered, Bible-centered discipleship in contrast to the relational, Spirit-led discipleship that Jesus practiced. Though the title of Tyra's book is about "Recovering Jesus' Disciple Making Method," he actually focuses more on Jesus' "Disciple Making Content." This is important, but it's not the whole story.
A better application of the first two sections would have focused on making disciples the way Jesus did rather than the content of his teaching. Though Jesus taught in the synagogues, the synagogue isn't presented in the gospels as the primary place where discipleship happened. How can we recover disciple making that happens at weddings, in homes, while walking down the street or crossing a lake in a boat?
The first two sections are very important for anyone who believes discipleship should be at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Skip the last section and instead, spend some time in the gospel of Matthew learning from the life of Jesus how he made disciples. While putting these things into practice yourself, then use the Sermon on the Mount as the topic of conversation with your family, your neighbors, your colleagues.
This book helped me see the Pharisaical tendencies in my own life and tribe. It also reminded me that discipleship to Jesus will often result in confrontation with those who claim to follow him.
Good book.
June 15, 2022
Gary Tyra looks at the pharisees and finds that they are us. This book will cause you to look at your own heart and help you to move away from the tendency we have to be hypocritical.
June 7, 2016
An excellent book with solid ideas on the spiritual malaise affecting American evangelical churches and how to address it. Tyra goes a little overboard trying to prove irony and anti-Pharisaism in every nook and cranny of Matthew. Every verse doesn't have to contain these themes to make them relevant to the interpretation of the book. But this quibble aside, this is a great read for church/ministry leaders. Buy the print edition. The Kindle formatting was awful. I don't know how a publisher can produce a product like that.
November 10, 2017
Why so technical?
But hey, sermon on the amount is so underrated. Should be spoken about more, in deeper conversation.
But hey, sermon on the amount is so underrated. Should be spoken about more, in deeper conversation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews