This post was last updated on October 30, 2025

Day 272, Year 1

Beware of Seducers

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15 NKJV)

In the New Testament, apart from bullying the vulnerable, the scribes and Pharisees, etc., seduced those who had the potential to do evil and made them worse. In view of this, they were adept at identifying and exploiting different kinds of people. Conversely, do believers know how to recognize various types of people? Today’s verse says, “they traveled land and sea to win one proselyte.” This demonstrates their hard work and perseverance. So, do we have more diligence and determination to find people who have the potential to believe in the Lord?

The second half of today refers to how the community of the Pharisees, etc., operated, which made the converts “twice as much sons of hell.” This reflects their relentless recruitment and training ruse. In other words, they not only knew how to corrupt people but also how to plant the seeds of evil in the hearts of others. The most difficult evil to guard against is not the obvious sin of murder or the like, but rather how they take advantage of God’s words and make subtle distortions of them, leading followers unknowingly down a wrong path while believing they are in the right. They exploited God’s teachings to send people continually to hell, and encouraged people to have worse and more wicked creativity and zeal to do evil.

There was a reason why they were grooming someone worse than themselves in the community. Perhaps, as the proselytes sank deeper into depravity, the leader could maintain a better position of nobility, so that the community remained polished on the surface while continuing to rot inside. Such a dynamic, where one finds happiness in the downfall of others, contradicts human nature. It may also be the main cause for the eventual demise of their community. Thus, if we encounter hypocrites but do not resist them, our lives will very likely be jeopardized.

In reality, is there someone in God’s community who encourages you to gain a clearer understanding of His Word and to promote your spiritual experience to the next level? A community of believers should emphasize receiving insights from God and how to obey His Word, and be zealous in loving God and serving others. True spiritual teaching will enable learners to become more capable than their teachers, while God’s people desire the new generation of believers to excel beyond them.

Reflection questions:

1) Can you discern the different types of people you know, and even how God wants to use them?

2) Do you have more diligence and perseverance than those bad people in seeking out potential ones to come to Christ and in focusing on helping them grow spiritually?