The purpose of learning, understanding and teaching God's Word is that people may come to know Him and enter His eternal kingdom. The Pharisees were expert theologians, or so they thought, and were confident that they knew the Old Testament. They certainly knew a lot, and also thought they had the right to invent more rules in addition to God's laws.
 
But they did not know God. They knew about God, and taught about His kingdom, but they had no relationship with Him. So they could not introduce people to the heart of God. Worse, they prevented people getting to know Him because they hated Jesus. It was as though they had locked the gates of heaven and thrown away the key.
 
Such religious regulators are spiritual vandals. They can gain nothing from obstructing people who want to follow and yet they deface the meaning of God's Word; and are driven to destroy the work of God. Their own lust for power and personal approval propels them into founding their own kingdoms and so makes them hate God's kingdom. While they profess to honour the Lord, their malicious instincts show themselves whenever Jesus Christ is the centre of attention.
 
The disciples needed to understand that church leadership must not be like that. Yet it is still a problem in churches all over the world. When local teachers and professional theologians twist the trust to suit their own lifestyles, and when clergy are curators of tradition, they are spiritual vandals ... defacing the truth of the gospel so that it does not derail their own ideas and lifestyles, and at the same time preventing hungry people to be fed with real truth. Everybody involved in any kind of ministry should look to themselves in this matter. Repentance is seen when God's Word is obeyed. The unrepentant will find that Jesus will disown them (Matthew 7:23).