The purpose of learning, understanding and teaching God's Word is that people may come to know Him, enter His eternal kingdom, treasure Him and love Him (Colossians 2:2-3). The Pharisees were expert theologians, or so they thought, and were confident that they knew the Old Testament. However, they kept a tight grip on the people by controlling the details of their lives by inventing many 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. That is why they could not introduce people to the heart of God. Worse than that, they prevented people getting to know God because they hated Jesus. He is the key to accessing all of God’s love, forgiveness, grace to serve and eternal life. To claim to honour God but deny that Jesus is the only way to come to Him, is like locking the gates of heaven and throwing away the key (Luke 11:52).

Such religious regulators are spiritual vandals, achieving nothing that builds up the people of God’s kingdom. Although they gain publicity, they are not servants of God because they obstruct people from coming to God. In short, they are driven to destroy the work of God; and that is a demonic agenda (John 8:42-47). Their own lust for power and personal approval propels them into founding their own kingdoms, because they actually hate God's kingdom. While they profess to honour the Lord, their self-serving and devil-pleasing instincts show themselves by their opposition to Jesus Christ as God the Son.

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. They deface the truth of the gospel to boost their own ideas and lifestyles but, at the same time, prevent hungry people being 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).