Matthew 23:15

Matthew 23:15. Ye compass sea and land, i.e., spare no effort, to make one proselyte. Among the Jews there were two kinds of proselytes. 1. Those who embraced the Jewish religion, conforming to all its requirements, ‘proselytes of righteousness.' 2. Those who approved of it, accepting some of its rites, without being circumcised, ‘proselytes of the gate.' The former class is probably referred to here. Shutting the kingdom of heaven in the faces of their own people (Matthew 23:13), the Pharisees yet sought proselytes among the heathen. Real missionary effort was contrary to the spirit of the Pharisees, indicating too high an estimate of the Gentiles. Judaism was designed to diffuse certain religious ideas throughout the world, not to convert the world to Judaism. A proselyte of righteousness was really ‘neither a sincere heathen nor a sincere Jew.' The law could only proselyte, it could not convert

Two-fold more a son of hell than yourselves. ‘Proselytes' generally become more extreme than their teachers. In this case they would become Pharisees, rather than Jews, lacking even the remnant of good in their teachers. The usual result of sectarian zeal; for men are more easily perverted than converted; perverts are more violently zealous than converts; able to receive only the external forms, they attach to these the greater importance.