“Everything they do is of men to see”
“They tie up heavy burdens and put these on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”
“They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long...they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues.”
“They love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them “Rabbi”
Now this looks allot like Catholic leadership does it not?
to continue....”You have only one Master and you are brothers. And do not call anyone on earth “Father” for you have one Father and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called teacher, for you have One teacher.....THE CHRIST.
Jesus then continues with the “woes” of those very “teachers” you quote from.....
He calls them hypocrites.....blind guides....blind fools...blind men....you snakes...you brood of vipers...
...and just to Clarify Jesus’s instruction concerning Moses’ seat.....they taught the law but were miserable failures themselves. So Jesus was pointing to the Law of Moses as good but not to the Pharisees and religious teachers teaching it. For it is the law which identifies when we sin...and which leads us to repentance and Christ for salvation. How would they know if they were sinning if there were no law?......Additionally Christ was with them and had not yet been crucified or arose....so the need to see their sin, as is for us today, was all the more important as Christ time was drawing near.
First, though, I want to say I agree with you that seeing the context can indeed help in aiding our understanding. That is where I get hung up here, since Jesus called out the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites (all throughout Matthew 23, but also elsewhere). If, as you are suggesting, the Scribes and Pharisees taught only what everybody already knew (the Law of Moses as already established, presumably in writing, although I don't think literacy was a requirement for being under the Law, was it?), why did Jesus urge his disciples specifically to follow these hypocrites' teaching (it's right there, at the beginning of the chapter in which they are called hypocrites time after time, so it's not like we're talking unrelated parts of Scripture) rather than just telling the disciples to follow the Law of Moses?