Jesus versus Spiritual Leadership
I learned early on in my Christian life that there were some bad guys in New Testament, namely the Jewish leaders of Jesus' day, the worst being the Pharisees. Being called a "Pharisee" is not something anybody wants to be called. In common Christian usage it is entirely derogatory with connotations of being judgmental, hypocritical and self-righteous. As I grew a bit more, I realized that in many ways the Pharisees were the well-meaning conservatives. The Sadducees were more like liberals who compromised with the culture and didn't take the Bible nearly as seriously as the Pharisees. I began to read the passages with the Pharisees a bit more carefully. I realized that as a conservative Christian, I was a lot more like the Pharisees than I had originally thought. And as I was involved (and still am involved) in Christian leadership, I should probably consider Jesus' interactions with them as important to the way He would interact with me! In Romans 15:4 , the Ap...