The religious elite?

As viewed by blind man

As viewed by divine eyes.

Isn't it funny how two can look at the same picture and come away having two totally different descriptions?

 

By conservative do you mean a return to the days when:
We could leave the door unlocked
When chewing gum or talking in class were the biggies at school
When we were'nt killing unborn children
Before all of the vulgar garbage on TV now
When homosexuals kept to themselves
It was normal to be patriotic
a time when drugs were not a national problem

Then yes I'm a conservative who yearns for those times.

If you mean segragation or slavery
racial discrimination

I'm not that kind of a conservative.

 

You are applying 21st century political labels to a context totally foreign to their definitions. Your scenario is absolutely invalid based on that alone.

While you might have a point to make using correct terms and proper application of proper terms is the only way to construct a valid argument.

 

The Pharisees were the religious fundamentalists of the day...
They originally were a great bunch... they stood for the fundamental principles against the modernism of Judah by the Greek culture...

But by the time Jesus came along, they had progressed to the point that they started using extra biblical rules to control people....

Hmmmm...

History has a way of repeating itself... Let's make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

Too late...

 

Although our present day labels of convervative or liberal really don't apply, wouldn't the Sadducees be considered to be the more conservative? After all, they were the establishment and didn't hold with new-fangled ideas like resurrection.

 

In the early to mid 1990s, I talked (on Bulletin
Boards /bbs/ ) to a Jew who said he
was a modern Pharisee. They are the
most Right wing of all the sects of
the Jews.

 

Um, there is actually nothing wrong with being a Pharisee, just as long as you avoid the leaven of the Pharisees.

IOW, nothing is wrong with clean living, but to expect merit for that living to earn salvation is that leaven to be avoided.:wavey:

 

Amen, Brother Salamander -- Preach it! :thumbs:

 

Isaiah 32:5-6
5The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. 6For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practice hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. 7The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. 8But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
Just a little something that the Bible has to say about this subject.:smilewinkgrin:

 

Uh??? Isaiah 32:8 is speaking of a different meaning
of 'liberal' than Brother The Scribe is using for 'liberal'.


Here is a better translation:

Isaiah 32:8 (HCSB = Christian Standard Bible /Holman, 2003/ )

But a noble person plans noble things;
he stands up for noble causes.

A truth that has no bearing on this matter

 

You are right to a point, but I would like to add to that the addition of extra biblical rules.... in order to be holy. Like the procedure of handwashing...

 

The lines defining the sects of the Jews do not parallel our lines. It is commonly said that the Pharisees were the Fundamentalists of their day. It just isn't true. Ibaker (above) is correct on this score, and more could be said to corroborate it. A good reference book will clear this up for any interested.

In some ways, each sect of the Jews resembled Fundamentalists in one way or another, because each was trying to emphasize some good trait. This means, of course, that the resemblances were accidental and irrelevant.

I've seen plenty of *legalism among pagans; they just have a different law code.

*Legalism: a word with no fixed definition. Supply your own.

 

The convenience of labeling:

Judge 12

5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.

When we label (e.g. "conservative", "liberal") we are taking the opportunity of dismissing the responsibilty for making a value judgment (which is not always wrong, especially when the label fits and/or is accepted by the object of the judgment).

However labels are moving targets, changing even within a generation.


Now as to labeling and the current event defintion of these terms:

Remember the feeding of the 5000, Jesus fed everyone deserving or not, no questions asked and asking nothing in return, this would receive the shibboleth of "liberal" today.

Later He had the disciples gather up the all the remaining fragments that nothing be wasted. A very "conservative" precept.


HankD​