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Liberals vs Conservatives
Who were the religious liberals of Jesus’s Day?
1. Group A only accepted scripture.
2. Group B accepted scripture and tradition.
3. Group A only had a strict interpretation of the scripture.
4. Groups B held many beliefs not explicitly taught by the scriptures.
Group B is the group usually assigned to in derision to those who today are considered “legalists” and “conservatives”. However look again at the descriptions. Group B might have been legalists when it came to tradition, but not to scripture. So who is Group B? Group A are the Sadducees. Group B are the Pharisees. So when someone accuses you of being a legalist because of a strict interpretation of the scripture, they don’t know of what they speak. They just know calling someone Pharisaic is something no one wants to be. This doesn’t make the Sadducees right either, for they denied the resurrection, angels, and demons, all things Jesus affirmed.
So if neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees were better than the other, what is the point of this discussion? Stop throwing around derisive insults using names you might not be using correctly. Instead do what Jesus did when He confronted both the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Jesus used scripture and dealt with their arguments.
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