I have been reading Matthew lately and it's no stretch to say that Jesus has alot to say to Conservatives. As many have said he reserves his strictest words for them. He not only spars with them but he initiates contact. He picks fights, speaks brutally honest and seems to invite his own demise at their hands. At one point he pronounces woes on them. He calls them out for specific sins and gives them the business knowing it will cost him his life. The strangest part is that at the end of the chapter he cries out to them to come to him. He mourns their refusal and longs to gather them like children under his wings but they will not.

Two things jump out: I am more closely alligned with conservatives. I believe the Bible, tend toward all their mishandling the gospel and push Jesus away all the time. I also see it and don't like it and would rather notice other conservatives shortcomings and pick on them. I want to be the Christian that along with Jesus critiques both the right and the left. But, here is where Jesus is VERY different. He longs for conservatives to repent. He wants them to turn from depending on their righteousness to depending on his. He wants them to give up their willey ways and come. I'm not sure I do. At the end of the "7 woes" that are aimed at them he calls them to himself. One only has to hop, skip and jump to Isaiah to find the first woes where God calls woe upon himself. "Woe is me" my mother used to say. Little did she know what that meant for God. "Woe is me" says Jesus. Woe unto me, upon me, instead of you. Let me take it and you take me.

Even Liberals would agree with that. It shows the love of God, right? But, how can they when they continue to disbelieve either parts of the Bible or all of the Bible? Jesus didn't say much to the liberals. Mostly the ones who came to him seem bent in that direction. They seemed to get it quickly. The ones who didn't seem to be the "intellectual liberals" not the "broken down, I need help liberals." At one point when they are testing him about the afterlife (which they were too smuggish and smart to believe in) Jesus does something old-fashioned and conservative, he quotes the bible. Not only that he confronts their unbelief and takes them to task. "You are in error," he says, "because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God." Wow! Now that was unmodern of him. Does he really believe in either? Uhhh...not only does he quote Noah, Jonah, Moses, etc...He points to himself as the fulfilment of all the OT. He says they all spoke by the Holy Spirit - that agents which is the power of God and wrote the dang thing - all of it according to the NT. It's funny how those two go together, power and scripture.

If Jesus and his word can't trump all of us (liberals and conservatives) or both parts of us (the left in me and the right in me) then we are without hope. If the Bible isn't true then the life, death and resurrection are hogwash and carry no weight, no power. But, if they are, then "blessed is he who keeps the words of this prophecy..."

"Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away." Thank God.