Dr. Foster (as did some of my sources in my paper) talked about the Pharisees building a hedge of protection around the Torah in order to protect it. Somehow, I understand the concept and respect them for aspiring to a higher standard of righteousness than the people of their community would lean to, but I also understand Christ’s frustration with them. They enforced their traditions and regulations because they were widely practiced. Because it became normative, they began to hold it higher than the Law that they were attempting to protect. Beyond that, they took their oral traditions in order to deny responsibility to the Law that they were protecting (see Corban). I hold Pharisees in some level of respect because I too think that we should all be held to the same standard of holiness that God has called us to, but I don’t believe that it should be achieved through undermining the very source of the holiness to which we aspire. Is it unbiblical to believe that all are held to the same standard even in such a relativistic world? Are we Pharisees (Holiness Police) in our day and age?
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Good point about the pharisees. There's a delicate balance between legalism and piety. I'm not really sure what you meant about Hitler though, unless you were making a sarcastic jab at the pharisees in linking them with Hitler. I don't see the connection. Anyway, good point, I think that leaves deeper insight into their thought process when Jesus came in and told everyone that they were not following the law properly and that he was gonna make it work right.
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