Poltiticians and Pharisees (5) - Pride

Jesus accused the Pharisees and Teachers of being motivated by pride.

Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi’ (Matt 23:5-7).

Politicians also need a fair dose of pride, or they would not take on the job of telling other people how to live. Why would they know better than God or other men, how people should live?

Politicians claim to be humble servants, but they always end up meeting in a lush parliament building, with high salaries, the best cars, and good titles.
Telling other people how they should live is quite arrogant. Being a bible teacher or blogger is fairly arrogant. The teacher claims to understand the Bible better than other people do. The only mitigation is that other people can choose to ignore the Bible teacher or blogger; and they frequently do.

Politicians take this arrogance to another level. Not only do they claim to no better than other people how they should live, they also want to force other people to live their way. Politicians pass laws that force other people to live by the politicians’ standards. That is the ultimate arrogance.

The serpent promised Adam and Eve that they would be able to decide the difference between good an evil. This was a lie, as the only way to know the difference between good and evil is to listen to God. Politicians are part of a long line of people who believe they can legislate the difference between good and evil. Their father is the father of lies.