A man was preaching to a church in Australia. The congregation had big black Bibles and severe expressions... And they knew their Bibles, and were proud of that. It was a smallish group, so he decided to engage them in dialogue:

’Who knows who the Pharisees were?’ They did. ’The Pharisees got a pretty nasty press in the New Testament - particularly Matthew.’

’Now tell me all the *good* things you can think of about the Pharisees:

The Pharisees knew their Bibles; were disciplined in prayer; fasted twice a week; gave about a third of their income to their church; were moral (very moral); many had been martyred for their faith; they attended ’church’ regularly; they

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