Suz...here's an assignment for you...and if you can't answer it, you just might want to engage in some self-censorship on this issue:
Please show us from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) where Jesus as he was engaged in a conversation with the teachers of the law/Pharisees engaged in "wooing" them.
Now I happen to know of ONE verse where Jesus actually complimented the Pharisees. But just one. Instead, the way Jesus treated the legalistic religiosity of that time was to afflict it...(surely you've heard of the statement...afflict the comfortable; comfort the afflicted).
Nowhere was Jesus hardest on legalists than Matthew 23 and John 8. I suggest those chapters to your reading.
Even with the Jews, the apostle Paul (& Apollos) would do the same...read Acts 17...Acts 18...
If you were to survey thousands of parents, Suz, you would realize that many of them have to engage in "tough love" with their teens re: substance abuse & the like. It's still "love" -- but it's another dimension of it.
If people don't want to hear the diagnosis of our sin -- some time has to be spent convincing them of it.
Now, if you need to understand WHY Mormons are legalists, I'll spend some time on another post on this thread explaining that to you.
But bottom line, Jesus says he came for those who recognized they had need of a physician. And legalists are usually the LAST to recognize that need.
Please show us from the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) where Jesus as he was engaged in a conversation with the teachers of the law/Pharisees engaged in “wooing” them.
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Sue, The LORD Jesus Christ was so mean to those Pharisses that when they wanted to be right neighborly and throw him to his death off a cliff he just walked away and left them there..
He wasnt interested in playing with them...