Jesus describes characteristics of pharisees in the first century. But what about our own time? What pharisee-like qualities exist in your church? In you?

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them.  They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

~Matthew 21:45-46

Well, to explain to anyone that may not know what a pharisee is, they are a person - mostly from the New Testament - that focused mainly on the law of the time and made sure that it was strictly followed.  Today, we have all sorts of "pharisees" that want cetain laws kept by everty individual existing as they are.  In church there may be people that want something done a certain way because that's how it was always done since the beginning.  This is probably pretty typical of every church out there.  In myself, If I want something accomplished and that activity or project contains certain rules, then I would follow those rules as they are written and not divert from them.