Attached.

RELIGION CLASS

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Religion is a mixture of beliefs and norms in the society. Several people have various
reasons as to why they behave in a certain way and why they believe in certain way of life.
In this report however we are going to consider they believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord.

We have two different societies and environments. The first one is that of the Pharisees
who had the opportunity of experiencing the presence of Jesus Christ first hand. The
second group is that of the modern society which has to read about Jesus from the bible or
from the day to day preachers. And so it given that this two groups of people will have
different reasons as to why they do not believe in Jesus Christ.

With this in mind, it would therefore be important to separately discuss the reasons as to
why the two societies did not believe in Jesus Christ.

REASONS WHY THE PHARISEES DID NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS
1. POLITICAL THREAT
John 11: 47-48 =>”so the chief priest and the Pharisees called the council together and said
‘what are we doing? For this man is performing many miraculous signs. If we allow Him to
go this way, everyone will believe in Him and the Romans will come and take over our
sanctuary and nation”.
Jesus Christ questioned the authorities of the Pharisees. He accused them numerous times
of not following the law. This made the Pharisees very angry and in the process they always
opposed Him and what He stood for. They chose not to believe in Him because He was not
on their side and they feared that soon He would turn the people against them. He also
called Himself the Messiah and that made them angry. The miracles Jesus performed also
made them not trust in Him.

2. JESUS DID NOT FIT THEIR EXPECTATIONS
Take for instance if in this generation it is prophesied that the Messiah would be born in
the US. We would expect that He would be born in a prestigious place, for example the
White House. So if someone came from the slums and claimed to be the messiah then we
would all ask questions.

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That was the same predicament that the Pharisees also had. They expected that the
Messiah would be born in the palace or some prestigious home. However the son of a mere
carpenter was their Messiah. They also had prophecies of how their Messiah was going to
be.
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Build a third temple
Gather the Israelites to the promised land

So this made it hard for them to believe in Jesus because he had come below their
expectations.

3. THEY WERE FULFILLING THE WORD
John 12: 38-40 => “This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke,’ Lord,
who has bel...