Is it a persistent illusion, or delusion, that we see ourselves as inherently better than the ancient followers of God? We scoff at their faithlessness. Why couldn’t they see the truth of what was going on? Why didn’t they listen to the prophets? Why did they worship those silly idols?
We think if we had lived back then, we would have done better.
But the reality is that we’re no different from them. We share the same tendencies, and we’re just as blind to those tendencies as they were.
The anti-beatitudes in Matthew 23 should open our eyes to the fact that we need to be making some changes.