Matthew, Chapters 23-28

I found it striking that Jesus would refer with respet to the figure of Moses (Chapter 23, verse 2). First of he was clashing with the traditional Jewish structure and preaching something entirely different to Judaism. However, I realized upon reflecting, that a smart man like Jesus would understand the respect his followers would have for this figure as they were in turn Jews. Not only that but Jesus had been raised Jewish himself and knew the effect he would have on his crowd of converts.

Another exampleof Jesus being very smart (politically in speech giving at least) he in verses 3-6 of chapter 23 calls on the social inequalityof their society and how the rich and powerful exploit them and with this, he gains the support of the poor and unhappy majority. In seeing this thousands of historical examples flooded me, like the French Revolution in which the poor, tired of the oppresive and decadent monarchs who used the national bank as spendign money and held banquets while their people starved. The beginning of Soviet Russia was also made possible by the tired poor taking arms against the tzars, and this appeal to the common people also made possible the election fo Salvador Allende in Chile, which sadly lead to Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.