Geekdom of God: Satan's Tactics
Imagine you're Satan, fighting against God. Your goal is to make as much of God's creation His enemy as you can. You especially want to turn God's chosen people against Him. At first, you led His people Israel into idolatry, and that was going great (overall) until He punished them with the Babylonian Exile. They came back more dedicated to Him than ever, so it was time to change tactics by switching to Legalism. By getting them so caught up in the appearance of "holiness" (though it's really just a fabrication of your own design that you've convinced people is holiness, clever you), you fill them with self-righteousness and judgmentalism—the self-superior judging of others. And then God sends His son, Jesus, to earth in the form of a human being. You don't want Him to reestablish the Kingdom of Israel, with Jesus sitting on David's throne, so you hatch a scheme to tempt Him, to make Him fall into sin. That plan fails, but it was always kind of a l...