Jesus liked to think outside the box
One of the strange things about Christians is that they are often accused of being narrow thinkers, and yet Jesus was often accused of the exact opposite.
When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees or Sadducees he wanted them to think beyond just abiding by the letter of the law and to see the spirit that lie behind the law. He wanted his followers to be open minded. Now this doesn’t mean that Jesus wanted his followers to disregard everything that had gone before but that they needed to see the world in a much wider way than just the following of a set of rules. He didn’t say that the rules were wrong but what he did say was that slavishly following the rules might make us wrong.
He gave an example of a really good person and a bad person praying. The good person told God about how good he had been at following the rules the bad person admitted that he had broken the rules and asked for forgiveness. Jesus said it was the bad person that went home right with God not the good one.
The point being that we need to see beyond the obvious rules to what those rules mean. Everyone breaks some of the rules and so we have to admit that before God to be right with him.
I’ve been accused on more than one occasion of being narrow minded because I believe in Jesus Christ. It seems that people assume if you have faith it must be because you are narrow minded, and then they further assume that those who have no faith are open minded. I think they are wrong. Being open minded is being willing to listen to the big arguements and then draw a conclusion being narrow minded is refusing to deal with the big issues and the evidence.
So don’t assume someone who has come to a conclusion is narrow minded or that someone who thinks in a different way to you is narrow minded, but just make sure you have thought through the issues honestly.
Jesus wants us to think differently than others not just to slavishly follow everyone else.