Conservatives vs. Preservatives

I have been studying through the book of John. I came to the passage in chapter 8:24-34 where Christ has just healed the blind man who had been blind from birth. I can imagine how irritated that man would have been having been asked 3 or 4 times by the Pharisees, "Who healed you?" He finally asked the Pharisees, Do you keep asking me because you want to know him as well? Well the Pharisees took offense at that question because "we are of Moses." Warren Wiersbe says in his commentary: "The Pharisees were cautious men who would consider themselves conservatives when in reality they were 'preservatives.' A true conservative takes the best of the past and uses it, but he is also aware of the new things that God is doing. The new grows out of the old. A preservative simply embalms the past and preserves it. He is against change and resists the new things that God is doing. If they really understood Moses, they would have known who Jesus was and what He was doing."

On a side note, the ESV does a great job of putting the blind man's response to the Pharisees in great conversational form. (See vs. 30-33)