“You are looking through the glass darkly. God considers those in service of healing, teaching Scripture and preaching Scripture as service to Him, not as a service to mankind. The fruit of compassion as God is compassionate leads to healing, but it also leads to the other fruits that are also reproduced when His Word is taught or preached.”
You aren’t even looking at the glass! You are arguing only from the vertical aspects of the cross. We love God with all of our hearts but we are also to love our neighbor as we love ourselves(the horizontal aspects of the cross). On those two commandments hang all the laws of the prophets.
As we discover that God loves us, then we begin to love God back. As we love God and he loves us, we begin to develop a healthy love and pure respect for ourselves. As we grow, we begin to look beyond ourselves and see those who are suffering and don’t have the same inward hope that God has given to us. We begin to yearn for these unsaved and to share our Hope with others, experiencing in miniature the same yearning for the lost that God the Father felt for all of us when He sent his son to die.
As for looking at glass darkly....lets see what that scripture really says so that you don’t ever use that phrase like a cudgel again!
<< 1 Corinthians 13 >>
King James Bible
(Love...and pay attention to verse 11-13; Context is key when understanding Paul’s epistles)
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Note that 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the greatest chapters on love in the whole bible.
One final question...it is true that God considers that when we do service to men we do service to him...but when God does service to men, has he also not done service for himself?
Is lying horizontally in union with serving in love verically? Can they both work together as one as God made them to work together if they are not in unison? Can one show His true love through lies and deceit? See Hebrews 12
And people wonder why the world is so screwed up!
Act 8:9 But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great,
Act 8:10 to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.”
Act 8:11 And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.
Act 8:13 Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.
Act 8:18 And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money,
Act 8:19 saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
Act 8:20 But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money!
Act 8:21 You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
Act 8:22 Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.
If the heretic is speaking in public, it is proper and fitting to expose him in public. But of course I gave him the option in private first, so charity was there on my part, just not on his as he continues to rant and rave against those of us who take seriously and heed the words of our Messiah that pertain to Abraham and Moses.