Posted on 09/24/2022 11:40:12 PM PDT by Cronos
Where do I begin?
God’s Word says that Christians will be judges. Faithful judges according to God are those who don’t show human partiality, but learn to judge after His own heart, and take His correction and direction. They USE their own understanding, but when they lean, they lean on Him. “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” When the Lord returns, He will make them rulers in His Kingdom because they are already properly taking care of His sheep.
On the other hand, if the replies here, overall, weren’t so terribly and tragically ungodly, unbiblical and unchristian, they could make me laugh for years at how much they haughtily twist God’s Word while being self-assured. Attitudes like that are not just for avowed liberals.
And unlike the vast majority of today’s population, including the vast majority of the church, I take passages like Matthew 12:36 most seriously, and don’t just haughtily declare my opinions to be prophecy or divine truth, “that’s the way it is” from my limited perspective and understanding. I’ve been perfectly willing to be open to the possibility that my viewpoint isn’t anywhere near objection. And I’m perfectly willing to give the church its due credit, especially for being the cleanest dirty shirt around. If I’m unjust to the church here in any way, I want to be open to God’s correction, and I still want to try to bridge the gap here to the church.
But, for one thing, as a poor person in this country, I still have to say that the church here has, all told, treated me just abominably, and it’s not just me. Laodicea it is, and Laodicea isn’t ready to judge and rule with Christ.
The church here doesn’t adopt people — not according to God’s principles, but worldly ones. The world makes Christians go the extra mile. If you don’t want to send your kids to public schools, then pay extra, pay twice for their schooling. But so many people, Christians, can’t afford that, and the Laodicean church doesn’t care. It’s every family for itself, and let the successful ones band together. The poorer ones are left to the state because the church won’t go the extra mile for them. They’re not “family.” Any poor person knows that, overall, the church either does a “good work” for them through a ten-foot-pole program, or, more likely, refers them to the state. But, I have to say, a number of times I’ve talked to a pastor here or there about different problems I was facing, and afterward, they didn’t so much as ask me how things were going when I saw them again.
For the past 20 years, while being softly and very politely rejected by the church, like a misfit they’ll just glad handle and place in a corner out of the way so I’ll be forgotten and then just move on eventually, I’ve nevertheless faithfully served the Lord on my own time, while working low-income jobs to pay the bills. Because it’s about Him, whatever the church does. If I let bitterness to the church change me, and even to give up on the church here entirely, I’d be going against Him, not the church. I won’t let Laodicea make me Laodicea. Just saying, though. The church — as the institution, not an individual here or there — has never, ever been there for me.
The church here is very much Laodicean — or even worse. As the modern world has made so many things “new and improved,” the church here has reinvented the Laodicean church, taking lukewarmness to an extent undreamed of by the original Laodiceans. Nevetheless, the church here doesn’t care about that, for some reason. It’s quite indifferent to what it’s like. “It’s all good, as we believe in Jesus and so are saved!” Or it’s an occasion to sit around with a book by Francis Chan and to talk oh-so-seriously about how worldly the church is. “We have sinned, Lord!” And it’s lip service.
Sure, the church does good works. And it seems to trust in them, too. And it still spreads the Gospel and teaches and worships and disciples. But it doesn’t seem to realize it does less and less of it despite having more and more.
Liberals also are afflicted with projection. So is the Laodicean church.
How about abusing, twisting and misusing 2 Thessalonians 3:!0.
“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”
From time to time, I hear this verse quoted, and not once have I ever heard it mentioned that this verse is said in the context of the church and is for believers. It will always be pointed out — and properly so — that those who held all things in common in Jerusalem, as related in Acts, were those of the church, not the world. Acts doesn’t promote communism. But then again, many in the Laodicean church, I believe, are going to have to answer to the Lord for why they disavowed so many verses in the Bible. “But Lord, those verses were communist! They were socialist!” No, they were mimicked by Satan but had a Christian fulfilment, when people are thinking and acting like Christians.
Jesus on the Cross is welfare for us.
Politics, though, often brings the resurrection of the Old Adam. And of this age and Laodicea, “Go, therefore, and spread the game of golf across the world, teaching the worthy athletes in every nation how to get the lowest score.”
Thank you for posting. That is a lot to digest
From metmom: “2 Thessalonians 3:10 For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat.”
Doesn’t that, as an absolute, only apply to the church, the same way this does?:
“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.”
I’m not saying the principle doesn’t apply at all, because of course it doesn’t; only that it’s not meant to be applied to the world as it is to the church.
From robowombat:
“Charity is for those of our blood. Family is (to a certain extent family) all the others are just strangers. Oh, yes, if you are a middle class straight white man see how much charity will ever be offered to you no matter what your circumstance is.”
That’s exactly the issue. Is God’s church a family, or a club? As I wrote elsewhere here, the world makes Christians go the extra mile, such as in paying twice for a Christian education. And Christians have created crisis pregnancy centers to counter societal and governmental support for abortion. But despite some exceptions, the church doesn’t adopt as the Lord calls for. It offers programs and benignly neglects and ignores poorer Christians so they give up and leave church. The difference is between the care of family, and what loving family would do for each other (personalized service to each other) and the services offered by the atheistic state in, say, a government orphanage.
If the middle class finds things difficult, then how should the poor? No, all those services and “freebies” are not as they appear. Nor do the poor have it made. Many of them are weaker members of society, average to below average in intelligence. What’s easy or not too hard for others is very hard or impossible for them, and there’s no one there to help. I had a social worker, a white man around 40, who couldn’t spell words like “aplication” (his spelling). Like public schools, the quality is often pretty subpar, just for starters. Or often not being able to even walk out an apartment door because of the threatening behavior of neighbors. I have to stop here, but so much more could be said. The poor here have both poverty and riches, and often the riches don’t make up for the poverties. Even the middle class, too, should be able to understand having both simultaneously.
What a projector. It is not selfish to acknowledge the poor have some (if not alot) of responsibility for their lot in life especially in a country like the United States.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.