Posted on 12/28/2021 6:37:17 AM PST by Kaslin
For Christians, the Christmas season is a unique time of joy associated with the birth of the savior Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection makes possible a personal and intimate relationship with God. Jesus was born a Jew, and his teachings were built on the foundation of the Torah and the Old Testament. Thus, Christians and Jews have much in common and share a natural mutual affinity. But what came from Christ also benefited and deeply affected people of diverse beliefs in every part of the world.
The fact is that Christ affected history with such impact that He split time in two, dividing all human activities and events into happening before His coming (called B.C.) or after His coming (called A.D.). No one else in all of human history did this. Christ had to have had a supernatural impact on the world for that to be accepted.
History shows that Christianity and its Church have brought about more changes for the advancement and benefit of people than any other force or movement in history by an immeasurable factor. What is particularly surprising are the myriad achievements made by committed Christians, which non-believing secular-minded people also applaud.
Before Christ, human life was cheap and expendable all over the world. In the Americas, the Near East, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East child sacrifice was a common phenomenon. Babies, particularly females — who were considered inferior — were regularly abandoned. Author George Grant points out: “Before the explosive and penetrating growth of medieval Christian influence, the primordial evils of abortion, infanticide, abandonment, and exposure were a normal part of everyday life ” That changed in the West with the 6th century Christian Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian whose Law Code declared child abandonment and abortion a crime.
In ancient cultures — in India, China, Rome and Greece — women were considered inferior and simply viewed as property of their husbands. More recently, in the last two and a half centuries with the advent of the Christian missionary movement, the lives of women have been greatly improved around the world. Countless female infants abandoned in China were saved from almost sure death by Christian missionaries who then protected, educated and raised them in Christian orphanages.
In India, prior to Christian influence, elderly widows were burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres, while infanticide — particularly for girls — was practiced by tossing little ones into the sea. In Africa, wives and concubines of tribal chieftains were routinely killed after the latter’s death. These practices were greatly ameliorated or entirely stopped as Christianity began to penetrate and influence the respective cultures.
Slavery is still practiced in parts of the Middle East and Africa, but it has been abolished throughout the Western world primarily due to leadership and influence of Christians. Two thousand years ago, Apostle Paul was way before his time, stating in his letter to
Philemon, that he should take back his former slave, as “a brother beloved.”
Critics may accuse America for being too slow to abolish slavery. But it’s also true that slavery existed everywhere in the world at the time America’s Founders—who were 95 percent Christian—wisely drafted the Constitution so as to provide for change. It was that Constitution that enabled the passage of new laws so as to fulfill the ideals in the Declaration of Independence, which affirmed that all people are equal in value and “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
That Constitution assured that the promise of equal opportunity would reach greater fullness with time. In 50-plus years since Christian Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, blacks have achieved commensurate success with whites in almost every field, including reaching the presidency of the United States. Today, for the first time in American history, blacks are now represented in the House of Representatives in the same proportion as they are in the population at large.
We all recognize today the important role that charity plays in countless ways to help people in need. But before Christ, there is no trace or record of any organized charitable effort. The early Christians gained fame and renown by being generous to their own and to nonbelievers as well. Emperor Julian “the Apostate,” the last Roman emperor to try to destroy Christianity, was dumbfounded by the love that Christians showed to pagans and even those who persecuted them. The early church grew in large part by providing a way out of Rome’s harshness, bringing in converts who “turned from Caesar preaching war to Christ preaching peace, from incredible brutality to unprecedented charity.”
Today, widely recognized Christian-based organizations such as the Salvation Army, Samaritans Purse and Goodwill Industries that started in the U.S. now have operations around the world. Their programs include shelters for the homeless, disaster relief, and humanitarian aid to developing countries, and also provide employment, training and rehabilitation for people of limited employability.
Of the first 120 colleges and universities founded in America before the Revolutionary War, almost every one of them had Christian origins. In early America—Harvard, Yale and Princeton Universities were originally founded as seminaries, and seven of the eight Ivy League universities were originally founded for the purpose of establishing Christian-based institutions of higher learning.
Healthcare for the poor has its roots in Christianity. In both the early Orthodox Church of the East and the Catholic Church of the West, Christians took to heart the teachings of Christ, who said: “I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me.” The Syrian Church was the first institution to provide health care service in the East, while the Catholic Church was the first to do so in the West. In 325 A.D. the Council of Nicaea issued an edict requiring every cathedral to have an infirmary or hospital, to take care of people on pilgrimages. In the 9th Century A.D. the Benedictine Monastery in Salerno, Italy, founded the first and most famous medical university in Western Europe. The establishment of hospitals and universities, which accelerated through the Middle Ages was exclusively undertaken by Christians.
An unprecedented outpouring of the visual arts with cathedrals, sculpture, paintings and frescos being commissioned came about as a result of Christianity flourishing in Europe during the Middle Ages—the period from the fall of the Roman Empire (476 A.D.) to the beginning of the Renaissance (1350 A.D.). The Christian Renaissance inspired more of the world’s greatest and most valuable art, by masters the likes of whom have never been seen since—such as da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, and Botticelli. Almost all their created images were taken from or inspired by the Bible. While it’s impossible to measure, the Christian Renaissance produced more of the world’s greatest and most valuable works of art than any other period, school, epoch or place in the world by a many-fold factor.
Suffice it to say that life both at home and around the world would no doubt be qualitatively worse today if Christ had never been born and Christianity had not become the greatest spiritual force ever to inspire creative beauty and advance the care and development of people. Indeed, there is reason to sing “Joy to the World.”
We acknowledge The Greatest Event In Human History -
The OT repeatedly tells of Jews attempting to reconcile with God through the state of Israel. Over and over the State rises until it starts to exhibit pathologies that bring it down.
Then Jesus arrives to show us how to reconcile with God through a personal relationship with Him.
If Jesus opposed slavery, he could have taught against it when he had the chance. He didn’t. Paul specifically tells slaves to obey their masters.
And he never spoke out specifically about many other things as well. Shall we then infer that because Jesus didn’t speak out against something, he was in favor of it?
I think not.
Thank you.
You could certainly draw the conclusion that he wasn’t opposed to it.
Enslaved to sin and death until Christ set us free!
Do you believe that Paul had authority to teach in the name of Jesus? If you do, then you have to conclude that Jesus is pro slavery, because Paul certainly is.
That’s an argument from silence, a classic fallacy.
In Paul’s letter to Philemon, he sends back the former slave Onesimus who had run away. Paul does NOT tell Philemon to take the slave back as a slave but as a brother in Christ. And then he follows up the strong suggestion with an announcement that he’ll be coming to see Philemon.
Did Paul’s authority come from Jesus?
As far as I can tell, yes.
Jesus’s own brother described himself as a bond-servant to Christ. Do you know ANYONE who would sign up to be a bond-servant to their own brother?
Paul tells slaves to submit to their owners, even those who treat them harshly. If I was ever gonna change the bible, that woulda been one of the verses I dropped. The fact that there are seemingly embarrassing verses [like Jesus’s own family questioning His sanity] is a sign that they did NOT change the bible.
Of the first 120 colleges and universities founded in America before the Revolutionary War,
That statement on its face is bogus. Wiki lists 9 Colonial era colleges
Colonial college (present name, if different)
New College (Harvard University)
College of William & Mary
Collegiate School (Yale University)
College of New Jersey (Princeton University)
King’s College (Columbia University)
College of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania)
College of Rhode Island (Brown University)
Queen’s College (Rutgers University)
Dartmouth College
And these others that had colonial-era foundations
King William’s School (absorbed by St. John’s College)
Kent County Free School (absorbed by Washington College)
Bethlehem Female Seminary (Moravian College)
Newark Academy (University of Delaware)
Augusta Academy (Washington and Lee University)
College of Charleston
Pittsburgh Academy (University of Pittsburgh)
Little Girls’ School (Salem College)
Dickinson College
Hampden–Sydney College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_colleges
Where would he have gotten the idea that there were 120 colleges in America. No school was designated as a University until 1779 and they were three of the above named colleges.
Oh! The argument from silence. How nice!
So Mark didn’t mention the birth of Christ. If the birth of Christ was important, surely Mark would have included it. So it must not be important. We have to doubt Mark’s gospel and, really, Matthew’s as well. Maybe, Matthew made up the whole birth of Jesus story. Now, that I think about it, the whole Bible is very likely untrustworthy.
How many doctrines of denominational churches arise from “Well, the Bible doesn’t say, ‘We Can’t.’” One denomination takes the logic, “Well, if God can work faith in a man or woman, why can’t he work faith in an infant.” Wham! Bam! One friend added, “Then, why can he work faith in a dog or a tree or a stone?” Bring your dog to church. Have the dog baptized. It says so in the Bible.
***Paul does NOT tell Philemon to take the slave back as a slave but as a brother in Christ.***
Suppose you were a Christian slave owner. Wouldn’t this be a command for you to follow. Or was this sentence only for Philemon?
Where is the non-Christian country that freed slaves or elevated women? If Gandhi had protested in Iran, how many minutes do you think he would have lived? Why did he win out in India? Because the British were mostly decent, ethical people! Dare I say that they were Christians.
About 1500 years before the time that Paul “supported slavery”, Moses proclaimed the Law. One commandment was “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Immediately, the status of women changed *considerably*. You husband there, are you going to be an observant Jew? Better shape up.
Another commandment: Remember the Sabbath. Many things changed - for the better. Every seventh day, the SLAVES had a day off; even the ANIMALS had a day off. Slaves were FREED every seven years. A slave owner could not divide a family by selling the wife here and the children there and the husband somewhere else. And the slaves weren’t really slaves, as we think of them in our history, they indentured themselves for pay. If they were dirt poor, they could ask, “You feed me, give me a place to sleep and I’ll work for you.” There were no jails at the time of the exodus etc.; if a court fined a person, that person would work as an indentured servant (slave) until the fine was paid off.
And make a list of the women in the New Testament. There are quite a few. It is thought that Mary Magdalene, a rather rich woman, underwrote a lot of expense for the Lord as he moved from place to place. One reason that women are not mentioned so much in the New Testament was that they could not testify in court. They could testify to hearing the Lord preach and seeing the miracles he did, but only a man’s testimony had standing in a legal sense.
So, some fuss at Paul, et. al., for not pushing for women’s rights or preaching against slavery. Here he is preaching, YOU CAN SAVE YOUR SOUL. If he preached women’s and slave’s rights, no one would hear about the forgiveness of sins.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Much of this information and much more is found in Dennis Prager’s commentaries, The Rational Bible, Exodus and Genesis. If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you will benefit from reading his commentaries.
In my previous post I wrote “can” when I meant “can’t”. “Why can’t God work faith in a dog or a tree or a stone.”
You wrote, “The fact that there are seemingly embarrassing verses [like Jesus’s own family questioning His sanity] is a sign that they did NOT change the bible.”
Dennis Prager asserts the Bible is true and inspired. He says, “No Jew would ever write something bad about another Jew. Therefore, the Torah must be true.”
Does Paul get his authority from Jesus? If he does, then it isn’t an argument from silence. Paul tells slaves to obey their masters. That’s as pro slavery as it gets. If Paul and by extension, Jesus, were anti slavery, Paul would not have sent the slave back to Philemon at all.
Thank you for this clearly expressed information. Many words or statements in the Bible can be used out of context in ways that were never intended. I first learned about the major differences between slavery in Biblical times and slavery in more modern times times while listening to The Bible in a Year with Father Mike Schmitz. I highly recommend it….. three more days to finish and a new year begins.
Afte Roe&Wade, it is back to where it was.
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