Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!
More Blogs 2
Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Back to Basics

     Christians and Non-Christians alike wants to use Jesus to back up their social agendas. There are dangers to this.

     Those on the political left use Jesus to suggest that the state should distribute wealth as much as it can to help the poor. Jesus did value the poor and the weak (healing them and chastising the religious leaders for caring more about the letter of the law than the care of the weak). However, Jesus did not call people to care for the poor. It is not the most important thing to him. In fact, he commended a woman who showered him with expensive perfume and chastised his apostles for saying that the expensive perfume should have been sold and the money given to the poor.

     Those on the political right focus so much on the moral issues that they come off as heartless. They rail against the moral degredation of society without doing anything tangible for the alleviation of suffering. They need to follow the example of Franklin Graham and some evangelists of the past (Geoge Whitfield) who called people to Jesus but at the same time built institutions to alleviate suffering.

     However, even that work of building institutions (or even just giving to the poor) is not Jesus' main work and Christians must not lose sight of that. I am not advocating Christian abandonment of the political sphere. Jesus is a prophet/reformer of Judaism, which is not just a private religion but tied in to everyday life. Just like Islam, Judaism is a religion that regulates everyday life. However, in regulating everyday life, the religious leaders, who were compromised by the sinful world and their sinful flesh, forgot the spirit behind the law. For example, they commend a man who gives money to the temple (which is to their benefit), instead of using the money to care for his parents. Jesus values people so much and Christians should value people a lot.

     However, this valuing could not be regulated by law, which does not touch the heart (a person can do the right things but can be hateful and that results in his condemnation). The person commended by Christ is the one who realizes that he has a sinful heart manifested by disobedience to the revealed law externally (actions) or internally (attitudes). This is the person he calls to himself to be changed under his influence. Therefore, Christians should not be commending legalistic faith because Christ condemns it, even if their doctrine is very close to Christian doctrine. Christians should also be respectful of the revealed law because by Jesus' call to repentance, he upholds the rightness of the law. Some Christians pick and chooses what they will follow and goes to great lengths to nullify what God commands. This attitude is antithetical to the repentance Christ commends.

     So now that we are in a post-Christian world, does Jesus still have something to say? Jesus speaks to those who claim to be Christian. Jesus calls the Christian community to take care of the poor and aliens "in their midst", the good work of love that Christians are called to. Jesus still calls Christians to seek the peace and prosperity of the places where God puts them, just as God told the post-exilic Jews. This may mean political involvement, and giving advice to what is best for those who don't follow Jesus. Christians must refrain from using force (by arms or by legislation) to make society right, but confine themselves to influencing conscience for the common good. Then remember that Jesus gives this intruction to the church as it faces a non-Christian world- Go make disciples, baptizing them (bringing them into the community of faith) in the name of the triune God.   


Posted by eeviray at 10:58 AM CDT
Updated: Wednesday, 6 August 2014 11:11 AM CDT
Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post

View Latest Entries

« August 2014 »
S M T W T F S
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
Entries by Topic
All topics  «