What would Jesus say...
What would Jesus say about the growing trend to:
*Give to the needy, only if they attend our church?
*Support the missionary, only if they grew up and out of our church?
*Support the ministry, only if they are connected to our church?
There is a growing trend that says, we'll support ministry only if they are members of our church family! What does Jesus have to say about this?
Shame on us for such exclusivity and short sighted kingdom vision.
What say you?
posted by Bob Carder @ 9:07 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
We give tens-of-thousands of dollars to missionaries every year. Some are from our church, some are from our denomination, some are from neither.
We do give priority to those who are being sent out from among us. We feel that our first missions responsibility is to equip, release, and support those among us.
I would have to say that I agree in principle to what you are saying, but that I think Bill makes a great point.
Its one thing to say "yes" to someone who asks for your financial help. And in many ways, when the "least" do as, we have no defense with which to say no because if we do we are saying no to Jesus himself.
HOWEVER...I do believe strongly that the Church, the local Church that is, does have a responsibility to discern who to support mission and ministry wise. Look at it this way: What if some guy came along saying that he wanted to plant a Church in your town and wanted you to help him. Wouldn't you want to ask some questions of him about his doctrine, theology, etc... before giving money and support to him?
My old home Church used to have an open door policy when it cam to Church planters. One day this guy started coming to our Church asking our elders etc... for monetary support. He went into the inner city and started running a Church that believed in worshiping under the influence of drugs as the only way to really "authentically" pursue God. And he put this plaque up in the Church that had the names of all the Churches and individual donors on it.
So there it was, my Church's name in support of a drug cult...
Bob, this is a excerpt from a book we use for siscussion in our small group. It may not lend itself to this topic, but it does to your overall topic of your blog. Commments are appreciated!
THE CULTURAL COMMISSION
The scriptural justification for culture building starts with Genesis. At the dawn of creation, the earth is unformed, empty, dark, and undeveloped. Then, in a series of steps, God establishes the basic creational distinctives: light and dark, "above the expanse" and "below the expanse," sea and land, and so on. But then God changes his strategy.
Until the sixth day, God has done the work of creation directly. But now he creates the first human beings and orders them to carry on where he leaves off: They are to reflect his image and to have dominion (Gen. 1:26). From then on, the development of the creation will be primarily social and cultural: It will be the work of humans as they obey God's command to fill and subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28).
Sometimes called the "cultural commission" or "cultural mandate," God's command is the culmination of his work in creation. The curtain has risen on the stage, and the director gives the characters their opening cue in the drama of history.2 Though the creation itself is "very good," the task of exploring and developing its powers and potentialities, the task of building a civilization, God turns over to his image bearers. "By being fruitful they must fill it even more; by subduing it they must form it even more," explains AI Wolters in Creation Regained. 3
The same command is still binding on us today. Though the Fall introduced sin and evil into human history, it did not erase the cultural mandate. The generations since Adam and Eve still bear children, build families, and spread across the earth. They still tend animals and plant fields. They still construct cities and governments. They still make music and works of art.
Sin introduces a destructive power into God's created order, but it does not obliterate that order. And when we are redeemed, we are not only freed from the sinful motivations that drive us but also restored to fulfill our origi¬nal purpose, empowered to do what we were created to do: to build societies and create culture---and, in doing so, to restore the created order.
It is our contention in this book that the Lord's cultural commission is inseparable from the great commission. That may be a jarring statement for many conservative Christians, who, through much of the twentieth century, have shunned the notion of reforming culture, associating that concept with the liberal social gospel. The only task of the church, many fundamentalists and evangelicals have believed, is to save as many lost souls as possible from a world literally going to hell. But this implicit denial of a Christian worldview is unbiblical and is the reason we have lost so much of our influence in the world. Salvation does not consist simply of freedom from sin; salvation also means being restored to the task we were given in the beginning---the job of creating culture.
When we turn to the New Testament, admittedly we do not find verses specifically commanding believers to be engaged in politics or the law or ed¬ucation or the arts. But we don't need to, because the cultural mandate given to Adam still applies. Every part of creation came from God's hand, every part was drawn into the mutiny of the human race and its enmity toward God, and every part will someday be redeemed. This is the apostle Paul's message to the Romans, in which he promises that "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay" (Rom. 8:21). Redemption is not just for individuals; it is for all God's creation.
John, Well put! I need to read this book, can you send me the details. Or if really generous, send me your copy. :)
There's the offering side of me coming out. I just miss taking offerings.
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