Do you think congregations have an obligation to explain how to be saved to the unsaved who come to them for charity? I'm assuming it's exceedingly simple to do so (do Romans 10:9-13, because you believe the 4 things listed in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-8 [as per Romans 10:14a]) - just a few minutes could tell our Master's purpose beyond His love in feeding the poor and His love in more fully explaining the morality of the Law to ancient Israel (and Jesus doesn't mean a metaphor of how social structures are the real causes of evil, like Walter Rauschenbusch said).
Do you see any Scriptural latitude to explain how (almost all?) Christian charities are legitimate in *purposefully never* telling them that they need the Savior (even more than they need a sandwich)?
That’s a good question: I think one of the things that would have to be sorted out here is whether these are separate obligations or two parts of the same obligation. What I mean by that is whether attending to physical needs and attending to souls comprise two parts of the same task, or whether we conceive of those as distinct tasks. Alongside that, I think it’s important to sort out the way in which our obligations are expressed: Are all obligations meant to be met at the same moment, or is one met under the form of the other, or is it some other sort of combination? In other words, is feeding of someone the first step in a longer chain of relations, the same moment as evangelism, or something else entirely? So, I get your question, but entities which attend to physical needs apart from evangelism aren’t necessarily in violation of their obligations, but are thinking of their obligations in a different way. That’s where I think the conversation needs to begin, not in assuming that one is not meeting our obligations, but asking in what way are they drawing together these obligations.
Not really--it’s not clear to me that the obligations can be sorted into higher and lower the way that you present them, in that the only way we meet the obligations to the soul is through the body.
Meeting the obligations to the soul through the body might have some reality, but it misses the point. Salvation doesn't work through physical eating.
It's hard for me to write a few lines here usefully, because there's cause to say it several times. Bear with me.
The obligation of spreading the good news that we can be saved from the natural outcome of our sins, which is death, is an obligation to the spirit. Earthly helps are right, and there's no law against them, but the main point of God sending Christ to Earth in a human body is for salvation, not for good works or the preaching of morality or miracles or any soulish or physical thing. God cares for the body and the soul, but nobody's main concern is hunger or addiction or ignorance in Hell (and then the Lake of Fire), along with their total separation from the only good one there is.
Salvation is the main difference between the Christian and the worker of a secular charity (as it is the main difference between the Christian and everyone else).
It has been established as a fact from the first generation of Christ's Church that His mission was to save sinners, and that's why I mourn at the subversion of many congregations by anything - even good works - that take away our focus and knowledge of it. And Christ attested to the phenomenon in His letter to Thyatira in Revelation 2, which He threatened with "great tribulation". This generations-long crisis in our time seems to fit that church. With forewarning like that, who can do anything else but totally commit to the obvious. I tell you in love, but I desist now.
Do you think congregations have an obligation to explain how to be saved to the unsaved who come to them for charity? I'm assuming it's exceedingly simple to do so (do Romans 10:9-13, because you believe the 4 things listed in 1 Corinthians 15:3b-8 [as per Romans 10:14a]) - just a few minutes could tell our Master's purpose beyond His love in feeding the poor and His love in more fully explaining the morality of the Law to ancient Israel (and Jesus doesn't mean a metaphor of how social structures are the real causes of evil, like Walter Rauschenbusch said).
Do you see any Scriptural latitude to explain how (almost all?) Christian charities are legitimate in *purposefully never* telling them that they need the Savior (even more than they need a sandwich)?
That’s a good question: I think one of the things that would have to be sorted out here is whether these are separate obligations or two parts of the same obligation. What I mean by that is whether attending to physical needs and attending to souls comprise two parts of the same task, or whether we conceive of those as distinct tasks. Alongside that, I think it’s important to sort out the way in which our obligations are expressed: Are all obligations meant to be met at the same moment, or is one met under the form of the other, or is it some other sort of combination? In other words, is feeding of someone the first step in a longer chain of relations, the same moment as evangelism, or something else entirely? So, I get your question, but entities which attend to physical needs apart from evangelism aren’t necessarily in violation of their obligations, but are thinking of their obligations in a different way. That’s where I think the conversation needs to begin, not in assuming that one is not meeting our obligations, but asking in what way are they drawing together these obligations.
I appreciate your time in answering.
I've made a post about this (https://aamp.substack.com/p/obligations-of-christs-church). Does it change your answer any?
Not really--it’s not clear to me that the obligations can be sorted into higher and lower the way that you present them, in that the only way we meet the obligations to the soul is through the body.
Meeting the obligations to the soul through the body might have some reality, but it misses the point. Salvation doesn't work through physical eating.
It's hard for me to write a few lines here usefully, because there's cause to say it several times. Bear with me.
The obligation of spreading the good news that we can be saved from the natural outcome of our sins, which is death, is an obligation to the spirit. Earthly helps are right, and there's no law against them, but the main point of God sending Christ to Earth in a human body is for salvation, not for good works or the preaching of morality or miracles or any soulish or physical thing. God cares for the body and the soul, but nobody's main concern is hunger or addiction or ignorance in Hell (and then the Lake of Fire), along with their total separation from the only good one there is.
Salvation is the main difference between the Christian and the worker of a secular charity (as it is the main difference between the Christian and everyone else).
It has been established as a fact from the first generation of Christ's Church that His mission was to save sinners, and that's why I mourn at the subversion of many congregations by anything - even good works - that take away our focus and knowledge of it. And Christ attested to the phenomenon in His letter to Thyatira in Revelation 2, which He threatened with "great tribulation". This generations-long crisis in our time seems to fit that church. With forewarning like that, who can do anything else but totally commit to the obvious. I tell you in love, but I desist now.