9:00 PM Question.
With all the political fanfare being orchestrated for us, I thought I would ask this question pertaining us, the Church.
If a Church is made up of a congregation that is 3/4 homeless and extremely poor and the other 1/4 is lower to middle class with one family being upper class, what do you think the words would be coming from the pulpit?
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Get a job?
Klein,
That pretty much sums it up. Jesus knew what was up when he instructed the first twelve to cast out demons.
A good sermon for those who are homeless, poor, blue collar, & white collar is: Matthew 5-6. Sadly my sermons pale in comparison. One of my profs told me of a pastor who memorized the Sermon on the Mount & he would recite it once a year. Dr. Painter said it was stunning to hear in a modern context.
Juan a married man in 2009! What's up man of God!!
Sean,
The Beatitudes is a perfect display, thanks for sharing!
I love what Christ says about helping the poor :)
In regards to a the political jargon we're all soaked with these days, I'm a little concerned when a "Christian" considers Obama's plans, especially his Income Distribution Plan. It's presented in a way as being a carbon copy of the biblical principles Jesus set us up with. Somehow the successful are supposed to be responsible for the unsuccessful according to Postmodern views of todays Church. Sharing the wealth is awesome.. I support that. Having it taken is entirely different.
As for my own well-being, I'm considered poor, according to both Obama and McCain. I'm not starving although I have went hungry before. But when others contrast "our poor" and the "other poor" in the world they fail to understand the full concepts to why people are poor. And when we decide to display the differences, we also need to display the full picture as to why someone might be less off than others. These reason could be because of choice, a dictator forcing the poverty upon it's nation, a lack of responsibility and many other things.
In America the poor is brought by choice. Everyone has the same opportunities. If we lack in the will to labor for ourselves we reap the fruits of that choice, which in every case is close to nothing. I'm not condoning helping the poor. But it seems Jesus went after the character of man the most. We cannot bend down to help the poor only to look up and scorn those that are better off. When we help the poor, we need to do just that.... help the poor. We need to pick them up, come along side them. We need to treat them in the understanding that we aren't any different and can be in the same position. But because we aren't, we are able to gift them with the character that will break the stronghold on their life and allow them to rise to an understanding that money isn't the answer to their need. When we understand that, we will be fed in a way that fills us forever.
In most cases, we help the poor to satisfy our goodness greed. If we are honest, we do it to stand out in our own crowds. Jesus spoke directly to this. We rarely look to build a relationship with those we lift up. We only look for the next opportunity we can better ourselves at their disposal.
Politics & government is an interesting issue; if it, instead of the church, was to be the vehicle for God's will upon the earth (ie. spreading the wealth, helping the poor), then I assume Jesus would have invested a great deal more time in it; that he didn't says many things. However, we do have opportunities to influence our government & should do so.
Politicians have been saying the same things forever, & it forever doesn't change, so...
We're not poor by any stretch of the imagination. Our TV's constantly depict a lifestyle that is beyond our means. American economics is based on making people spend money they don't have to achieve a lifestyle they don't need to impress people they don't know.
"Get a job," is a, sorry Klein, ignorant generalization to a difficult problem. At Cal Poly the most fascinating class I took was "discrimination of race & poverty." I had no idea how uneven people's rates of success actually are in America. I thought, via my American cultural perspective, that those who succeeded the most just worked harder than the other people. This is because we are saturated in Darwinistic evolutionary thought (The strong survive) & because our thought processes are dominated by capitalism (the best succeed). Sadly, there is a huge difference, even in this country, as to the probability of someones success (financial) based upon: where they were born, the color of their skin, the schools they attend, & their cultural background. Although equality is possible, which is where most people like to hang their ideological hats, it is not probable. That class really opened my eyes.
The church (the people of God) is God's anwswer for all of this. Church plants to areas where statistically a large proportion of the males within a given community go to jail can make a major difference, not economically because that's not the problem, but by injecting the value systems of the community with the reality of the Kingdom of God.
Government has never worked because it's starting point is a broken humanity trying to fix a broken humanity. A dirty rag won't clean a dirty counter, you need a clean rag. God, Jesus, & the Spirit offer a clean rag via the Kingdom, through the people of God. Therefore, people don't need jobs or money, they need perspective. With a proper perspective, a poor person instantly becomes "rich."
Blessings,
That was me, not my beautiful wife.
Sean,
I think it's safe to say, giving the poor "Jesus", by far supersedes giving them "loose change". I constantly think of myself when I was poor in spirit. But now I am rich in spirit. From that basis I am able to see the fullness of God work. If I, having the agendas I have try to thwart my solutions by ignoring the crucial points made by Jesus, I feel I am robbing people from the same promise I have.
I need to move out of the way, or humble myself to become that vessel for God to use.
to summerize a thought from a book I'm reading....
Most of the demands if distributive, or as it is often called, social justice are found in Scripture: demands for honest dealings in business, the use of just scales, and fair pay for workers. Scripture even calls for Jubilee years in which debts are forgiven.
Remember, too, the model in Acts 4 of the early Church, where each believer shared with the brothers and sisters in the community. Everyone's needs were met, but not because of a novel utopian economic theory like socialism; the Church was enacting, as far as it was capable, the distributive model of justice the Church foresaw would be realized in God's Kingdom. Remember, this is the Church doing it, not the government..... but both can play a role.
We are just held to a different standard. It's important to remember that... Good ideas come. But just because we are thirsty, doesn't mean we should drink from the toilet just because there is water there.
Oh... and I just started on the new idea for your brand..... (sean)
Good thoughts man. Rob Bell's new book brings up interesting thoughts such as, the early church was a small sect within a antagonistic empire & it's relationship to God & each other was lived from this viewpoint. 2000yrs later in this country we are the empire & it's often hard for us to read scripture from the perspective of the marginalized. For us city water is "ghetto."
The early church did create a new community, which is an interesting study. What's more difficult for us is that we are the most individualistic culture to have ever existed (my opinion--great, but difficult book: Bowling Alone).
I think communism is a great idea. Sadly it will never work for the same reason any human government including a theocracy (see Calvin's little experiment): Man.
...including a theocracy won't work...
Rob Bell's hermeneutic wrangles the scriptures. He is a deconstructionist, revisionist and claiming that we need to re-read scripture and more distinctively look through scripture with a "jewish" mindset. And I agree with this approach partly. But, we cannot have this "approach" stand over what is clearly written in scripture. Bell goes too far, He hops over truth so much he's presenting Jesus as a political hippy activist. He calls to question the virgin birth. He says that even though he believes in the virgin birth..... "we don't need it."(Velvet Elvis)
In Relevant Magazine Bell claimed that Solomon and his horse trading to Egypt caused the exile in Babylon. He states it is what happens when empires start accumulating weapons for their comforts. He does this to promote his anti-war stance. Bell makes a huge mistake here. The exile has nothing to do with Solomon trading horses to Egypt. Bell dismisses the truth. Scripture tells us that the people being sent into captivity was do to breaking the covenant. This action is highlighted with a list of things that champion horse trading. Bell eagerly morphs scripture into a pamphlet promoting his agenda.
His hermeneutics are about interpreting scripture through the eyes of "Social Justice". He recommends books like, A Brief History Of Everything: Ken Wilbur. In which Bell fervently recommends that his readers read this book and meditate on it for three months.
Wilber is a practicing Mayan-Buddhist who believes that reality is ultimately a non dual union of emptiness and form. He speaks of a unitary non dual monistic consciousness or what some call the Darma of non dual enlightenment. He is a promoter of the perennial philosophy a term made famous by Aldous Huxely (a note on Huxely: He was also well known for advocating and taking LSD, including on his death bed.), which is a name for the religion of esoteric paganism and the Great Chain of being.
Wilber promotes yoga, Zen, Kabala, Tantric yoga which is Hindu sex techniques. His think tank, Integral Institute, include such luminaries as Deepak Chopra, Michael Murphy of Esalen and a key figure in the human potential movement, and Jon Kabat-Zinn a Buddhist healer and a professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, Francisco Varela a Chilean biologist and Tibetan Buddhist.
and Bell recommends this guy's book for three months?
Recently Bell recommended another book (and I'm sure it's in his newest book) Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis: William J. Webb. Bell basis most of his ideas in contrast to cultures and evolution. The same goes for Marcus Borg which claims God is evolving, basically meaning God is bipolar. Bell supports that. Bell also encourages that "some" Scripture needs to be looked at by the time frame that culture was in. He uses the analogy of a trampoline when it comes to Biblical Theology. And because we have "evolved" so dramatically, he claims for example, we can now have women elders, as opposed to the "traditional" way of doing things.
If it had to do with culture, then why did it have to be explained in scripture?
This also includes dismissing men as the head of the household.
This approach, posture and thinking is very dangerous! The reason is because sooner or later, Bell and many like him (which they are already doing so) will start begging to question (HINT: Genesis 3) that same evolutionary concept for sin, particularly homosexual sin, seeing how it's a hot topic. Thus making claims that since we have evolved to a better understanding when it comes to homosexual sin, we can now DISMISS any biblical approach regarding such.This approach does a mess of things. It makes Jesus out to be one step above a caveman and one step below today's time. Having this posture towards scripture will continue to smear the sound truths we know to be in God's word. It will also lead people astray do to the fact that satisfying our itching ears is more comfortable than taking up our cross. Bell needs to stop wrestling at the pulpit and start preaching the word of God.
This is what I mean when I say.. when we thirst, we need to not drink from the toilet just because there is water there
Wow, it's been a while since I've been here, but good post. I am not a Rob Bell expert, so I wouldn't know all of his theological stances or the books he recomends. Where I quote him I agree with him: we are the empire & therefore we read, experience, understand, & relate to God & scripture fromt this perspective. I agree we should return to the word of God. This is something I often hear & it is something I agree with. That said, it isn't as simple as "just read & preach the damn text!" However, without reading scripture in light of it's culture would create chaos. We might actually assume Jesus called the woman in Matthew 15 a dog, or we might actually believe Jesus wants us to pluck out our eyes & cut off our hands. To interpret scripture rightly means to understand from within the culture it was written. Too, without a clear understanding of our cultural biases our reading os scripture would lead to many more misinterpretations than we have now. Karl Barth said something I love, "the preacher should share the word of God with the Bible in one hand & a newspaper in the other." One of the fears of the Catholic church during the Reformation was this: If everyone can have a Bible then everyone can interpret the Bible; this is true.
Do you have tattoos & piercings? You interpret the word of God in relation to it's culture against your own & interpret it rightly (by our assumptions).
Women in ministry: David Johnson from Church of the Open Door. He's the most amazing teacher I've ever heard.
Glad to see you've turned out to be such a head & not just a pretty face!!
Love ya,
Bell is extremely popular.... I thought I would figure out why.
I've had some good conversations with people I highly respect. There is a lot to say when it comes to how we influence ourselves, specifically who we are influenced by. I have some major concerns about Ken Wilbur and that only came from wondering why Bell would recommend his (Wilbur) teachings for the coarse of three months. That's a significant amount of time wouldn't you say? In no regard to you, If I was a Pastor I think I should have more than a brief understanding on some of the literature being handed off in today's Churches.