Do Christians despise God?

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Do Christians despise God?

Post #1

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A post from another thread which on reflection might be an interesting topic in its own right:
Realworldjack wrote:Other than things like attending Church, etc., again you would be correct [that "Christians live lives much like unbelievers do"]. So then, other than that, what would give you the impression that the lives of Christians would be any different, and how would this have anything at all to do with Christianity being true, or false?
You mean... what would give that impression, besides virtually all of the NT insisting that Christians should be starkly distinguished from the world? Indeed that the world would hate Jesus' followers just as it hated him?
  • John 15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name he may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another. 18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent me.

    1 John 3:10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. . . . 16 We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
There is so much poverty and need in the world, while most people in countries like Australia and the US have more wealth than we reasonably know what to do with. How can any Christian claim that the love of God abides in them if they're spending money on houses, cars or a fancy sound system for the building they attend once or twice a week? Jesus not only told his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor, he even emphasized this as a truly fundamental aspect of the kingdom of God; that retaining treasures on earth or working for money was akin to blinding yourself entirely:
  • Luke 12:29 And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. 30 For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 32 Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

    Matthew 6:19 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. [You cannot work for God if you're working for money.] 25 For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
According to Jesus' standards, by dividing up their time and spending far more effort working for money than serving God, refusing to trust in him for their daily bread but instead retaining earthly treasures year by year, most Christians are showing that they despise God despite professing him as another master.

Does that have anything to do with Christianity being true or false? Why would anyone imagine it to be true, if even the folk professing to be followers of Christ ignore his teachings? Certainly that hypocrisy and the comfortable irrelevancy of churchianity was one of major reasons why I walked away from "the faith" altogether. Jesus preached a deeply compelling but incredibly difficult message. It may be that Christians' determined efforts to bury and ignore that message do not invalidate it; perhaps even that the ongoing availability of that message despite seventeen-plus centuries of church efforts to subvert and undermine it is a testament to its power. But at least superficially the fact that Christianity as widely practiced looks like little more than a social club, the fact that not even Christians follow Christ, is a constant advertisement implying that there's nothing much to see there.




So was Jesus wrong in his stark dichotomy? Is it possible to spend so much time working for money and retaining earthly treasures, and not actually hate God as Jesus said?

Or does the refusal of most Christians to follow Jesus' teachings in this area have exactly the effect that he said it would: "If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" Do most Christians inwardly despise God, perhaps without even realizing the depth of that darkness?

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

Post #81

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Goose wrote: So it would seem a reasonable application of this command is that we are to sell some of what we have lest we end up in an absurd cycle of trading money back and forth between one another as one becomes rich and the other poor. And this intuitional argument that we should sell some, not all, of our possessions to help the poor is supported by a case example later in Luke:

� Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.� And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.�� – Luke 19:8-10

In this case example, Zacchaeus gives away half his possessions, not all. A reasonable tempering which is affirmed by Jesus.
Umm... it explicitly says that Zacchaeus surrendered a lot more than half of his wealth. Even as a child/teenager this passage always bothered me; I'd read that the tax collectors were so hated because they got rich in large part by defrauding their fellow Jews, but if most of Zacchaeus' wealth came from fraud, how could he possibly return four times as much... let alone doing so after giving half to the poor? The conclusion we must assume is that only a fairly small portion came from fraud; if a mere 13% of his income came from fraud he could give almost half of his wealth to the poor and have just enough left to repay his victims fourfold. And that would be if he had not spent a single penny of his income on food, perishables, clothes or other depreciating products.

Luke in chapter 14 wrote that "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." In chapter 18 he has Jesus telling a rich man "sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor. . . . How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God." But you somehow think that in chapter 19 Zacchaeus "reasonably tempered" Jesus' message by giving away only half his wealth? It seems the only reason we're not told of Zacchaeus giving everything to the poor was because he also had to repay those he'd defrauded.



It's actually quite interesting to imagine Christians' responses if they were reading through a book like Luke. In the chapter 9 Jesus sends out the twelve, telling them "Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece." Of course Christians will insist that this was only a specific mission for the twelve on that occasion. Then in chapter 10 Jesus sends out seventy others, telling them that "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." But that can't possibly mean that Christians generally should labour in such a spartan manner, surely; that's got to be an optional extra! In chapter 11 Jesus teachings his disciples to pray, not for comfort or prosperity, but merely for their daily bread. In chapter 12 he's even more explicit, telling them not to lay up treasures on earth, not worry about tomorrow's food or clothing, even to "Sell your possessions and give to charity." Ah, the Christians respond with a knowing look, but he didn't say to sell all their possessions did he? In chapter 13 Jesus warns his disciples to strive to enter through the narrow door, that those who call him Lord and claim to have eaten in his presence and heard his teachings will be cast out if they haven't obeyed. In chapter 14 he says "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." So the Christians insist that, okay, he did say all but obviously he didn't really mean it!
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Re: Do Christians despise God?

Post #82

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postroad wrote:One would think the church would be statistically shown to be free of such defects in character if in fact the Spirit was effective in its claimed attributes.
Sure, but only if one had a very superficial and thus deeply flawed understanding of Scripture.

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

Post #83

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PinSeeker wrote:
postroad wrote:One would think the church would be statistically shown to be free of such defects in character if in fact the Spirit was effective in its claimed attributes.
Sure, but only if one had a very superficial and thus deeply flawed understanding of Scripture.
Are you indicating that the body of Christ can be statistically indistinguishable or worse in the morality that itself claims are the fruits of the Spirit than the reprobate world?

And then still claim that it as the body of believers is the Temple in which the Spirit dwells?

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

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postroad wrote:Are you indicating that the body of Christ can be statistically indistinguishable or worse in the morality that itself claims are the fruits of the Spirit than the reprobate world?
It's very possible. Sure. I've "indicated" this many, many times. This is the very reason why God continually admonishes and exhorts against this.
postroad wrote:And then still claim that it as the body of believers is the Temple in which the Spirit dwells?
I've been abundantly clear, postroad, that human beings who are in the body of Christ (the Church; believers) are -- just like unbelievers -- sinful beings. This is the spiritual battle of the Christian while he walks this earth. As Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, we are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in Whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in Whom we also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. In other words, in the midst of the battle, God's work is being done. One day, the work of the Spirit will be done. We can live as if it has already been done, because it will surely happen. But until then, we walk by faith.
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Re: Do Christians despise God?

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nt

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

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[Replying to post 84 by PinSeeker]

Then there isn't a shred of evidence for the Spirit. In fact the whole of Christianity testifies against it. Jesus's own testimony regarding the good fruit is a lie.

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

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postroad wrote:Then there isn't a shred of evidence for the Spirit. In fact the whole of Christianity testifies against it. Jesus's own testimony regarding the good fruit is a lie.
In your opinion. Yeah. Knew that.

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

Post #88

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[Replying to post 87 by PinSeeker]

Which I am always able to support with proof texts. Which you of course simply insist are not understood by the carnal mind. The correct understanding being inevitabley something not rendered from the plain reading of the text.

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Re: Do Christians despise God?

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Post by Goose »

Mithrae wrote:
Goose in post #33 wrote:
And Matthew 6 is perhaps even clearer and more unambiguous than those two, rivaled only by the parallel passage in Luke 12 (also quoted in the OP) where Jesus unambiguously gives a universal teaching to "Sell your possessions and give to charity." In both of those passages Jesus explicitly tells his followers to trust in God's provision - "do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on" - just as he elsewhere tells them to pray for their daily bread. Working for money is the opposite of the mindset Jesus preached; assuring ourselves of our next week's and month's material wellbeing through our own efforts rather than trusting in God's provision, a life of planning rather than faith, and usually one which requires earthly treasures to maintain especially in the modern day (ie, good clothing, stable residence, bank account, transport, internet). But even more explicitly, Matthew's Jesus says "You cannot serve both God and money," or as I paraphrased in the OP "You cannot work for God if you're working for money"; it's the very next verse after that which says not to worry about acquiring your own food and clothing, leaving no doubt as to Matthew's meaning. It really doesn't get much clearer than that... except perhaps in John 6, where Jesus says "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."
I will focus here on the bold because this, it seems to me, the main contention. At least it’s the one I take issue with. This premise that a Christian cannot work for money.

First Matthew 6:24 says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.� You’ve taken this to mean, �You cannot work for God if you're working for money.� But this doesn’t follow at all. The word serve, as I mentioned, is δουλευ�ω (serve). It has the connotation of being ruled by money. If Matthew had meant you cannot work for money he could have used ἐ�γα�ζομαι (work, trade, labor for). I think that once we appreciate how the issue here is being in servitude to money we realize the idea of holding paid employment isn’t the problem.
Let's review this again:
  • "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. . . .
    Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
What is the passage saying? It's saying to serve God rather than wealth, to strive for the kingdom of God rather than striving for your food and clothing; to not even worry about what you'll eat or wear, but trust in God to provide them. Notably, it is saying that Jesus' disciples should be different from 'the Gentiles' in this regard.
I'm in agreement so far.
It's a pretty fair bet that if you asked a group of billionaires whether they are "ruled by" money, many if not most would adamantly insist that they aren't; that money isn't even really an objective for them. It's not as if they need any more of it, as if another billion is going to make any difference whatsoever to their lives, after all. All they're doing is enjoying the challenge of whatever business it is they're doing so well, with the consequent income being nothing more than a way of keeping score.

But if billionaires aren't "in servitude" to money, who the heck is?
Anyone can be in servitude to riches. Doesn’t the poor desire wealth? Doesn’t the poor person desire a billion dollars? You see the current state of one’s wealth or lack thereof doesn’t drive who one serve’s. What drives who one serve’s is the orientation of one’s heart. One isn’t in servitude to wealth by virtue of having wealth. What if God decided to bless me with a billion dollars? Am I therefore now in servitude to riches?
According to the passage everyone who is worried about their food or clothing or next mansion and for whom money is a motive behind their actions - an objective their decisions are in service to - is dividing their loyalties. It seems you're trying to cast the passage as referring to some kind of deep psychological bondage rather than normal everyday behaviour, but Jesus explicitly links his teaching to the most basic and mundane concerns of self-provision we have!
Not necessarily “psychological bondage.� Just bondage. That’s what the δουλευ�ω (serve) means.
And in fact, when we contemplate taking his teaching seriously we see how deep the 'normal' bondage to working for wealth really is, with even Christians insisting that they need their jobs to survive and provide for their families. As billionaires' example suggests, it's easy to tell ourselves that we're not focused on money while it's comfortably flowing; but try giving it up and odds are we'll learn some very different and difficult lessons about our priorities, how deeply we do worry about tomorrow and rely on our own rather than God's provision.
But you are changing your argument here. You’ve been arguing that Christians should not work for money. I would agree that “working for wealth� creates bondage to money.
In a somewhat broader view, it seems there are four general types of obedience other than to God (with forced servitude/slavery representing a fifth):
- To employers, serving the interests of our own prosperity
- To our nation, serving the interests of our collective prosperity
- To sin, serving the interests of our own desires and goals
- To family, serving the interests of their desires and goals

Jesus' teachings addressed each of these four; he obviously taught against sin, he preached a kingdom of God in contrast against loyalty to earthly kingdoms, and he even gave sometimes harsh warnings about keeping family ties in their proper perspective (Matt 19:10-12, Matt 23:9, Mark 3:31-35, Luke 9:59-62, Luke 14:26). In this passage of Matthew 6, and elsewhere such as in John 6, Jesus also taught against servitude to employers or working for the food that perishes. If even family must take a backseat to fellow members of the kingdom of God (Mark 3:31-35), how could we possibly imagine that relationships to mere employers will remain unaffected? If you cannot serve two masters, how can you serve both God and a corporation?
Because I’m not serving the corporation with my heart. The servitude Jesus was speaking of is an issue of the heart, he said so explicitly. For me, if it so happens to be the case that God has me working for a corporation my heart isn’t serving the corporation; it’s not the corporation that is meeting my daily needs in my view. My heart is serving God and it’s God who is meeting my daily needs through the corporation. The corporation is just an agency through which God meets my needs. The job with the corporation can come and go as far I’m concerned. Just like if I were to farm my own produce. It’s God meeting my needs through the agency of the farm. I don’t serve the farm. I serve God and rely on him to meet my needs though various agencies. It’s the same if I were doing “God’s work� on a volunteer basis as my only occupation so to speak. I’m still relying on God to meet my needs though the agency of others.

And this is fundamentally where your argument falls apart. You’ve been arguing that Christians should not work for money. But Jesus didn’t say do not work for money. He said do not serve riches.
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Re: Do Christians despise God?

Post #90

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Mithrae wrote:Umm... it explicitly says that Zacchaeus surrendered a lot more than half of his wealth.
No it doesn’t. Read carefully. In fact, it doesn’t explicitly say Zaccheus actually surrendered anything. All we read is Zaccheus’ promise that he will give half his possessions to the poor. Now we can assume that Jesus’ response is contingent upon Zaccheus actually following through on his promise. But there is no explicit mention that Zaccheus did surrender anything.

Notice something about Zaccheus’ story. Zaccheus makes the offer to give to the poor without prompting from Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say to Zaccheus this is what he must do. Somehwere along the line Zaccheus’ heart is changed. Jesus’ recognizes this. It’s the change of heart that Jesus is pleased with. If it were merely the act of selling all one possesses to give to the poor that Jesus demanded then we would expect Jesus to withhold his blessing since Zaccheus was falling short of the requirement.
Even as a child/teenager this passage always bothered me; I'd read that the tax collectors were so hated because they got rich in large part by defrauding their fellow Jews, but if most of Zacchaeus' wealth came from fraud, how could he possibly return four times as much... let alone doing so after giving half to the poor? The conclusion we must assume is that only a fairly small portion came from fraud; if a mere 13% of his income came from fraud he could give almost half of his wealth to the poor and have just enough left to repay his victims fourfold. And that would be if he had not spent a single penny of his income on food, perishables, clothes or other depreciating products.
You are assuming Zaccheus did intentionally defraud people. He doesn’t say that he did defraud anyone. He uses the conditional if he has defrauded anyone he will pay them back four fold. The presumption being a defrauded person would come forward and show how they were defrauded. Now it may very well have ended up that after giving half his wealth to the poor and paying back four times to anyone who he defrauded Zaacheus may have been bankrupted so to speak. Perhaps that was what he meant or perhaps that’s what Jesus knew would be the result.

In any case, we don’t know the end result. It seems, then, it was Zaccheus’ change of heart, the implied repentance, the implication that he will endeavor to be fair and honest in his dealings that pleases Jesus. Not the action itself of selling half his possessions and repaying any victims four fold since, as far as we can tell, that action falls short of complete liquidation of all his possessions. And this is the point of the argument from Zaccheus. When Jesus said sell one’s possessions to give to the poor this was not necessarily a command to sell all one’s possessions.
It's actually quite interesting to imagine Christians' responses if they were reading through a book like Luke. In the chapter 9 Jesus sends out the twelve, telling them "Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece." Of course Christians will insist that this was only a specific mission for the twelve on that occasion.
Right. Because the evidence from the entire Gospel suggests this was a specific mission.
Then in chapter 10 Jesus sends out seventy others, telling them that "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest." But that can't possibly mean that Christians generally should labour in such a spartan manner, surely; that's got to be an optional extra!
Yes this was another special Spartan-like mission effort (Luke 10:4). They return to Jesus with joy (Luke 10:17).
In chapter 11 Jesus teachings his disciples to pray, not for comfort or prosperity, but merely for their daily bread.
Yes, we are to pray for our daily bread. Not wealth and so on.
In chapter 12 he's even more explicit, telling them not to lay up treasures on earth, not worry about tomorrow's food or clothing, even to "Sell your possessions and give to charity." Ah, the Christians respond with a knowing look, but he didn't say to sell all their possessions did he?
Right. Jesus didn’t say sell all your possessions. Why would he when Jesus himself had possessions and access to money? Further supported by the case example of Zaccheus.
In chapter 13 Jesus warns his disciples to strive to enter through the narrow door, that those who call him Lord and claim to have eaten in his presence and heard his teachings will be cast out if they haven't obeyed.
Yep.
In chapter 14 he says "none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions." So the Christians insist that, okay, he did say all but obviously he didn't really mean it!
Oh Jesus meant what he said. But Jesus wasn’t taking about selling one’s material stuff as though that act alone made one a disciple. He was talking about counting the cost of discipleship which might include giving up one’s family and even one’s own life (Luke 14:26-33). He’s asking us to examine our hearts to see if we have the fortitude to finish, whatever the cost.

Mithrae, it’s been an enjoyable conversation up to this point. But the above summary of points on the Gospel of Luke has a heavy tone of mockery with little in the way of substance or counter argument. It tells me you’ve got little in the way of counter arguments to the counter arguments given. Or perhaps you just can’t be bothered? In either case, I think I will take that as my cue it’s time for me to move on. Thanks again.
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