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?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?
- 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.
- 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?
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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