Do Christians despise God?

[Mithrae]

A post from another thread which on reflection might be an interesting topic in its own right:

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?

[postroad]

[Replying to post 100 by PinSeeker]

I suppose your making it up as much as I am ?

Babylon was never destroyed in any way described in the texts. Not even close.

It fell into disuse and disrepair after hundreds of years of post exile existence but the absolute and imminent destruction prophecied for its spiritual and political institutions and infrastructure never materialized.

If anything my concept is better supported.

[Mithrae]

[mrow] Jesus told his disciples in Luke 14:33
to "give up" ALL they had [mcol]#1 [mcol] Jesus wasnt speaking in absolutes ; "all" logically
did'nt mean absolutely everything they possessed
(Jesus evidently hadn't given up his own quality coat)

[Replying to post 42 by Mithrae]

LUKE 14: 33

In the same way, you may be sure that not one of you who does not say good-bye to* all his belongings can be my disciple - NWT .

QUESTION Did Jesus want his followers to literally abandon everything that they had?

♦ANSWER: No, Jesus was not speaking in the absolute.

To , "forsake all" in the absolute (which would include absolutely all you have ownership of including clothes and sandals) or "forsake all" not in the absolute which imposes a line to be drawn at some point. There is no third option it is one or the other.

To deny this linguistic dichotomy is to ignore a basic principle of all language and communication. It is not debatable, it is not a matter of opinion, it cannot be circumvented, it is a basic fact of language ALL speech can be categorised as being in the absolute or not (ie being relative).

Do you have any credible source for this being a "basic principle of all language and communication"?

And tell me please, is that sentence in purple 'absolute' or 'relative'? You're trying to create a (blatantly) false dichotomy here. Even within the much more specific realm of quantitative propositions, such as the verse in question, they fairly obviously could be categorized as
A) Entirely false
B) Overstatement/hyperbole
C) Approximation
D) Precise/exact
E) Understatement

Obviously, you are determined to believe that Jesus' command "none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions" was mere hyperbole - that he didn't really mean give them up, just to imagine yourself giving them up 'in your heart' or something along those lines. Never mind that usually (with a notable exception in his condemnation of religious hypocrites in Luke 16:14-15) when Jesus speaks of the heart it's generally to say that our actions show what's in our hearts; of lustful glances in Matthew 5:28, of evil speech and all immorality in Mark 7:17-23, of the fruits we bear in Luke 6:45, and (most poignantly to this discussion) "where your treasure is there will your heart be" in Luke 12:34.

As a general rule the view that a passage doesn't really mean what it says is to be adopted only as a last resort, when there's actually some compelling reason to suppose so. In this case, we have quite the opposite: The example of Jesus and his apostles shows quite unequivocally that giving up 'all' possessions was at the very least an approximation,that they gave up almost everything but the clothes on their backs... and quite possibly an understatement. Jesus gave up much more than his possessions; in this thread, same as last year, you're fixating on his "quality coat" from the passage in which he gives up his very life! Do you imagine he still owned his coat while hanging on the cross? The gospel stories suggest otherwise. According to church tradition ten of his twelve disciples and at least one of his brothers likewise gave up their lives as a direct result of their discipleship.

Perhaps more to the point, at least insofar as forsaking possessions goes, arguably the pattern set in the gospels is one of continually receiving more (eg. Mark 10:30) in order to give away again (Matthew 10:8, Luke 16:10); the apostles are said to have distributed the better part of a year's wages worth of food to a crowd of five thousand, for example. Who better to trust in materially helping the poor than those proven to have no skin in the game, after all? That is of course debatable but, if so, then it would not 'merely' be a case of giving up everything one owns, but giving up a lot more than one's current total wealth; in that case "all" would be an understatement!



It's very telling that a blatantly false dichotomy of "either it means strip to your birthday suit and walk around buck naked, or else it doesn't really mean giving up much if anything at all" is the 'best' and only response available to this Luke 14 passage. That does not seem to be any kind of honest attempt to understand what Jesus taught or the example he set, merely to water his teaching down to something comfortable that everyone can accept. He, of course, described his teaching rather differently:

• Matthew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

[postroad]

[Replying to post 102 by Mithrae]

Wouldn't having all things in common with membership open to anyone regardless of their ability to contribute, qualify as giving up everything in order to follow Christ?

It would also fulfill Jesus's words that they would receive tenfold whatever they had sacrificed. Technically owning nothing but having in common everything the group owned.

It would also be a demonstration that the prophecy had been fulfilled that God would give a singleness of thought and action. That is if such a group wouldn't self destruct due to internal personality and character conflict.

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 102 by Mithrae]

Wouldn't having all things in common with membership open to anyone regardless of their ability to contribute, qualify as giving up everything in order to follow Christ?

Arguably; that certainly seems to be the example from Acts/the apostolic church, and therefore really the only legitimate alternative to following the example of Jesus himself and the twelve during his ministry. It's forsaking all personal possessions at least and, given the greatly increased risk of being victimized by thieves (like Judas carrying the group's money bag) or charlatans or simply legitimate group decisions entirely contrary to what you'd otherwise want, constitutes a very real surrender of control which seems quite distinct from the just imagine yourself giving them up 'interpretation' which most Christians seem to prefer.

Such communal living doesn't seem to have the same impact in terms of trusting in God's provision/daily bread kind of dependence as advocated in the Lord's prayer, Matthew 6, Jesus' sending out of the twelve and seventy and so on. Which is why I tend to mention occasionally venturing out for a time in complete faith as the twelve did, even for groups following something like (or even more gospel-like than) the Acts model. When it comes down to either of those levels of real action and obedience - gospel homelessness or Acts communal living - that's presumably when "God knows my heart" starts to become more than an empty platitude. Jesus obviously considered it critically important for his hearers to radically change their relationship to their earthly treasures, but that seems to have been to promote and safeguard their emotional wellbeing, purity of motivation and devotion to God, rather than because some specific quantity of material possessions intrinsically confers holiness.

When discussing whether to wander the land preaching the good news and stay in the homes of strangers who welcome you in (as did Jesus and the twelve during his ministry) or to mostly live in one city preaching the good news and staying in commonly-owned housing (as did the apostolic church), "God knows my heart" seems a legitimate point and a safeguard against petty legalism. When discussing whether to follow the example of Jesus/his apostles or to maintain a six-figure job and a vacation home, "God knows my heart" would look like desperate attempt at self-delusion; especially when Jesus said that everyone else can see their heart also just by looking at where their treasures lie.

[postroad]

[Replying to post 104 by Mithrae]

Jesus did institute a hierarchy within the church. Perhaps a community of believers allowed for enough resources to fund a missionary class while their perfectly harmonious lifestyle served as a witness to the power of the Spirit. Something that could be pointed out as proof of a supernatural occurrence and incentive for emulating?

I'm imagining it from the perspective that if the Spirit and prophecy of the new covenant had been a factual occurrence.

Also having widely dispersed groups of believers assisting each other would be a sort of insurance against hardships in any one location. And an even greater witness to the power of the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 8:8-14 New International Version (NIV)

8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

10 And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. 12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. 14 At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality,

But then mine is only the musing of a skeptic. Real believers put up walls between each other and will pick up arms and shoot one another.

[For_The_Kingdom]

While it is true their are some Christians who outright ignore the teachings of Christ altogether (one must wonder if they really are Christian in this case), there are also a great number of Christians who struggle to follow the teachings of Christ, myself included. So it isn't a case of ignoring necessarily.

This is a great post, Goose...and I'd like to touch on this a tad bit. I am by no means perfect and I struggle every single day with sin. That being said, I do try...and I am in constant dialogue (via words and thoughts) to God...regardless of whether or not I am sinning, or praising him.

What I mean is; I have a relationship with God. Can it be stronger? Certainly. Are there times when I feel that God is pissed off at me? Of course. But I do try. Can I try harder? Absolutely. But I do try.

And my point is; there are those, as you alluded to, who "outright ignore the teachings of Christ altogether". They don't try, nor do they care. But I try, and I DO care!!! And I'd like to think that my effort must count for SOMETHING.

Quick story; back in high school, I had a math class (Probability & Statistics). I needed to pass this class to graduate. For the life of me, I just was NOT able to comprehend what was going on (math was always tough for me).

I really tried to do well in the class. I asked questions, got tutoring, etc. I just wasn't catching on. Now, my teacher, I will never forget him (Mr. Eddings)...he saw all of the effort that I put in to it..he could have failed me..but based on his grace and mercy..he gave me a passing grade, and I graduated!!!

What was his reason for passing me? He said, "I didn't pass you based on your good work, but I passed you based on your good EFFORT."

And I can feel that deep in my heart, God will judge us based on our efforts. Was it Thomas Aquinas who said..

You can't stop a bird from landing on your head...but you can stop it from building a nest on your head (paraphrasing).

The difference between the two? One takes effort, and one doesn't.

[PinSeeker]

If anything my concept is better supported.

In your opinion. Sure.

Where are you seeing that Babylon was destroyed, postroad?

[postroad]

[Replying to post 107 by PinSeeker]


Jeremiah 50 and 51 describe an absolute destruction and a call for all the Jews to leave.

[PinSeeker]

Persia conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. Babylon was not just a city, it was a region. The city represented the entire region. Jeremiah's prophecy is really about the people, postroad, not the buildings. Just like all of God's word. All conquests in that day were very violent. The new king (Cyrus) commanded the Jews to leave... which was actually God's blessing them and returning them out of exile. It all happened, just as Jeremiah -- really, God -- foretold.

[postroad]

[[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 201ec54de9]Replying to post 109 by PinSeeker[/urlll]

Nothing was utterly destroyed. Leaving was voluntary and not enough volunteers could be persuaded to go and a system where people choosen by lot had to go.

The people of the northern kingdom didn't join hand in hand and no Davidic dynasty was reborn apart from some vassal leaders appointed and removed at will.

Doesn't sound at all like what was written.