Jesus and giving to charity

by sleepy 3 Replies latest jw friends

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  sleepy

  When it was brought up in meetings or at get togethers about why we didn’t do more for charity as witness the answer usually was that we should concentrate on the preaching work as it was so important we didn’t have time for anything else .Also “there's nothing we can do for this old system why bother”.
  Compare that to Jesus who according to the society had just three and a half years to do the ministry .
  What do you think of when you think of Jesus .
  Well I think of him healing people .
  Did he say “sorry love can't help you today , got to preach”? “You know if I heal you your going to die anyway ,so why bother?”
  No he felt pity for people and healed them , even though he knew they were doomed to death.
  How much of the gospels is taken up by accounts of Jesus charitable deeds. Lots.

  Any way another point if Jesus knew what diseases were why didn’t he teach people how to cure them , or how not to catch them .It would have saved thousands of years of suffering.
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  Bang

  Suffering is turned to good use. I've posted this before, so I might sound like a scratched record here, but the poor and needy are blessed broken and handed out for our sake - for our nourishment (unleavened). With this we are invited to His forgiveness - to drink His blood (not abusing it, but abstaining as able). This is something that the jw religion just doesn't understand at all - like selfish people sitting at a show, waiting for someone to do a magic trick, happy in the dark.

  You've probably heard words about 'the mystery of the Eucharist'. This is part of that mystery - the poor and sick suffer for us, for our sake, as Christ did - the hardest cases He let kill Him. Seeing the needy and our reaction, shows us who we really are and regardless of what we may think of ourselves, this is the proof of the pudding, the truth, our fruit - "you did it unto Me". Even on the 'paradise earth' that's raved on about, who is it who would be trusted always to ensure the good of the other, to act with courage (literally an act of the heart) - the same people who would do that here ?

  It's often argued that, "well, if we actually knew that God existed, then we would do that" - but that's not love is it, it's just part of that way of the world, a world that seeks for proof, a sign so as to make the trade.

  Bang
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  zerubberballs

  G'day Sleeper,

  Have you read anything of Jesus connection to the Essenes? (they were communist healers and Jesus may well have been one .. it appears john the baptist most likely was)

  cheers, zerubberballs

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  G'day Bang,

  The old eucharist eh? Well, you probably know its origin in the canabal feasts of the ancients. I suppose the young Aztec girls and old polenesians viewed it a privelege to be sacraficed to thier God. I guess, from a bible believers point of view, charitably giving ones body to pleasure Jehovah with meat and blood is at least as ancient as the tale of Abraham and Issac and possibly started in Eden itself.

  Gen 6:9: "and then Abel set fire under his bbq and cried out with a voice like thunder; 'CAIN, BRING FORTH THY ONIONS AND PLACE THEM DELICATELY UPON MY FIRE!'"

  Gen 9:6: "and God said to Cain 'why didsth thou do this terrible deed .. fryeth the ass of thy brother without inviting me to sup the body and the red with thee?'"

  zerubberballs
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  Bang

  Yep, suffering turned to good use.

  << possibly started in Eden itself >>

  Well, I suppose it took four or five billion years for us to evolve here. God delighted with creation and He saw it was good, and it's still a bit of work to get all men to be God for God who became a man. They just don't trust Him, and rather than go with creation, man thinks he knows right and wrong, not trusting creation, but trying to appease what doesn't require it, desiring an expedient judgement to know the future and so on.
  
  Anyway when man was up for it, when the time was right, God came to say, "sacrifice Me, eat Me, I'm the food you should be into if you desire to further life". And so we do, we form social structures and do deeds that help the needy, act with heartfelt kindness for a good design, and we progress further, creating the new earth - but as we know, not everyone - plenty of 'christian' work yet.

  Man has long eaten others to gain their attributes. To use it for good, teachers used the notion even thousands of years ago - like Moses, teaching everyone what not to 'eat' (become like), the animal behaviours that should be avoided, to progress further as people who are more like God.
  
  I suppose some people have viewed it as a privelege to be sacrificed and eaten - didn't God ?

  Bang