God’s business
An interesting read on the rise of the Church as a business.
Written by Adele Ferguson she writes:
“Some religious organisations are taking advantage of lax taxation regulations, to the cost of ordinary Australians.”
Without wanting to seem to too defensive it seems to me that the good the Church does in welfare and for the general community does in fact counter this argument. Ordinary Australians are helped by the Church. There will always be some organisations in any field that take advantage of loop holes and subvert the spirit of laws but I am not sure that we should change them at the cost of all organisations.
Read the full article here (pdf format)
July 9th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Which words were those???????? Name the post and quote me… I have trouble imagining I’ve ever said anything of the kind.
July 9th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Janet,
forgive if I took the wrong impression but all you have done is criticised me for emphasising putting evangelising and edification ahead of social work.
that is what some of your replies implied to me. It seems I took the wrong impression.
sorry.
July 9th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Apology accepted… you indeed have misunderstood me if you thought I was criticising you for putting evangelism ahead of social work.
I’ll try to put this as clearly as I can… I’ve been suggesting that “cold contact” witnessing is ineffective, and that friendship evangelism is likely to be far more effective.
But it needs to be real friendship and real love… most people have a “nose” for a phoney. Those who fake friendliness in order to hit people with a gospel message, and then “drop” those who are unresponsive, have I think, misunderstood Christ’s call to “love our neighbour as ourselves.” (Everyone is made in the image of God and is loved by Him, and we are called to be like Him.)
So I’ve been encouraging you to make some friends of people who are not Christians. You sound interested in evangelism, but are not measurably effective at it. So… why not try making some new friends… no strings attached… and see what God might do as a result?
Incidentally, I don’t think we can pick and choose the commandments we like… to live and walk with integrity before God does involve care for the poor as well as disciple making as well as honesty as well as using our gifts as well as serving as well as praying etc… but that’s another issue!
Let’s keep discussing this so we understand each other eh?
July 9th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
I do not disagree with much of what you have said although I would say evangelism is a gift from God thus some people are more gifted than others.
Actually most of my friends are not Christians ,none have yet taken up the offer yet.
In this instance always remember George Muller who prayed for children of a friend to come to the Lord.
The last did some days before he died!
I am not suggesting in the least one can pick and choose which commandments we can live with, we must live with all of them I do think the two E’s are the most important though.
I don’t discount caring for the poor either however in the bible this is mostly directed to Governments.
Remember when Paul went collecting money for people affected by famine in Jerusalem it was only for Christians
July 9th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Well, apologies again. When I asked about your experience in evangelism, at post 46 you wrote:
“I rarely have the opportunity and when it happens it is on the way to the city so I don’t know of the follow-up.”
I had the impression evangelism was something you “did” to people on the train or something while living in a Christian social ghetto… so clearly I have you completely wrong on this.
Yes, I believe God answers prayer… I’m amazed at the number of my old friends from school who’ve become Christians… nothing to do with me directly, but I used to pray for them like mad.
Not sure about the governments bit… in the Pentateuch there were a lot of things individuals were to do… like leaving the corners of the fields, only going over an area once so any missed grain / grapes could be collected by the poor, not taking a poor man’s cloak overnight, not charging interest… etc. etc. Interpreting what this means for today for those under the new covenant in a modern democracy is a complex question.
Perhaps others would like to reflect on individual and government responsibility for the poor also?