The Purpose of the Church - To care for it's own

Gerry · #1 5th January 2003, 10:35 AM

The Church is set up and intended to function as a Family. Those of us who need comfort should seek it in the Church. If we need advice, forgiveness, understanding, food, shelter, or any need physical, or spiritual, we should seek it in the Church.

James 1:27: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." KJV

"Religion that is pure and genuine in the sight of God the Father will show itself by such things as visiting orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world." JBP

I Timothy 5:1-2 - Don't reprimand a senior member of your church, appeal to him as a father. Treat the young men as brothers, and the older women as mothers. Treat the younger women as sisters, and no more.

How to deal with widows in your church

5:3-4 - You should treat with great consideration widows who are really alone in the world. But remember that if a widow has children or grandchildren it is primarily their duty to show the genuineness of their religion in their own homes by repaying their parents for what has been done for them, and God readily accepts such service.

5:5-7 - But the widow who is really alone and desolate can only hope in God, and she will pray to him day and night. The widow who plunges into all the pleasure that the world can give her is killing her own soul. You should therefore make the following rules for the widows to avoid abuses:

5:8 - 1. You should make it clear that for a man to refuse to look after his own relations, especially those actually living in his house, is a denial of the faith he professes. He is far worse than a man who makes no profession.

5:9-10 - 2. Widows for your church list should be at least sixty years of age, should have had only one husband and have a well-founded reputation for having lived a good life. Some such questions as these should be asked:- has she brought up her children well, has she been hospitable to strangers, has she been willing to serve fellow-Christians in menial ways, has she relieved those in distress, has she, in a word conscientiously done all the good she can?

5:11-13 - 3. Don't put the younger widows on your list. My experience is that when their natural desires grow stronger than their spiritual devotion to Christ they want to marry again, thus proving themselves unfaithful to their first loyalty. Moreover, they get into habits of slackness by being so much in and out of other people's houses. In fact they easily become worse than lazy, and degenerate into gossips and busybodies with dangerous tongues.

5:14-15 - 4. My advice is that younger widows should, normally, marry again, bear children and run their own households. They should certainly not be the means of lowering the reputation of the church, although some, alas, have already played into the enemy's hands.

5:16 - 5. As a general rule it should be taken for granted that any Christian, man or woman, who has a widow in the family should do everything possible for her, and not allow her to become the church's responsibility. The church will then be free to look after those widows who are alone in the world. JBP

II Corinthians 8,9

James 2:15,16: "Now what use is it, my brothers, for a man to say he "has faith" if his actions do not correspond with it? Could that sort of faith save anyone's soul? If a fellow man or woman has no clothes to wear and nothing to eat, and one of you say, "Good luck to you I hope you'll keep warm and find enough to eat", and yet give them nothing to meet their physical needs, what on earth is the good of that?" JBP

James 2:15: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" KJV

Father help us to understand our role in the Family of God, and give us grace to both give and receive in accordance with Your will and Your Word.

altya · #2 5th January 2003, 01:46 PM

Father help us to understand our role in the Family of God, and give us grace to both give and receive in accordance with Your will and Your Word.

Father I include myself in this prayer and I pray also for revelation knowledge about your love for ALL people. - Amen

GraftMeIn · #3 5th January 2003, 07:23 PM

Thanks Gerry!

I sure am enjoying your series of posts on the Purpose of the Church. I stand in agreement with your prayer. And May we all learn more about what it means to show love and comapassion towards others not only in our words but also in our deeds.

Gerry · #4 5th January 2003, 09:54 PM

I also will agree with your prayer, and I find it very interesting that you would pray for revelation knowledge about God's love for all people. I see this knowledge beginning in manifest slowly in these forums and will continue to build.

For Christianity has nothing to do with anything at all BUT LOVE. The Word clearly tells us that God IS Love! And Jesus never did anything that did not translate directly into love.

I would love so much to see God's people praying for God's Love to fill thier hearts to overflowing so that they could manifest Christ and share this love with all those here, and elsewhere, that do not know Him.

Therefore to seek knowledge of God's Love is to seek knowledge of God, and we as Christians should always be seeking to know our God in a deeper and more personal way.

Originally posted by altya
Father I include myself in this prayer and I pray also for revelation knowledge about your love for ALL people. - Amen

Gerry · #5 5th January 2003, 10:13 PM

GMI, I am so glad you are enjoying this series. I only wish there were many others here ready to receive this message and to understand what, where, and why, and who the Church is. There are many who know about God, but do not know God.

Many have posted that they have been a Christian as long as they can remember, or that they were born a Christian, or that they are "trying" to be a Christian. These same people post that they do not believe that God hears them when they pray, or that they do not believe that God loves them unconditionally, etc. These same people also have questions about the Church and it's purpose. I hope some of them are seeing these posts. They are not responding with a reply.

But my prayer is that God will speak to the hearts of all who read the posts and use them to reveal what needs to be revealed to them, where they are.

And you are right. Empty words of love and compassion are like faith without works. In fact what you have said is the same thing. For, indeed, our actions manifest the contents of our hearts.