For the people in the Roman empire at the time of the Revelation, worshipping or nor worshipping was quickly becoming the dividing line between people who were acceptable in the community and people who weren’t. Not long after this time, some local officials introduced a formal requirement that unless you had and visible signs which were used to set people apart either as ‘able to trade’ or as ‘not able to trade’. From quite early on the Christians were faced with a stark alternative: stay true to the lamb and risk losing your livelihood, the ability to sell or buy; or capitulate to the monster, sacrifice to Caesar at the behest of the local officials, and then everything will be all right – except your integrity as one of the lamb’s followers.
Hi Hazrus. The problem I see with your examples is that the Revelation is not a collection of events haphazardly spread throughout history. Some politicians in Rome introduced a Marking system to regulate trade? Ok. But what about all the other aspects of the Revelation which are meant to happen along with the Mark of the Beast? And, does the "visible signs" thing performed by these Roman politicians really line up with what the Mark prophecy suggests? All, rich and poor, free and slave, small and great? Was their "visible sign" restricted to the right hand or the forehead and did it in some way relate to a world-wide dictator who had a false prophet working for him, both of whom performed "signs and wonders" and who made a statue of himself etc...
It's not enough to pluck a similarity out of the history books and say, "see, there ya go. Been there done that".
I must admit though that I don't think we should give up working, just as Kenny'sID and others have shown you.
Except, neither I, nor the video said anything about "giving up working" That is an interpretation which both you, Kenny, and whoever these others are, have put onto my comments and this is why I believe your own comments come across as reactionary or insecure. Kenny posted a bunch of verses about not being lazy. It makes him feel better about himself that he posts bible verses to support his position, but he can only do that because he's supporting an imaginary position.
Was Jesus lazy? Nah, he worked hard, but he didn't preach for wages. He didn't heal for wages. He didn't travel from town to town, dealing with stubborn goats and vipers, healing long lines of people, taking time out to teach his disciples privately, escape from authorities etc for wages. He worked hard, for love; seeking God's kingdom first. His motivation for
why he worked was "set apart" from what the world teaches as the proper motivation for why we should work (i.e. wages).
I've been saying this from the start, but people keep going back to this argument about how we need to work for a living and that we should not be lazy, as though you're deliberately trying to avoid the real issue. I realize you've been quite good about keeping materialism in the picture and I really do appreciate that, but what's the point of saying, "materialism is important" if we're not going to apply Jesus' answers to the problem?
In Luke 14 Jesus tells a parable about a person who starts a job and then doesn't have what it takes to finish. The lesson is about counting the cost of what it means to be his follower. We should not say, "I am a Christian" unless we are prepared to do what it means to be a Christian, not according ot our moder-day traditions of what it means, but according to his teachings. He followed that up with a teaching saying, "whosoever will be my disciple, he should forsake all he has".
It's a shocking comment, but he doesn't stop there. He follows it up by saying, "salt is good, but if salt loses the sting which makes it good, then what good is it? It is not even fit for the dung hill".
In other words, Jesus' teachings are salty, but if we water them down then what good are they? When we read a teaching like, "forsake all you have" it's tempting to say, "Oh, I do that in my heart", or "that's not really what he meant", or " that was for certain people in a certain time", or "we're not saved by works", or " God wants us to be rich" (and I've heard all these before) all we're really doing is watering-down the salt to make it more palatable.
This teaching about forsaking all is a powerful teaching on how to deal with Greed, first in our own lives, so that, like the person who takes the beam out of his own eye so that he may take the speck out of his brothers eye, we can then go on to give the world real answers. All those ethical dilemmas you presented in blue text are fascinating examples of the complexities of being
in the world while not
of the world, but if we're unwilling to count the cost of following Jesus and to pay the full price by applying his teaching as he and his disciples did, then all we'll really have are dilemmas which give the appearance of dealing with the issues but which never present any real solutions.
