That's a stretch. Twenty first century homelessness and what Jesus and the boys were are oranges and apples.
Lots of examples in the last few pages of posts.Why it seems most Christians are against asylum seekers?
You just did.I don't know how to reply to such misdirection.
Yes, I did.You just did.
Really ? Where does it say anywhere in the Bible Jesus and any of his disciples took up permanent lodgings ? Chapter and verse if you please. I've actually read the Gospel and it sounds to me like they were basically itinerates who travelled from place to place, often sleeping on the ground, and only on occasion staying briefly in a house owned by someone else. Sure does sound like a bunch of homeless guys to me.
What if that man pushing that cart of cans was Jesus?Are an itinerate preacher and a guy with a shopping cart full of cans are the same thing in your mind?
That nations have borders and have the authority to defend those border, enforce the law, and protect their citizens from foreign invaders is a Biblical principle.
Given the right circumstances, I could have been a member of ISIS. If I were born in the middle east 20 years ago to a Muslim family. . . In other words, I am no better than any of them. "There but for the grace of God go I". . .
Having said that, we don't just throw caution to the wind in dealing with this situation.
I have some personal experience in this area. After Hurricane Katrina I was homeless for ten years. One day I was a fire captain with 8 years on the department (Fireman of the Year in 1989) with an 1800 square foot house, a mini-van and a Fiat sports car, and a 30 foot sailboat sitting in the marina. The day after Katrina, I was standing in a line with 300 other homeless people waiting for one roll of toilet paper for a family of four. Wasn't I compensated by Insurance for all that stuff ? Sure I got a $1,500 dollar check from AllState before they bailed on everyone in Louisiana. Since my home was now re-designated as being located in a flood zone, I had to pay to raise it 25 feet in the air on pilings in order to qualify for any government hurricane assistance.
Initially, the churches in Houston responded with amazing generosity towards New Orleans refugees. They allowed tent camping on their property, provided wonderful meals, cloths and other forms of support. After about 12 months, the charity dried up and disappeared completely, even despite, or perhaps because of the reality the possibility of refugees returning to New Orleans was virtually nill. You couldn't even fill a one gallon jug from a church water spigot without being threatened with trespassing and theft. These conditions forced me to leave the Houston area two years after Katrina. My now ex-wife returned to California with the two step-kids to live with her mother.
Every city and town I passed through for the next ten years had an extremely hostile homeless policy. I was constantly being brutalized by police, and forced out of town onto BLM land where I had to live in a tent. Stays on BLM land are limited to 14 days, then you have to relocate 30 miles distance to another BLM in order to be legal. Believe me, when you exited a BLM, you were monitored the whole time you were walking.
Most inner city (inter-faith) shelters were deplorable. Bed bug infested mattresses and pillows, feces on the floor of cold water showers. Nowhere safe to lock up your belongings. Spend a week in a shelter, loose everything to theft and start over again. Drug dealers were ignored and conducted business openly on shelter property everywhere.
In Albuquerque New Mexico the shelter guards actually allowed the drug dealers to carry guns into the shelter and break into the front of the food lines. Everyone has to make a living I suppose and drug dealers can't be bothered with standing in line. Seems the guards and shelter workers were being paid off by the drug dealers, that's the story I heard anyway.
In every Christian Inter-faith shelter I stayed in, I saw cloths donations come in the front door and go straight out the back, loaded into the cars of shelter employees, their friends, or second hand store owners. Not a bad racket. Give a tax exemption right off for donations, and second hand store owners mark the donations up to 70 % of retail and resell the stuff. Meanwhile, the homeless are suffering from exposure and frost bite injury.
Shelters that handled food donations to the underprivileged, spent all afternoon loading boxes of food into Cadillac Escalades, Toyota SUV's and Lincoln Town Cars. It works the same way at most Christian soup kitchens. Donated boxes of steak are unloaded by grocer trucks and stored inside freezers, and that's the last time you ever see it again. The soup kitchens even ask the homeless to help as volunteers and unload the trucks. Sometimes you're asked to load the boxes of meat from the freezers into the Town cars. Some nerve, huh ?
After leaving Houston, for the next ten years, I was only approached personally three times by people who identified themselves as Christians and offered to help. The most extravagant gift I received was a new pair of hiking boots purchased at a nearby Walmart Store by a woman. The rest of the time, I might as well have been a ghost. Nobody ever looked me in the eye. They sort of looked through you. Like you weren't there.
Are any of you aware Jesus and his disciples were homeless guys ??? "Inasmuch as you have done this to the least of those among you, you have also done it to me", (Matthew 25:40-45). Good luck with that when you find yourselves face to face with him.
"This is another example of my opinion but it seems to me that the overwhelming message of God is that we're to show compassion and mercy. I can't think of any examples where we are told to decide, based on self interest or risk to ourselves, who to extend compassion and help to or when to do it"
The countries these immigrants are coming from have shown little regard for Christians, in fact Christians have been persecuted in those parts of the world. We can show compassion and mercy by helping them rebuild their own countries, but as has become apparent they do not want to embrace our way of life, they do not want to assimilate but rather have shown violence towards those who do not share their religion it is dangerous and foolish to think that we can welcome them and they will be grateful and respect our Christianity. We have a duty to protect ourselves, our women and children from persecution. I don't believe God wants us to bow down to those who have made it clear they want to take over the world and that anyone not sharing their beliefs will meet a horrible fate.
Are an itinerate preacher and a guy with a shopping cart full of cans are the same thing in your mind?
In the ten years I was homeless, I do believe I met several "shopping cart" pushing prophets. One old bearded guy wearing cammo in particular used to show up at the Durango soup kitchen with a sign that read, "The End Is Near". I had seen the guy standing on Main street in Durango carrying the same sign and watched him, he wasn't pan handeling because I saw him turn down money several times when it was offered. I was curious if the guy was mentally ill, or not. So I engaged him in conversation one afternoon. He informed me I should leave Durango immediately, because he was going to bring a curse upon the town. It wasn't long after that I left Durango.
About a year later, around May 2015 I was watching the evening news and saw a story that left me stunned. An old gold mine on the mountain side above the town had collapsed into the Animas River that runs through Durango and dumped tons and tons of cyanide laden dirt into the river. The News was calling it the worst environmental disaster in the history of the South West. The Animas is one of the premier trout fishing destinations in America. It also feeds into the Colorado River. All I could think was, "good for you George". "Maybe now someone will take your sign seriously" ! To this day, I wonder if I didn't meet Elijah in Durango, Colorado.
The Bible does in fact confirm Jesus was homeless. As pointed out in post #231 by "Circle of Christ" the Scripture does say "the Son of Man shall have no place to rest his head". By the way, John the Baptist was homeless too. According to Scripture, he lived in the wilderness and lived off wild honey and grasshoppers. That's three paragraphs, right ?
ISIS is a band of murderers and rapists. They worship Satan. They hate God and the Holy Spirit and they hate you if you're Christian. Anyone who thinks they can persuede ISIS in any way is a fool, and anyone who sacrifices their families, including their children for ISIS' sake, has helped ISIS and their father the devil.