| Justice in Reformed Christianity | https://www.instagram.com/quicksandrocks/ |
| Other churchy quotes, a fresh set from those posted here! | https://bsky.app/profile/pteranodo.bsky.social |
Maltbie Davenport Babcock, a Presbyterian minister in NY, wrote, “This is my Father’s World”. Tiring out our bodies for the Lord would include meeting poor, offering the radiance of our faith, and adjusting inequalities. By doing so our bodies may be broken, perhaps even our blood shed, but at the end we can commit our finished work with joy into the Father’s hands.
Inequalities????
How can you tire out your body for Him?
Beilby Porteus was an Anglican bishop, advocate of doctrinal purity. Based on Matthew 25, he says Charity is the most eminent of the evangelical virtues, the representative of all other virutes, the whole Christian religion.
Today, you’re more likely to hear it called a distraction than the eminent virtue. Those distraught about faith are pointed to extensive devotions rather than doing charity to show their faith.
How can you display the discriminating marks of Christ’s religion? #christian
Edward Reynolds was at the Westminster Assembly. Here he addresses the mayor. One would return to someone their property— it’s violence to withhold it. But when called upon to do this, by giving that which is our own to a needy person, there may be a temptation for a grudging willingness to creep upon us.
Is this grudging and unwillingness something taught and reinforced by today’s conservatism?
How can you give willingly, without grudging?
Emanuel Greenwald was a Lutheran pastor in OH & PA. He says a poor lad was oppressed by a RC priest to “pray his father’s soul out of purgatory.” When the boy had ran out of money, the priest wanted more. Some 300 years after the Protestant Reformation, indulgences were still being extracted.
Did he have to mention that the boy was poor? Is there more of a duty to speak out when the poor are abused by churches?
How can you remember the poor?
#christian #agape #ecclesia #godswrath #godfearing
Ezekiel Hopkins, an Irish, Anglican bishop, considers the commandment against theft. Delaying wages is theft from a poor worker (Dt 24:14-5). Our sin is in the poor’s cry.
Today the poor’s cry is their sin, ‘cuz business is “returning greater vale to society.”
And again, Hopkins is not calling for a massive regulatory system. He is warning individuals of the spiritual consequences of their actions.
How can you respond to the cry of the poor?
Thomas Chalmers, Presbyterian minister, speaks of poverty. The Bible expressly tells us to give to those who ask, even to the evil and unthankful, to give direct gifts to the poor from those items we possess.
Chalmers would have us give directly to the unthankful. Today, in contrast, we’ll put out people for allegations, even false ones, that they are not sufficiently our ally. Such as Afghans.
How can you give to the evil and unthankful?
Jacques Saurin was a French Reformed pastor. He says Satan is an enemy of the church, out to make us insensible to the needs of poor neighbors. The devil is behind this idea of “charity begins at home.” Saurin warns his brethren that this moral vision is a secret poison that corrodes all the powers of the soul.
Today, would some think this is from the Bible? (The Bible they hear?)
How can you resist corrosion of the soul?
Thomas Gisborne, Anglican priest, comments on manufacturing, in an age when quicksilver was coming into industrial use. A practice that injures human health or morals cannot be continue continued with a safe conscience.
He’s not calling for a return to preindustrial, caveman-like technologies. He’s not calling for massive regulation. He is addressing a spritiual matter: the conscience.
How can you protect the health and morals of persons?
William Attersoll, English Puritan, writes on the distinctives of Christianity, such as charity. He laments a lack of mercy and compassion towards the poor, for their maintenance. Not even in famine, scarcity, sickness, and “mortalities.”
Do some of these categories make us less willing to give? Do we bristle at “maintenance”?
How can you be given to mercy and compassion, and consider ways to get “we” involved?
