Secular Work as a Christian Ministry

 Christians should insist on excellence because their work is   ultimately done for God and can be seen as an act of worship. An      example from history of a Christian person who understood this is    Brother Lawrence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Lawrence

 

The insistence for excellence, however, has to be tempered with humility so that it never tips over into toxic arrogant perfectionism. That becomes the sin of elevation of the self above God.

 

Biblical passages which exhibit this idea include Colossians 3:23-24, Proverbs 22:29, and Philippians 4:8.

 

The modern trend is to let things slide, to get by on less, on giving less effort and personal involvement to a situation, not allowing a responsibility to interfere too much with our personal interests. This is sometimes called quiet quitting, doing just enough to not be unpleasantly noticed. This happens even in our churches.

 

The cafeteria in the hospital where I worked before my retirement started exhibiting a symptom of the times in which we live. Suddenly one day, everything was gone: coffee creamer, sweeteners, salt, pepper, ketchup (catsup if you insist), mayonnaise, and mustard.

The cafeteria said that customers could still have these items

but would have to specifically ask for them. Some of the “less sophisticated” (patronizingly read “old” or “rural”) customers seemed to be totally bewildered by this.

 

The hospital cafeteria is a contract service with a commercial restaurant chain which seems to have lost sight of the traditional service provider-customer relationship. Until recently, even though the cafeteria long ago quit washing dishes and began using only plastic plates and utensils, they still seemed to realize that the strict bottom line was ranked lower than providing quality customer service. Condiments, spices, sauces, and other items were understood to be included in the price of the food items being sold.

Yes, I saw some people abusing their customer rights and stuffing things like ketchup packages and napkins into their purses and pockets, but petty theft by an unscrupulous few isn’t enough justification to punish the many who play by the rules.

The only reason the cafeteria doesn’t suffer a customer backlash is that the client base is transient and, at the same time, captive. The choices are leave the hospital to get food, order from a delivery service, eat in the the cafeteria, or resort to the cracker and peanut machines.

At least plastic plates and cutlery are still provided. It would be really messy to eat spaghetti with your fingers.     

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

 

Almost everyone acknowledges that the original text documents of the New Testament have been lost. The originals were written on perishable materials and were hand copied onto other perishable materials to be distributed among the churches. Constant use, environmental factors, and sheer age led to the degradation of the documents which had to be recopied repeatedly. What we now have has been reconstructed from thousands of early textual fragments and the earliest known full copies of the books.

In the 120 pages of his book, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce presents a detailed but highly readable statement about the proofs that the modern New Testament as it stands represents as much as a 99.9 percent recovery of the original documents. Through the comparison of numerous copies, scribal errors and intentional editing can be detected and rejected. The oldest copies and those with the hardest to accept meaning (and therefore most likely to be "corrected" by the scribe) are favored.

Comparing the extant New Testament documents to those of secular antiquity, Bruce shows that the texts of the Christian scriptures are actually far better attested than those of universally accepted secular books.

                            ______________________________

F.F. Bruce, who died in 1990, was a highly influential British conservative evangelical biblical scholar and university professor. He wrote numerous books and articles.  https://www.eerdmans.com/9780802867230/f-f-bruce/

Information you will need to search for this book: Bruce, F.F., The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downer’s Grove, Ill: Inter-Varsity Press, 5^th ed., 1960).

A similar book with a very apologetic bent is:

Sala, Harold J., Why You Can Have Confidence in the Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008).  (This is an apologetics book comparing the extant biblical documentation to that of classical documents from antiquity.)

___________________________________________________________________

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Samaritan’s Purse 2024 Gift Catalog

 

For Christmas gifting, many people shop online or from gift catalogs for gifts picked specifically for friends and loved ones. The gifting tradition has many historical origins but ultimately, for Christians, derives from the three gifts brought for the baby Jesus by the wise men from the East. The secular Christmas tradition completely forgets or ignores this.

The Samaritan’s Purse 2024 Gift Catalog is a Christian option. For full disclosure, I have no connection to Samaritan’s Purse except as a donor. The catalog turns gift-giving around. The gift to your loved ones is a gift in their name to a person, family, or community hurting and in need.

Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian organization operating in over 100 countries. It carries out mission activities and disaster relief efforts and is run by Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham (1918-2018). www.samaritanspurse.org   1-828-262-4980. 1-800-353-5957. Their physical address is:

            Samaritan’s Purse

            P. O. Box 3000

            Boone, NC 28607 USA

The gift items are listed on this web page: www.samaritanspurse.org/catalog24  The suggested donations can be from an individual or a group. $ = US dollars.

1.      Feed a Hungry Baby: baby formula for a week. Suggested donation: $6.

2.      Provide Hot Meals for a Child: hot meals for a week. Suggested donation: $7

3.      Rescue Children in Crisis: shelter and daily needs, education. Suggested donation: $75

4.      Care for an Orphan: support orphanages and children’s homes. Suggested donation: $35

5.      Help a Family Survive a Disaster: supplies, water filters, food, temporary shelter, cooking kits, hygiene items. Suggested donation: $45

6.      Put a Stop to Human Trafficking: education. Suggested donation: $125

7.      Serve Desperate Refugees: food, shelter, etc. Suggested donation: $125

8.      Feed a Family: after natural disasters or war. Suggested donation: $35

9.      Bring Clean Water to a Community: water filters, pumps. Suggested donation: $75

10.  Give a Filter to a Family: water filter for clean water. Suggested donation: $100

11.  Drill a Village Well: Suggested donation: $10,000

12.  Honeybees: hives, equipment, training. Suggested donation: $20

13.  “Jesus Loves Me: Lambs: toy lambs that play the song, “Jesus Loves Me.” Suggested donation: $10

14.  Baby Chicks: chicks, a coop, eggs to eat or sell. Suggested donation: $14

15.  Blankets and Bedding: Suggested donation: $6

16.  Bless the Marriage of a Married Couple: Alaska wilderness lodge, marriage classes, airfare. Suggested donation: $6,000

17.  Send Help to Mission Hospital: airfare and lodging for volunteer medical professionals. Suggested donation: $50

18.  Provide Life-Saving Medical Care: airlifts, medical care. Suggested donation: $100

19.  Restore Sight to the Blind: cataract surgeries. Suggested donation: $40

20.  Provide Life-Saving Medical Equipment: refurbished donated equipment. Suggested donation: $25

21.  Help Repair a Cleft Lip: surgery. Suggested donation: $250

22.  Mend a Child’s Heart: heart procedures, lodging. Suggested donation: $2,200

23.  Send a New Missionary Doctor: Suggested donation: $100

24.  Equip a Hospital Chaplain for Ministry: Suggested donation: $500

25.  Build or Improve a Mission Hospital: Suggested donation: $35,000

26.  Build a House of Worship: Suggested donation: $15,000

27.  Give a Copy of God’s Word: Suggested donation: $10

28.  Stand with Persecuted Christians: build churches, family care. Suggested donation: $40

29.  Adopt a Shoebox: Shipping and other costs for Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts: Suggested donation: $10

30.  Disciple a Child: material, teacher training, Bible. Suggested donation: $6

31.  Give a Dairy Goat: goat or other dairy animal for milk to drink or sell. Suggested donation: $70

32.  Give a Baby Kit: ultrasound, vitamins, diapers, wipes. Suggested donation: $75

33.  Plant a Grove of Trees: tree seedlings. Suggested donation: $45

Spam Phone Calls

I received a phone call from Woonsocket, Rhode Island (USA) and totally ignored it. In fact I deleted it. I do not know anyone in Woonsocket or the entire state of Rhode Island. The call was either a wrong number or what is called "spam." (The derisive word "SPAM" comes from a canned spiced ham product which many people consider to be awful but which many others enjoy. It has a reputation similar to that of the also unfairly maligned fruit cake.)

Spam phone calls are a particular problem in the United States. Massive numbers of automated phone calls are sent by businesses trying to increase their profits or are sent to deliver a particular message (often political) to as many people as possible.  This type of Spam is merely a nuisance. In 2017, the United States Federal Trade Commission received 7,157,370 complaints about spam calls. The problem is escalating. There were 4.5 billion reported spam phone calls in the United States in June of 2018. These spam phone calls are essentially total garbage.

A second type of spam calls is is intended to be hostile and is criminal. One form of these aggressive attacks is intended to completely clog up phone lines and render them useless. This is a form of denial of service attack.

An even more criminal type of spam attempts to deceive or trick as many people as possible to respond to the call and to voluntarily give out their personal information such as bank account numbers, credit card numbers, computer sign-on passwords, etc. The motive here is to steal money.

In today's world  everyone is constantly surrounded by what is essentially SPAM; totally worthless garbage. Messages flood at us from television, movies, radio, music, books, news organizations, junk mail, flyers, and other people. The vast majority of it is secular or explicitly non-Christian. Some of it is malignantly anti-Christian.

There is an old saying in the Southern United States about a person so holy and high-minded that he or she is of no use in the real world. This is not what God wants. He wants us to let Him use us for His purposes here in the real world. We are told to he holy (separated) because God is holy, but we are also told to be "in the world but not of the world." Essentially, do not be useless.

Ignoring the vast majority of the garbage swilling around us does not mean that we must have no interest in culture, or learning. or books, or music, or sports, or fashion, or outdoor activities, or politics, or any other thing. It does, however, require us not to chase after every wind (especially those which we know stink). It also requires us to learn to recognize "the stink" even when a little perfume has been added.

Leviticus 11:44,45; 19:2; 20:7, 1 Peter 1:16, John 15:19; 17: 14-16, Ephesians 4:14, Ecclesiastes 6:9

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

F. F. Bruce was one of the pre-eminent New Testament scholars of the Twentieth Century.  He insisted that the New Testament documents are historically accurate and are better attested than universally accepted classical writings.  An emphasis of his teaching was that Christianity has its roots in history.  Though some religions (such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism) can stand independently of their actual historicity, Christianity is firmly grounded in provable dates and facts.  No credible scholar now insists that Jesus did not exist.

Dr. Bruce said,  “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning.  And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

Here is some evidence:

There are only two known copies of Lucretius’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1100 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Plato’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Aristophanes’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only eight known copies of Herodotus’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1300 years after the originals were written.

There are only forty-nine known copies of Aristotle’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are only six hundred and forty three known copies of Homer’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 500 years after the originals were written.

There are only one hundred and ninety-three known copies of Sophocles’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are 5686 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  The earliest dates to about 100 years after the originals were written.  There are over 25,000 partial documents.  The John Rylands Fragment, containing John 18: 31-33, dates from about twenty-nine to thirty-five years after the original was written. 

Luke says he recorded what was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses…” (Luke 1:2.)