Ostentatious Christianity

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Luke 12:33

"Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."

Naw, the Bible doesn't mean what it says exactly. Just pick out the parts you like best and ignore the rest.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. (Luke 12:33)

Jesus is saying we have to sell our stuff to be saved. Being rich is wrong because ‘it’s hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom’.”

No. It is harder for the rich and self-sufficient to receive from the abundance of God’s grace, but the kingdom is received, not purchased. “Your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom,” says Jesus.

Jesus is saying we have to sell our stuff to be blessed. ‘Blessed are the poor.’

No. The poor are blessed if their poverty leads them to Jesus, but poverty is not a blessing. Nor do we earn the Lord’s favor by selling our stuff.

I don’t know why you insist that Jesus wants Christians to give away all their money and become homeless and not have medical care and rely on government programs, it’s absolutely absurd.

I dunno. Because I read it in the Bible? Of course those were different times back then, but you can't have it both ways: either the words in the Bible mean what they say or they don't.

Jesus was speaking specifically to a very wealthy man who loved his wealth and possessions. He loved his wealth and possessions so much, he worshiped them as his God. Jesus told that man to free himself from those things to find and worship God.

That’s what those words mean. They don’t mean for everyone to have nothing. You are not factually correct in your posts.

OK. Well, then we'll disregard much of the NT, since Paul was writing those epistles directly to specific groups at a certain time in history and since we're not Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, etc, it doesn't apply to us. You can't have it both ways.

You aren’t thinking well. Specific one on one advice from Jesus to an extremely wealthy King who loved his material goods and outrageous wealth above everything else doesn’t apply to a regular person. The regular person may not love his or her material goods or modest (or nearly empty) bank account as much as the rich young ruler loved his outrageous wealth. Jesus and Christianity do not call for it’s followers to impoverish themselves and their families to become dependent on social services or government aid.

Also, social services and government aide did not exist in Jesus's time.

I don’t understand the person who keeps stating Christians must give away everything to be Christian. The love of anything (money, possessions, sex, food, etc) that is a person’s greatest love and comes between that person and God was the issue with the young ruler. He was “moral” according to Christian standards, but his love for his immense wealth kept him from being “perfect.” He asked Jesus how he could be “perfect.”

Christians are instructed to love the Lord their God above all things. Christians are instructed to love their neighbor and help those in need and forgive those who need forgiveness or they themselves will not receive forgiveness.

Whatever autistic atheist keeps repeating that Christians have to become destitute wandering hobos because Jesus said so is so off base it’s not even funny.

Nobody said that.

Ok, my bad. What are you or others saying, then?

[Anonymous]

I’m working through so much religious trauma from my time in the southern baptist cult. It’s taken me years to really internalize that church and Christianity are not the same thing. Some of the most evil people I know have their cheeks in the seats every Sunday. I’ll never trust any organized religion again. I’m a Metaphysical Christian and a minister. My spirituality is very personal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m working through so much religious trauma from my time in the southern baptist cult. It’s taken me years to really internalize that church and Christianity are not the same thing. Some of the most evil people I know have their cheeks in the seats every Sunday. I’ll never trust any organized religion again. I’m a Metaphysical Christian and a minister. My spirituality is very personal.

What is your trauma? Did your parents not protect you? What evil do SB perpetrate in the world?