Is It Important for a Christian to Be a Member of a Local Church?

It is not that uncommon to meet people who say that they are Christians but that they don’t get involved in any local church.

Some of these people make no effort to interact with other Christians at all, not even on the internet. Others do things like join church services online but don’t physically go to services or meet with other Christians.

The value of meeting with other Christians

Importantly, the Bible knows nothing of Christians going it alone, and it everywhere assumes that they will physically meet with other believers as and when they are able.

On this topic, Hebrews 10:24-25 is especially relevant, where the author writes:

‘And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.’ (ESV)

This passage is clear about the value of Christians meeting up, presumably to do Christian things together like worship God and pray.

Unless someone is housebound, there seems to be no good reason not to go to church gatherings. And even in the case of someone who is housebound, they should typically have Christian fellowship by receiving other believers into their home.

Joining services on the internet is better than nothing, but it is very inadequate. Meeting online is just no substitute for fellowship in the actual presence of other Christians.

In recent times we saw something similar during the Covid pandemic. Friends and relatives were often separated for long periods of time and met up to video-chat on the internet, but it just wasn’t the same as meeting in the flesh. In the same way, Christian fellowship is just deeper and more meaningful when God’s people are physically together.

Complaining about the state of local churches

Sometimes people who don’t get involved in a local church try to justify this by pointing to what they believe are serious faults in churches in their area.

I have never been convinced by this, and I think these people tend to be very judgmental and have unreasonably high expectations. Often, many of their criticisms of churches are right, but they go too far in the way they rule out all churches in their area as apostate.

I can remember some time ago speaking to a Christian man in Edinburgh who said that he and his wife were not involved in any local church because ‘none of them preach the gospel’. In a city that had literally hundreds of local churches, this was just nonsense. Even if 90 per cent of them were very poor churches – something that may well have been true – that would still have left more than a few to choose from.

The value of having one local church as a home

There are some Christians who do meet up with other believers in their area at church services, prayer meetings, etc., but they aren’t members of any one church. Instead, they get involved in multiple churches without making any one of them their home church.

So what should we make of this?

I think, firstly, it is much better for Christians to be members of a particular local church, to have that as their base, as their home. If these people find themselves in difficulty, it helps to know which church is responsible for helping them. And if they need to be disciplined in some way, again, it helps to know which church is responsible.

But secondly, if someone does have one church as a home, there is certainly nothing wrong with also being involved to a lesser extent in other local churches too. It really makes no sense to think that God’s people in an area should avoid meeting up with other Christians at various times and for various purposes just because the other believers happen to be members of other local churches.

Formal or informal membership?

Another relevant issue is whether membership of a local church should be formal or informal. Should people sign a piece of paper to become a formal member of a local church, or should this all be informal?

I would suggest that making things formal is the better thing to do, for the purposes of church discipline.

If professing Christians in a church are unrepentant of serious sins, they need to be put out of the fellowship, to try to encourage their repentance (e.g., 1 Cor 5:1-5), and it is easier to sort all this out if these people are formal members of that church.

The Bible refers to non-Christians coming along to Christian gatherings (1 Cor 14:23-25). These people would typically be unrepentant of various sins, but they should not be discouraged from visiting.

In a situation where there is informal membership of a church, professing Christians who are unrepentant of serious sins might try to avoid being put out of the fellowship by claiming just to be visitors, hoping to take advantage of any grey areas that exist as regards who exactly is a member of that church. However, if they have formally entered into membership of that church, there would be no way for them to use this ploy.

 

See also:

Is There Any Place for Entertainment in Church Services?

What Should the Dress Code Be for Christian Worship Services?

Denominations and Christian Self-Identity

Is It Ever Right to Be a Secret Christian?

Are Christians Supposed to Tithe Their Money?

When it comes to financial giving, there are many Christians today who claim that it is God’s will for us to tithe our money.

For anyone who doesn’t know, to tithe means to give a tenth of something. So someone who tithes their money gives away a tenth of it.

Some of those who say that Christians should tithe believe that we should give a tenth of our income to our local church. Others believe that we should give away a tenth of our income but don’t specify that this should all be to our local church.

Tithing and the New Testament

So what should we make of this? Are Christians today supposed to follow a principle of tithing when giving away money? Does the Bible point us in this direction?

The answer to this question seems to be a clear ‘No’. There is no good, biblically-based reason for thinking that Christians are under an obligation to tithe.

It is true that twice in the Gospels we find Jesus accepting the validity of tithing herbs (Matthew 23:23; Luke 11:42). However, firstly, the topic here is herbs, not money. And secondly, in the context of each of these passages He is speaking to Jews who lived in Old Covenant times and who were under obligation to obey the rules of tithing found in the Law of Moses, something that is not the case for Christians today.

More importantly, it is striking that although the New Testament is full of instructions for Christians to be generous in giving away money, this is never connected to any principle of tithing.

For example, in the Gospels we frequently find teaching on the importance of giving money to people in need (e.g., Matthew 5:42; 6:1-4; 19:16-22; 25:31-46; Mark 12:41-44; Luke 3:10-11; 12:33; 19:8-9). However, no Gospel passage connects financial giving to tithing.

Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 8-9 the apostle Paul talks at some length about the importance of giving generously. If he had wanted to tie this to a principle of tithing, he could have said that God expects Christians to give a tenth of what they earn. Or he could have said that giving a tenth is the first step in giving and that it is also good to give over and above that. But he doesn’t mention a tenth at all.

In short, there are many places in the New Testament where it might make sense for a principle of tithing to be mentioned if Christians were expected to tithe. The fact that such a principle is never mentioned suggests that we aren’t under obligation to do this. The New Testament contains many instructions to be generous in giving money, but this is never connected with a principle of giving a tenth of what we have.

Problems caused by insisting on tithing

Insisting on tithing can cause various problems.

First, wealthy Christians can sometimes be led to believe that God doesn’t usually expect them to give away more than a tenth of their income, and that He is content for them to spend the rest on themselves.

However, this idea sharply contradicts the whole tenor of New Testament teaching on giving, where extreme generosity is encouraged.

See, for example, how in Luke 12:33 the Lord Jesus tells His followers, ‘Sell your possessions and give to charity’. Or see in 2 Corinthians 8:3 how Paul commends the churches of Macedonia for giving ‘beyond their ability’. Neither of these verses fits with the idea that rich Christians are supposed to keep hold of 90 per cent of their wealth or even close to 90 per cent.

Second, insisting on tithing can cause Christians in dire poverty to be led to believe that they must always give away 10 per cent of what little they have.

This is not a simple issue, because it is true that there is often a place in Christian living for poor believers giving away money and God giving back to them in return. God does work in this way at times.

But on the other hand, I would suggest that there are also times when it is better for Christians in serious poverty to use what little they have for themselves and their families, so that there is no danger they might become a burden on others, and so that they don’t put themselves under even more pressure.

Third, setting a rule that Christians should tithe could in some cases help to foster a legalistic frame of mind.

Christian living is not about following lots of rules and regulations. The Bible doesn’t encourage us to think in this sort of way.

It is true that it can occasionally be helpful for us to make a rule or two to live by on some issue or other, but this is not something that we should be doing much of. Lots of rules will become a burden weighing us down.

Focusing on generosity in giving

When thinking about financial giving, instead of focusing on a principle of giving a tenth, we do much better to focus on a principle of being generous without counting the cost. This really is something that the Bible supports in spades.

 

See also:

Christians Must be Generous in Giving to the Poor

In What Order Should Christians Choose to Help People?

The Prosperity Gospel Is a False Gospel

Is It OK for Church Leaders to Live in Luxury?

Could the First Christians Have Been Lying When They Said Jesus Rose from the Dead?

As everyone will be well aware, there are many opponents of the Christian faith today, who deny that Jesus rose from the dead. 

Some of these people argue that the first Christians genuinely believed that Jesus’ resurrection happened but were mistaken. Others argue that the story of Jesus’ resurrection began as a lie. 

In what follows, I want to say something about this second idea, that the resurrection story began as a lie. As we will see, this idea is extremely implausible and should be ruled out. It just doesn’t make sense. 

Many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The first thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

They include the early Christian leader called Paul, who wrote quite a lot of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 Paul stated: 

‘3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 And last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he appeared also to me.’ 

So Paul is claiming here that Jesus appeared to him and to many others of the first Christians after he rose from the dead. And it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this. 

There is no good reason for doubting that Paul would have been quite well informed about which other Christians claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. 

We know that Paul knew a number of the others he refers to in his list in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. 

In verses 5 and 7, he says that the risen Jesus appeared to Cephas (i.e., Peter) and James (i.e., James the brother of Jesus, as scholars widely agree). In Galatians 1:18 – and scholars agree that Paul wrote Galatians – he says that he went to Jerusalem three years after he became a Christian and spent two weeks with Cephas. Then in the next verse he remarks that at that time he saw James the brother of Jesus. In Galatians 2:9 he also refers to meeting with John, one of the apostles. 

There is plenty of other evidence too which makes it highly likely that Paul knew others among the apostles he refers to in v. 7. 

To cut a long story short, scholars agree that Paul knew at least several of the people he mentions in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 and that he probably knew many of them. 

There are good reasons for thinking, then, that in this passage Paul is accurately giving a list of early Christians who claimed they had seen the risen Jesus. 

Unsurprisingly, there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins that many of the first Christians claimed they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. 

The suffering of early Christians who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus 

The next thing we need to understand clearly is that many of the first Christians suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians, and that this certainly included some of those who claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. 

Paul himself was one of these people. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 he lists the sufferings he experienced because he was a Christian: 

‘23 . . . [I have been] in far more labours, in far more imprisonments, beaten countless times, often in danger of death. 24 Five times from the Jews I have received the thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I have been beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I have been shipwrecked, I have spent a night and a day in the sea. 26 I have been on many journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from bandits, dangers from my own countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brothers, 27 in toil and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and nakedness. 28 Apart from such external things, I have daily troubling concerns about all the churches.’ 

Again, it is worth noting that there is wide agreement among scholars of Christian origins, whether or not they are Christians themselves, that Paul himself genuinely wrote this and that he is being honest about what he experienced. 

There is wide agreement also that Peter, James and the other apostles, who are on Paul’s list of people who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. And there is also wide agreement that some non-apostles who made this claim suffered in this way too. 

People don’t go on suffering for something they invented as a lie 

So we have seen that many early Christians claimed to have seen Jesus after he rose from the dead. And we have also seen that some of those who made this claim suffered badly over an extended period of time because they were Christians. 

The crucial point here is that people simply don’t spend years suffering badly for something they have invented as a lie. It just wouldn’t be worth it. 

If someone claimed that they saw Jesus risen from the dead, when in fact they knew that they hadn’t, one beating or one spell in prison would be enough for them to abandon this claim. Either they would admit they had invented it, or they would just keep quiet and go and do something else with their life. They wouldn’t keep saying that Jesus rose, bringing more and more suffering on themself. So the fact that they did keep saying this must have been because they believed it. 

The idea that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb and invented the resurrection appearances is therefore not a reasonable  one. Instead, we should have no hesitation in saying that the early Christians genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead. 

The resurrection story did not begin as a deception by Jesus 

Occasionally people suggest that Jesus might actually have survived his crucifixion, and that this could explain the origin of the story of his resurrection. Under this theory, it would be Jesus himself who plotted a big deception. 

This idea should be totally rejected, however. 

First, it is extremely unlikely that someone sentenced to death by the Romans would have survived. 

Second, even if, for the sake of argument, we were to suppose that Jesus survived crucifixion, we would have to assume that in his badly injured condition he then hatched a plot to deceive his followers by pretending to rise from the dead, a plot he succeeded in implementing! This is impossibly implausible. 

Summing up 

In short, although there are many who claim that the story of Jesus’ resurrection is based on a lie, this simply doesn’t make sense of the evidence. 

The idea that so many of the first Christians suffered so much for something they knew was a lie should be ruled out. And the idea that Jesus survived his crucifixion and then managed to trick his followers into believing that he had risen from the dead is just as implausible.  

 

See also: 

A Very Strong Piece of Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus 

The Resurrection of Jesus and Probability 

Two Things about Atheism That Everyone Should Consider 

Are the Old Testament and New Testament Portraits of God Contradictory?

What Makes a Human Being a Human Being?

I was talking recently to someone who was arguing in support of abortion. She used a couple of arguments to try to make her case, arguments that are often used by pro-abortionists but which I am sure are misguided.

In what follows, I want to mention these arguments and say why I believe they don’t work.

A point about terminology

Pro-abortionists, of course, almost always claim that an unborn baby, at least in the first months inside the womb, is not really a baby. I strongly disagree with that claim.

However, because this article is aimed at convincing those who take a pro-abortionist position or are undecided, it would be a methodological mistake for me to assume something that those I am arguing against wouldn’t accept.

So, for the sake of argument, at times in what follows I will refer to an unborn baby as an entity or an entity in the womb, since these are terms that everyone would agree are correct.

The argument that appeals to viability

The woman I was talking to used an argument that appealed to the so-called viability of the entity in the womb, and it went along the following lines:

Up until about 22 weeks after conception, the entity in the womb would not be able to survive outside the womb. That means that it is incorrect to describe it as a viable human being. Therefore, it is not wrong to deliberately destroy it.

Firstly, it is important to recognise that there is something very arbitrary about this argument. If someone is going to say that the entity needs to be able to survive outside the womb in order to be classed as a human being, why stop there? Why not say that the entity also needs to be able to feed itself in order to be classed as a human being?

A newborn baby, of course, if left to fend for itself would die. To survive, it is completely dependent on another human being to feed it.

So we can divide things up into three stages. At stage 1, in the first months inside the womb, the entity is unable to survive outside the womb. Then stage 2 is reached when the entity is able to survive outside the womb but only if it is fed by someone else. And finally stage 3 is reached when the entity is able to feed itself.

For someone to claim that the entity is not a human being at stage 1 but is at stage 2 is purely arbitrary. This is just plucked out of thin air.

If having a certain level of ability to survive is a factor that determines whether an entity is a human being, there is no more reason for drawing the line at stage 2 than there is for drawing it at stage 1 or stage 3. Simply to assume that stage 1 doesn’t make an entity human but stage 2 does is an unwarranted assumption.

Secondly, to think in terms of the ability of the entity to survive in various circumstances is completely wrongheaded anyway. As God has designed things, in the first months of its life the entity is not supposed to survive outside the womb. At that stage in its life it is supposed to live in the womb and feed through the umbilical cord.  And then after birth God has designed that the entity is dependent on being fed by another human.

The fact that in the early stages of its life the entity can’t survive outside the womb, or the fact that soon after birth it can’t survive without being fed, are beside the point. These things have nothing to do with whether or not the entity should be classed as a human being.

The argument that appeals to suffering mothers

The woman I was talking to also used an argument that appealed to the suffering of some mothers, and it went in the following way:

Some girls get pregnant at a very young age as a result of rape. It would be wrong to force them to go through the trauma of a pregnancy and having a baby they don’t want. Therefore, in such cases it is not wrong to deliberately destroy the entities in their wombs.

On this point I want to make it clear that I shudder just to think of what these girls would go through having a baby. I have no desire to treat lightly the horrendous suffering involved. But nevertheless, I strongly disagree that it would be OK for girls in this situation to have an abortion.

I asked the woman I was talking to what her view was if a young rape victim gave birth to a baby and was then deeply traumatised and strongly wished the baby was dead. I asked her if she would approve of killing the baby after it was born, and she said that she wouldn’t.

I then asked her why she took this view, and she said that it was too late at that point to kill the baby.

Her answer showed that her top priority was not to protect the young girl from suffering, that there was some other calculation that was even more important. In other words, despite the suffering of the poor girl, the woman I was talking to believed that it was just wrong to kill a newborn baby. The baby was simply too valuable, and it was simply too late to kill the baby, regardless of how much the girl wanted the baby to die.

But suppose, for a moment, that what anti-abortionists like myself believe about the entity before birth is correct, when we say that this entity is a human being. If that is right, then it should be obvious that avoiding killing it should trump the desire to stop the young girl suffering, just as is the case with a baby that has been born.

So the issue of whether the entity in the womb is a human being is the key issue. The issue of the suffering of the rape victim, though very important, is not remotely as important as the issue of whether the entity in the womb is a human being. That is the key issue that trumps any issue of suffering.

The point I am making is that the issue of whether the entity in the womb is a human being is so important that it makes all arguments to do with the suffering of the mother irrelevant. So arguments supporting abortion based on the suffering of some mothers are completely beside the point.

What makes a human being human?

I have already said that the ability to survive outside the womb and the ability to feed oneself have nothing to do with whether an entity should or should not be described as a human being. So what does make an entity human? What is a human being?

I would suggest that the answer to this question is really very simple. A human being is an entity that has a soul made in the image of God.

Now, there should be no doubt that immediately before a baby is born it already has a soul, and few people calling themselves Christians would dispute this. But if it already has a soul before birth, it makes sense to think that the joining of the soul to the material part of the human occurs at some critical point. However, before birth the only really critical point that exists is conception.

If we were to say that the soul joins to the fertilised egg or embryo or foetus at some time after conception but before birth, what reason would we give for taking this view? Why would we think that the soul joins after the physical component of the human has been growing for a week? Or why would we think this happens after 10 days or after 20 or 40?

Crucially, nothing critical happens at these times. But, by contrast, the time the sperm fertilises the egg is a real critical point, and this is surely the time at which the soul joins the physical part of the human. When else could it be?

Thinking, then, that the tiny size of a human fertilised egg in the first few days after conception means that it is not really a human being doesn’t make sense. In fact, a human being with a human soul made in the image of God is present, despite the tiny physical size of the entity in question.

 

See also:

Does the Oral Contraceptive Pill Cause Abortions?

How Serious a Sin Is Sex outside Marriage?

The Arrogance and Hypocrisy of Western Society

Divorce and Remarriage Are Only Acceptable in Special Circumstances

Sometimes Criticising Victims Is the Right Thing to Do

You will quite often hear people objecting whenever someone criticises the victim of an accident or assault. They see ‘victim-shaming’, as they call it, always to be unloving and out of place.

Of course, if someone is a victim through no fault of their own, it would be completely wrong to criticise that person. Or, if the victim was at fault in some way but has seen the error of their way, speaking critically to them would be unnecessary.

However, sometimes people become victims of accidents or assaults because they have done something wrong and they are not willing to admit that it was at all their fault. In such cases, criticising the victim, with the aim of making them feel regret for what they did, is often a loving thing to do.

The benefit of feeling regret

It should be very obvious that for anyone to feel regret for any sin they have committed is a good thing. Regret helps to foster an attitude of repentance and discourages the sinner from repeating the sin.

We see this sort of thinking in 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, where the apostle Paul writes:

‘As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.’ (ESV)

There is no need for me here to discuss the details of the situation in Corinth that Paul is referring to in this passage. What is important for our purposes in this article is that he clearly sees the benefit of regret as it leads to repentance. He refers specifically to ‘godly grief’, but this is really just another way of describing regret that God approves of and uses for good.

Of course, feeling regret leads to repentance from all sorts of sins, whether or not a sinner is the victim of an accident or an assault, but sins that lead to being a victim are certainly included in this.

Dangerous driver

Here are some examples of where criticising victims, to try to make them regret what they have done, would be a helpful and positive thing.

Firstly, suppose there is a 17-year-old boy who has just learned to drive. His ego gets the better of him, and he thinks he is a much better driver than he really is. So he drives far too fast on a winding road, crashes his car and breaks his leg.

He is the victim of an accident that was entirely his fault.

Now, immediately after this accident, it would be wrong to speak critically to him. At that time, he needs a ton of sympathy and support.

Also, later on, if he has clearly learned his lesson and sees how stupid he was, there is no good reason for approaching him to criticise him.

But suppose that after a few months it seems obvious that he hasn’t learned his lesson. He is bragging to his friends about crashing his car, treating his broken leg like some sort of a war wound.

In a situation like this, if someone can get this young man to regret what he did, it will be a very helpful thing to do.

If he doesn’t reach the point of feeling regret, there is a real possibility that he might do it again, and maybe next time he might die or be permanently injured or kill someone else. Or he might influence a friend to drive in the way he did.

So he is a victim, and it is good for him to be criticised for the sin he committed – in this case, driving recklessly – that led to him being a victim. Love is sometimes tough, and in this case criticising the victim for the purpose of making him feel regret would be an example of tough love.

Disobedient boy

As another example, suppose there is a 10-year-old boy, and his parents say to him:

‘There are lots of great places around here where you can play with your friends. But don’t go to that park over there, because there are often bigger boys there, bad boys, who might hurt you.’

Suppose that this boy then, for no good reason, disobeys his parents, goes to the park, and is beaten up by the bigger boys.

He is the victim of an assault that was partly his fault.

When I say that it was partly his fault, I hope it is clear that I am not trying to reduce the guilt of the attackers. The guilt of the attackers is a separate thing from the guilt of the boy who committed a sin to put himself in the position where he was attacked. These are separate sins. But in the overall picture of what happened, it is still right to say that it is partly his fault. If he hadn’t disobeyed his parents, he wouldn’t have been beaten up.

Immediately after this assault, it would be wrong to speak critically to this boy. At that time, he needs a lot of comfort and support.

Also, if he has learned his lesson, there would be no place for speaking critically to him at a later time either.

But suppose that after a couple of months it is clear that he hasn’t learned his lesson. He has again disobeyed his parents by going back to that park, risking another beating. In this case, trying to make this boy regret what he did that led to him being beaten up would be a positive thing, both for himself and for any of his friends who might be badly influenced by him.

This is another example, then, of where criticising a victim is a form of tough love.

Sexual assault

Another good example has to do with people, especially young women, who go out drinking and are sexually assaulted because they are too drunk to make good decisions to protect themselves.

Of course, many sexual assaults occur through no fault of the victim. But there are many other occasions, when the victim is partly at fault, because they wouldn’t have been assaulted if they hadn’t committed the sin of getting drunk.

Again, I want to stress that when I say it is partly the victim’s fault, I am in no way trying to reduce the guilt of the attacker. The guilt of the attacker is a separate thing from the guilt of the person who committed a sin to put themself in the position where they were sexually assaulted. These are separate sins. But in the overall picture it is still right to say that in cases like these the victim is partly at fault.

Of course, immediately after the trauma of a sexual assault, the last thing that anyone should do is speak critically to the victim. At that time they need an ocean of sympathy and support.

I also think that a large majority of people who are sexually assaulted because they get drunk do learn their lesson. But if they don’t and they go out drinking heavily again, criticising them to try to make them feel regret would be a good thing to do. In such cases, this would be an example of tough love, both for their own benefit and the benefit of anyone they might negatively influence.

Just as a little side note on this issue, I would advise anyone who goes out on a Friday or Saturday night to have one or at the most two drinks. And I am sure that if young people followed this advice, the number of sexual assaults would decrease, probably by a lot.

As another little side note, I also want to say that it angers me when those who claim to be outraged at sexual assaults refuse to advise people to drink in moderation, even though they must know that doing this would decrease the number of these awful events.

Criticising the actions of those who are repentant

I have already said that if someone is at fault, partly or entirely, for becoming a victim, but is repentant and has learned their lesson, there is no place for approaching them to criticise them.

However, even if they are repentant, there is still a place for sometimes criticising their actions when speaking to other people. If others might be tempted to commit similar sins and also become victims, anything we can say to discourage that behaviour would be helpful.

 

See also:

The Importance of Sympathy and Empathy in Christian Living

Christians Should Expect to Offend People

Some Steps That Christians Can Take to Avoid Judging People

Should Christians Forgive Those Who Are Unrepentant?

In What Order Should Christians Choose to Help People?

There was some controversy recently when the American Vice President, J. D. Vance, made some suggestions about the order of priority in which people, including Christians, should help those in need.

Vance stated:

‘. . . there’s this old school concept – and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way – that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community. And then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world.’

Vance made his remarks in the context of trying to justify the U.S. government’s cancellation of most foreign aid. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of pushback against him from people who wanted the aid to continue.

So what should Christians make of what Vance said on this topic? Does he have a point, or is he making a mistake?

Some relevant biblical verses

As Christians trying to understand this issue, the first thing we need to do is turn to the Bible.

Importantly, there are biblical verses that support a principle of Christians especially helping people who are close to them in some way.

1 Timothy 5 includes some relevant verses, as follows:

‘But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.’ (1 Tim 5:4; ESV)

‘But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.’ (1 Tim 5:8; ESV)

‘If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.’ (1 Tim 5:16; ESV)

These verses make it clear that Christians have a special obligation to help blood relatives. And because our resources to help others will always be limited, these verses certainly support a principle of prioritising helping them over helping others.

Another relevant verse is Galatians 6:10, which says:

‘So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (ESV)

This verse is clear that Christians have a special obligation to help spiritual relatives, i.e., fellow believers in Jesus Christ. And, again, because our resources to help others will always be limited, this verse supports a principle of prioritising helping them over helping others.

Expanding the list

So the Bible encourages us to prioritise helping blood relatives and fellow Christians.

But what about other groups of people, such as those in the town where we live or the country where we live?

I think that the principle of helping blood relatives in 1 Timothy 5 can naturally be expanded to include these groups too, and that they should be prioritised to a certain extent. It would seem strange not to do this.

Some examples of prioritising helping those close to us

If, then, Christians have children who lack decent clothes and there are other children who also lack decent clothes, they should prioritise clothing their own children.

Or, if there are some fellow Christians in a foreign country who are in dire poverty and also some non-Christians in the same country who are in the same level of poverty, Christians should prioritise helping their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Or, if there are people in our town who are hungry and others in a more distant town who are also hungry, I think we should typically prioritise feeding those who live nearby.

This list could be extended with other similar examples.

Priorities in tension with each other

Of course, sometimes priorities will be in tension with each other. So, for example, if there are fellow Christians on the other side of the world who are in some great need, and there are non-Christians in our own town who are in equal need, who should we prioritise helping?

I think there is no simple formula to answer this question and that God’s will will vary from case to case. It isn’t my intention in this article to get into details like this. I am interested in the main points of this issue.

But generally speaking, it makes sense for Christians to prioritise helping groups who are close to them: their own families, fellow Christians, people who live nearby and people of the same nationality.

Not going too far

So Christians should prioritise helping various groups of people who are close to them in some way. Importantly, however, there is a limit to how far this principle should go.

What prioritising groups close to us shouldn’t mean is that we always find excuses to give to these groups instead of outsiders. There is a world of difference between, on the one hand, feeding your own children before other people’s children, and on the other hand, giving many luxuries to your own children while other people’s children go hungry.

In other words, it is right to prioritise getting groups close to us to a certain level of material provision, but there is no justification for getting groups close to us to a level of material provision that is leaps and bounds above that of suffering people who are more distant from us.

Galatians 6:10, that I quoted above, points us in this direction. When this verse says that we should do good to everyone and especially to fellow Christians, this clearly implies that we should normally expect to be doing at least some good to non-Christians. And, given that doing people good often involves meeting their physical needs, such as providing food and clothing, the verse surely implies that we should help non-believers in this way.

So Galatians 6:10 clearly teaches that we should help people in one group that is relatively distant from us, i.e., non-Christians. But the same principle surely applies to other groups that are relatively distant from us too, such as those who are not blood relatives, those who don’t live close to us, and those who are of a different nationality.

Governments of countries

So far I have been talking about how individual Christians should approach the issue of how to prioritise helping people. But it seems to me that the same sort of principle should certainly be made about the governments of countries.

Firstly, a government should help its own citizens in need before it helps those in another country.

If, for example, there were devastating earthquakes in Indonesia and Pakistan at the same time, it should be obvious that the Indonesian government should prioritise bringing help to affected people in their own country before helping those in Pakistan. And likewise the Pakistani government should help its own people first.

But secondly, just as the principle of prioritising certain groups for help shouldn’t be used as an excuse by individual Christians not to help outsiders, so the same is true of governments.

A government can always find useful ways to spend money to help its own citizens. But it often happens that, for one reason or another, people in other countries urgently need help in some way. When this happens, countries should be generous in looking out for each other. This is surely the will of God.

Getting back to J. D. Vance, I am aware that I can’t see what is in his heart with certainty, and I don’t want to judge him without knowing all the facts. Nevertheless, I do think I should say that the impression I get is that he is looking for excuses not to help people around the world who are in need. Some of the aid money that the U.S. government has cancelled really does seem to be money that was used to help people in significant need.

Vance gives the impression of wanting to solve almost all of America’s problems before helping others. If that is true, there is nothing in Scripture that would support such an attitude.

 

See also:

Christians Must Be Generous in Giving to the Poor

The Ministry of Kindness

The Importance of Sympathy and Empathy in Christian Living

The Prosperity Gospel Is a False Gospel

Did an Actual Snake Speak to Eve to Get Her to Sin?

In the third chapter of Genesis we read the account of how a snake persuades Eve to sin by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I am convinced that this account is not supposed to be interpreted literally. In other words, I believe that historically there was no actual snake or snake-like figure that plotted against Eve or spoke to her. Instead, what we have here is a fictional story that symbolises how human sin began when Satan tempted Adam and Eve.

There are many Christians, however, who insist that this story is supposed to be taken literally, and who claim that an actual snake, or Satan in the form of a snake, or Satan speaking through an actual snake, persuaded Eve to sin. In what follows I will explain why I disagree with these interpretations of the passage.

The passage

Let’s start by setting out the text of Genesis 3:1-6. It reads as follows:

1 Now the snake was more crafty than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. And it said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You are not to eat from any tree of the garden”?’

2 The woman said to the snake, ‘We are allowed to eat fruit from the trees of the garden. 3 But God has said, “You are not to eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you are not to touch it, or you will die.”’

4 The snake said to the woman, ‘You certainly will not die. 5 For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

6 The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Satan making himself look like a snake

Some of those who interpret this passage literally claim that it refers to Satan manifesting himself as a snake to Eve and speaking to her. Under this interpretation, there was no actual snake involved. Rather, Satan just made himself look like a snake, and spoke to Eve in this way.

This interpretation is on the wrong track, however.

To begin with, we must note that the first sentence of v. 1 tells us that the snake was more crafty than any animal of the field. The way that the snake is set alongside other animals and compared to them surely shows that we should understand the snake in the same way that we understand the other animals. These other animals in the storyline are surely real animals. So in the first sentence of v. 1 the snake should be understood as a real animal too.

In the second sentence of v. 1 we read, ‘And it said to the woman’. The subject of this clause is the snake that has been referred to in the first sentence. Because the snake in the first sentence is a real snake, this means that in the storyline it is a real snake that speaks to Eve.

However, if this passage were simply about Satan manifesting himself as a snake, there would be no real snake involved. It would just be some sort of snake-like appearance. Therefore, the fact that the storyline refers to a real snake seems to rule out the idea that this passage is about Satan making himself look like a snake to Eve.

Satan speaking through an actual snake

There are other Christians who attempt to interpret this account literally by drawing a parallel between the account and the story of Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22:28-30. Those who take this view rightly accept that the account portrays a real snake speaking to Eve, not just a snake-like appearance of Satan. But they claim that Satan spoke through the snake in a way similar to the way God spoke through Balaam’s donkey.

This interpretation should also be rejected.

To start with, in the story of Balaam’s donkey there are two actors, God and the donkey, and God miraculously speaks through the donkey. By contrast, in the Genesis account there is only one actor, the snake. There is not the slightest hint in the text that a second actor is involved who speaks through the snake.

Furthermore, when the passage says in the first sentence of v. 1 that the snake was the most crafty of the animals, this clearly implies that each animal has a certain amount of craftiness in itself. And this obviously includes the snake. Each animal is somewhere on the implied scale of craftiness, with the snake at the top.

Therefore, when in the rest of the passage we are told that the snake uses craftiness to tempt Eve, it must be its own craftiness that it uses. The whole point of referring to the snake’s craftiness in the first sentence is to prepare the reader for the snake using craftiness in the rest of the passage. After reading the first sentence, the reader understands that the snake has craftiness, so the snake’s use of craftiness in the rest of the passage now makes sense.

However, if Satan simply spoke through the snake in the way that God spoke through Balaam’s donkey, it would be Satan’s craftiness that was involved, not that of the snake. So, because it is clearly the snake’s own craftiness that is used, it cannot be about Satan speaking through the snake.

Just a snake miraculously plotting against Eve

The two interpretations I have mentioned, then, both fail. We should have no hesitation in saying that in the storyline of this passage there is a real snake that uses its own craftiness to tempt Eve.

But is it possible that this storyline should be interpreted historically? In other words, is it possible that this literally happened?

There are some Christians who would answer yes to these questions, and who claim that an actual snake was miraculously enabled to plot against Eve and tempt her to sin.

This is also a mistake. Snakes, like all other animals, are not moral creatures. By God’s design, animals are unable to know right from wrong or plot against people to get them to sin.

I would suggest that the idea of an animal being miraculously enabled to know right from wrong is a contradiction in terms. 2 Peter 2:12 and Jude 1:10 refer to ‘irrational animals’, and these verses show that animals exist on a vastly lower level than human beings. By God’s design, the ability to reason in the way that humans do or to know right from wrong is something that is impossible for an animal. An animal can no more know right from wrong than a rock can know right from wrong.

I think it would be correct to say that God could miraculously transform a snake into a creature with knowledge of right and wrong. But importantly, it would then cease to be a snake. It would cease to be an animal. But in Genesis 3:1-6 the snake clearly remains a snake. It remains an animal. And there is also not the slightest hint in this passage anyway of any miracle taking place.

The idea, then, that an actual snake was miraculously enabled to plot against Eve makes no sense.

A symbolic story

All attempts to interpret this passage literally and historically therefore fail. Instead, we should see the passage as a fictional and symbolic story.

The snake in this passage certainly symbolises Satan. The passage is teaching us that Satan was instrumental in leading Adam and Eve to fall into sin.

But on the level of the story, it is the snake as an animal that plots against Eve and tempts her to sin. And this cannot reasonably be taken literally and historically. To interpret this passage literally is to seriously misunderstand the type of literature that is present here.

We should also note carefully that in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 Satan is described as ‘the ancient snake’, which surely refers back to this passage in Genesis. These verses in Revelation fit perfectly with seeing the snake as symbolising Satan in Genesis 3.

 

See also:

Beware of Taking Genesis 1-3 Too Literally

The Problems with Claiming to Interpret the Bible Literally

Beware of Interpreting Bible Prophecies Too Literally

Were the Gospels Designed to be Works of Pure History?