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OK, I guess that's a good enough explanation if you're into the religious stuff. I've just always wondered why Christians say that heaven is a free gift and yet they expect you to pay 10% of your income to them, sounds like you're buying your way into heaven and yet it's supposed to be "free". Now how much sense does that make......... Must be all the accessories that go along with it....
Perhaps we are taking the concept of "free gift" too literally in a financial sense? There are a few references in the New Testament by Paul about it, and I don't think he was thinking of it in terms of "how much money will this cost me?" He was probably relating it to other things - such as strenuous practice of faith through works, and the other things he rejected from his heritage: can salvation be earned? No - he would say; it's a free gift, essentially. We could take this way too literally and out of context and then wonder why so much money is spent on Churches, etc - (and I would 100% agree that wealth does not belong in a Christian's assembly or life - as per Jesus' words) - but I think we are then twisting words, and setting up a straw man where there shouldn't be one. Semantics.
There's a reference that I have seen used in Acts, but that has more to do with a person attempting to buy some sort of magical power from the apostles - not the "free gift" concept that seems to be so popular nowadays - and certainly not the concept of which Paul wrote in his letters.
There was another thread in which this topic was gone into in great detail - the reason why Churches became so accepting of money. I'm not justifying any of it by pointing it out, by the way.
Perhaps we are taking the concept of "free gift" too literally in a financial sense? There are a few references in the New Testament by Paul about it, and I don't think he was thinking of it in terms of "how much money will this cost me?" He was probably relating it to other things - such as strenuous practice of faith through works, and the other things he rejected from his heritage: can salvation be earned? No - he would say; it's a free gift, essentially. We could take this way too literally and out of context and then wonder why so much money is spent on Churches, etc - (and I would 100% agree that wealth does not belong in a Christian's assembly or life - as per Jesus' words) - but I think we are then twisting words, and setting up a straw man where there shouldn't be one. Semantics.
There's a reference that I have seen used in Acts, but that has more to do with a person attempting to buy some sort of magical power from the apostles - not the "free gift" concept that seems to be so popular nowadays - and certainly not the concept of which Paul wrote in his letters.
There was another thread in which this topic was gone into in great detail - the reason why Churches became so accepting of money. I'm not justifying any of it by pointing it out, by the way.
whoppers, I find it interesting that from the beginning of when Christianity start collecting money for it's services it has become corrupt and has become one of the largest corrupt religions in the world today, now there are going to be a whole lot of people who are going to disagree with what I just said and I don't mean to be disrespectful about it, but stop and think about this, why do you need to give money to a person who supposedly speaks to your Christian god for you, in a sense you're paying him to be a middleman, why can't you speak to your god yourself, does your god prohibit that? Why do you have to have a big elaborate to worship your god in? Can't you worship him anywhere you please? And as far as giving money to this priest and church to give to the poor, you don't need either one of those to give to the poor, I'm sure there are any number of non religious organizations that can help the poor without taken a certain percentage of the money for themselves. In my culture we take care of our own, we take care of the elderly and the children we make sure that they are fed and clothed, we make sure that the children are educated in their own culture and that everyone shares in the bounty of all the people, we don't need any church or priest to tell us how to do that. jdaelectro, it's good that you're a follower of your Christ, everyone must believe or follow something or someone, but I don't believe in your Christianity nor your Christian god nor your sacred book, they mean absolutely nothing to me.
whoppers, I find it interesting that from the beginning of when Christianity start collecting money for it's services it has become corrupt and has become one of the largest corrupt religions in the world today, now there are going to be a whole lot of people who are going to disagree with what I just said and I don't mean to be disrespectful about it, but stop and think about this, why do you need to give money to a person who supposedly speaks to your Christian god for you, in a sense you're paying him to be a middleman, why can't you speak to your god yourself, does your god prohibit that? Why do you have to have a big elaborate to worship your god in? Can't you worship him anywhere you please? And as far as giving money to this priest and church to give to the poor, you don't need either one of those to give to the poor, I'm sure there are any number of non religious organizations that can help the poor without taken a certain percentage of the money for themselves. In my culture we take care of our own, we take care of the elderly and the children we make sure that they are fed and clothed, we make sure that the children are educated in their own culture and that everyone shares in the bounty of all the people, we don't need any church or priest to tell us how to do that.
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Forgive this long post - but it's hard to compress such a history.
I'm not a Christian (and I hope that's clear) but I think another poster (was it this thread?) discussed, in response to my comments that Anton LaVey made humanism into a religion by dressing it up in ritual, that the religious nature of humanity is old, and possibly part of our genetic makeup. He also gave some examples of "religious" behavior from the animal kingdom. I would suggest that ritual is one of THE most important social forces to ever have existed. When once an organization realizes this, and really puts it to effective use - the results are staggering.
Let's use Early Christianity as an example.
1 - Its roots in Judaism.
It sprang up as one more Judaism out of many Judaisms, and then slowly gave up on the ritualistic aspects of Judaism (centralization of worship at the Temple, the Covenant of the Torah, the Priestly monopoly through family descent, sacrifice, etc.). These ritualistic aspects of Judaism is what caused the Protestant scholar Julius Wellhausen to declare 2nd Temple Late Judaism "a dead branch" - he was biased in how he saw Late Judaism, for he was reacting against the Catholic aspects of Christianity that had been "borrowed" from Judaism. More on that at the end - for now, you can see how it happened. Judaism kept going, changing as always, while the new sect of Christians sprang up.
2- Jesus and the End of Days.
Now, the picture of early Christianity is far from complete, and still open to debate among those who study if academically and are probably, in my opinion, the best-informed about it. But what we do get is a sometimes conflicting picture of Jesus in which a) he is a preacher of the law (the commandments of the Sinaitic Covenant), amplifies some of it, decreases some of it and does so through his own interpretation of it (the Gospel of Matthew); he was very clear in his insistence that the law must be kept. b) he insisted that the endtimes were coming, and fast - so wordly events didn't matter, and neither did such wordly things as family (which is a thing meant to continue something into the future), a job (who needs money when the world ends?). Several parables and statements of Jesus show his absolute hostility towards money - in his eyes, it was an impediment to gaining entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven/God.
3 - Paul and the dismissal of the Torah.
To avoid repeating the same information from another thread, I'll just mention that the Apostle Paul saw things differently from what some of the later Gospel writers would tell us that Jesus said - especially Matthew. Paul insisted that the law was no longer needed, circumcision (the sign of the Covenant) was useless, sacrifice was now replaced by Jesus' sacrifice, and Rightness with God was no longer an issue - it was salvation through Jesus' death. Paul effectively abolished the ritualistic aspects (at least the majority) of Judaism. Paul, having done this and effectively alienated the Jews because of his outreach to the Gentiles and the evolution this involved, established Churches in small homes - expecting the imminent return of Jesus any day, just as Jesus had predicted. He had no desire to establish permanent church hierarchies or financial planning. The ethics of Jesus (which would best be called Interim Ethics) were only meant to apply during the short time (one generation or so) preceeding the End Times - anything else would be crazy. Nobody would have jobs, no families, no nothing.
4- Jesus never returned - the Church adapted.
You can see it happening in the New Testament already - the certainty of Jesus' immanent return soon gave way to extension after extension, finally reaching a point where one writer started changing Jesus' words to mean thousands of years, thus forcing the Christians to start thinking about the future. Thus Church Fathers started writing tractates reassuring the rich that Yes - contrary to what Jesus had plainly said - they COULD be Christians and rich, as along as their money was spent in a certain way, and you can imagine what that certain way WAS. So Churches grew and grew, one form of Christianity prospered and displaced the other ones, and after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire the Catholic Church was guaranteed a lasting place.
5 - Non-Divine Scripture and the need for a replacement: Ritual.
The Catholic scholars realized that Scripture was NOT the inerrant, Divinely-given, perfect, error-free Bible that many moderns still insist it is. They realized this many years before Luther would start his call for Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone as the basis for Church Doctrine), and also realized the danger of relying on Scripture alone. So they effectively brought back the Ritual of Religion and made it one of the key factors of the religion. A powerful force, rejected by Paul and to some degree - Jesus, it was an effective replacement for Sola Scriptura. It gave an additional power base to the Pope and the Priests and they, once again (as of old - in Mosaic Yahwism and it's Priestly Lineage requirements for access to God) used it to put a barrier between the people and their God. Limited access through the Church. Luther would try to break this monoploy using Sola Scriptura, but he became just as dogmatic and power-driven as the Catholics eventually.
6 - Money, power, ritual.
I hope that gives an idea of how Jesus' simple statement that "it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven/God" was displaced in favor of those old-time favorites of ritual and power bases. The simple Interim Ethics of Jesus were adapted for the long-term (paradoxically) and used against the Christian laypeople to humble them, to keep them meek, to help keep them enthralled to the ritualistic power-base structures that the Catholic Church erected to rule over them.
7- Today.
The old culture (churches in homes, the sharing of one's money with the community, shared labor, love for one's neighbor - like what you speak about concerning your own people) of the New Testament (especially found in the Book of Acts which narrates the early growth of the "Church") was lost. Even after the Protestant Revolution of Luther did exactly what the Catholics were afraid it would do (undermine religious belief once the Bible was begun to be examined critically - the main charge in stripping the Bible of it's "Word of God" status has been the German Protestants), the conservative Fundamentalists popped up and were more than content to fill the gap with Mega-Churches, and the ideology that a rich Christian is a Good Christian.
Forgive this long post - but it's hard to compress such a history.
I'm not a Christian (and I hope that's clear) but I think another poster (was it this thread?) discussed, in response to my comments that Anton LaVey made humanism into a religion by dressing it up in ritual, that the religious nature of humanity is old, and possibly part of our genetic makeup. He also gave some examples of "religious" behavior from the animal kingdom. I would suggest that ritual is one of THE most important social forces to ever have existed. When once an organization realizes this, and really puts it to effective use - the results are staggering.
Let's use Early Christianity as an example.
1 - Its roots in Judaism.
It sprang up as one more Judaism out of many Judaisms, and then slowly gave up on the ritualistic aspects of Judaism (centralization of worship at the Temple, the Covenant of the Torah, the Priestly monopoly through family descent, sacrifice, etc.). These ritualistic aspects of Judaism is what caused the Protestant scholar Julius Wellhausen to declare 2nd Temple Late Judaism "a dead branch" - he was biased in how he saw Late Judaism, for he was reacting against the Catholic aspects of Christianity that had been "borrowed" from Judaism. More on that at the end - for now, you can see how it happened. Judaism kept going, changing as always, while the new sect of Christians sprang up.
2- Jesus and the End of Days.
Now, the picture of early Christianity is far from complete, and still open to debate among those who study if academically and are probably, in my opinion, the best-informed about it. But what we do get is a sometimes conflicting picture of Jesus in which a) he is a preacher of the law (the commandments of the Sinaitic Covenant), amplifies some of it, decreases some of it and does so through his own interpretation of it (the Gospel of Matthew); he was very clear in his insistence that the law must be kept. b) he insisted that the endtimes were coming, and fast - so wordly events didn't matter, and neither did such wordly things as family (which is a thing meant to continue something into the future), a job (who needs money when the world ends?). Several parables and statements of Jesus show his absolute hostility towards money - in his eyes, it was an impediment to gaining entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven/God.
3 - Paul and the dismissal of the Torah.
To avoid repeating the same information from another thread, I'll just mention that the Apostle Paul saw things differently from what some of the later Gospel writers would tell us that Jesus said - especially Matthew. Paul insisted that the law was no longer needed, circumcision (the sign of the Covenant) was useless, sacrifice was now replaced by Jesus' sacrifice, and Rightness with God was no longer an issue - it was salvation through Jesus' death. Paul effectively abolished the ritualistic aspects (at least the majority) of Judaism. Paul, having done this and effectively alienated the Jews because of his outreach to the Gentiles and the evolution this involved, established Churches in small homes - expecting the imminent return of Jesus any day, just as Jesus had predicted. He had no desire to establish permanent church hierarchies or financial planning. The ethics of Jesus (which would best be called Interim Ethics) were only meant to apply during the short time (one generation or so) preceeding the End Times - anything else would be crazy. Nobody would have jobs, no families, no nothing.
4- Jesus never returned - the Church adapted.
You can see it happening in the New Testament already - the certainty of Jesus' immanent return soon gave way to extension after extension, finally reaching a point where one writer started changing Jesus' words to mean thousands of years, thus forcing the Christians to start thinking about the future. Thus Church Fathers started writing tractates reassuring the rich that Yes - contrary to what Jesus had plainly said - they COULD be Christians and rich, as along as their money was spent in a certain way, and you can imagine what that certain way WAS. So Churches grew and grew, one form of Christianity prospered and displaced the other ones, and after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire the Catholic Church was guaranteed a lasting place.
5 - Non-Divine Scripture and the need for a replacement: Ritual.
The Catholic scholars realized that Scripture was NOT the inerrant, Divinely-given, perfect, error-free Bible that many moderns still insist it is. They realized this many years before Luther would start his call for Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone as the basis for Church Doctrine), and also realized the danger of relying on Scripture alone. So they effectively brought back the Ritual of Religion and made it one of the key factors of the religion. A powerful force, rejected by Paul and to some degree - Jesus, it was an effective replacement for Sola Scriptura. It gave an additional power base to the Pope and the Priests and they, once again (as of old - in Mosaic Yahwism and it's Priestly Lineage requirements for access to God) used it to put a barrier between the people and their God. Limited access through the Church. Luther would try to break this monoploy using Sola Scriptura, but he became just as dogmatic and power-driven as the Catholics eventually.
6 - Money, power, ritual.
I hope that gives an idea of how Jesus' simple statement that "it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven/God" was displaced in favor of those old-time favorites of ritual and power bases. The simple Interim Ethics of Jesus were adapted for the long-term (paradoxically) and used against the Christian laypeople to humble them, to keep them meek, to help keep them enthralled to the ritualistic power-base structures that the Catholic Church erected to rule over them.
7- Today.
The old culture (churches in homes, the sharing of one's money with the community, shared labor, love for one's neighbor - like what you speak about concerning your own people) of the New Testament (especially found in the Book of Acts which narrates the early growth of the "Church") was lost. Even after the Protestant Revolution of Luther did exactly what the Catholics were afraid it would do (undermine religious belief once the Bible was begun to be examined critically - the main charge in stripping the Bible of it's "Word of God" status has been the German Protestants), the conservative Fundamentalists popped up and were more than content to fill the gap with Mega-Churches, and the ideology that a rich Christian is a Good Christian.
Personally, I find lonnnnnggg post difficult to read. I try to keep it short and to the point.
I can only speak for JW's as far as helping others. JW's do help others. The majority of our time and effort is spent trying to educate people about bible principles so that they can make lasting changes in their lives and benefit from the protection of God's Kingdom.
As far as $...100% of the $ that is collected (no tithing requirment, only voluntary donations) goes directly to supporting the preaching work and paying for utilities for the buildings. Jehovah's Witnesses do not receive salaries or hourly wages. It is a voluntary service.
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...... Must be all the accessories that go along with it....
