Which is more important: quantity or quality?
Matthew 8
The Cost of Following Jesus
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead".
If it's just quantity, Jesus wouldn't have added the phrase "and let the dead bury their own dead". But on the other hand, Jesus didn't immediately reject him--Jesus still invited the disciple to follow him, but showed him that his attitude in this matter is wrong. Gentle yet strict.
If the focus is only on quantity without focusing on the spiritual growth, then the foundations, which were supposed to be on His Words, would be shaken and have to be rebuilt again. And by the time, the need to rebuild the foundation is seen, how many had already strayed away from His way?
And then there'll be another issue: since a church is established by Him, then how the foundations of the church be shaken, which implies that means our Lord is not what He claims to be, which is TOTALLY ABSOLUTELY wrong. He is who and how He claims to be. And He will rebuild the foundations when the foundations rots, through His own means: at times through His servants, at times through the authorities.
To rebuild the foundation, the rotting parts have to be torn down first, before replacing them with new parts.
And don't get me wrong, the rotting parts are behaviors, norms, attitudes that are NOT of the Holy Spirit (refer to the post (should have titled it...) http://icyelimworld.blogspot.sg/2013/09/still-uncertain-whether-to-post-this-or.html?m=1)
Err...my paragraphing :/ >~<;...tried to break down the length of the paragraphs so that it's easier to read...
3 comments:
similarly, that's the main reason why I'm so uptight about clearing up who is the owner of this blog and the portfolio blog http://icyelimworld.wordpress.com/
Different perspective of matters, would lead to different interpretation of the content of my blog posts, and if someone who has a different perspective and value and mindset claims to be the owner of these blog posts and blogs, the content of my blog posts and blogs will be distorted as then they will explain the contents differently. And it would then cause confusion as then others will think "how come what she types and mindset, personality, and values are different from what she actually is", and then as I'm a Christian, and sometimes the stuff that I type such as this post is directly related to Christianity, those who claim they are 冰月 would not see matters from the Lord's perspective and would explain things differently, a common example would be "why do we have to offer one tenth of our income", or "why are we encourage to fast", "why do we have to love our enemies. It's absurd" etc. It's not a question of popularity or fame or any of that matter.
And also some phrases in the bible are comparisons and to be taken metaphorically. Some immediately took on the literal sense without much thought and explain the phrases in the literal sense, which apparently, of cause, caused much fear to most. and for me, intense fear, when I did not know what was happening except that some groups were after me, and then intense anger, when I realised what was happening and how the misunderstanding arose, and later much irritation, when I tried to straighten out the misunderstandings of biblical verses.
Apparently, those who misunderstood the bible went to places which I frequent and spread the words, and then I kenna all the blames for it. And that's only one part of the many blames placed upon me...one may wonder why it worked so well: it's because I'm an introvert and don't talk and mingle much...and only when I realised what's happened and what's going on, that the mischief had been done...and dont ask me why it takes so long to clear it up...there's a variety of reasons e.g. social psy explanations, theological explanations, personal inferior complex, etc...
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