Hello all,
I had great if not weird weekend. On Friday night from 5 to 9 and then on Saturday from 11 to 7, I was packing people's groceries into their bags in the hope they will drop their change into the pails marked Kidz Klub. This is to raise funds for Kidz Klub not exactly back-breaking work but humbling at the same time. Got chatting to some people towards the end on Saturday. There was a really friendly lady who asked whether I would follow her home to help her unpack; the guy who host two foreign students and bought lots of bread for them; the guy who had a Malysian friend who went home a few years back; yea interesting people...at the same time there are the scabby ones; those who don't wnat your help,then needs it and then paid nothing; those that got your help and don't put in a cent; those that put in only the 1 and 2 cents..sigh..people I guess. Somehow the more tattoos, the more disrespectable they look the more generous they are..worse of all are those who wish you well and not a single cent....
Was sending a mail to Kong the today. I was telling him that we are at a threshold. We can choose to go in the promise land or continue to wander. The generation that chose to wander got to eat manna( the food of angels), they clothes and shoes never wore out, and other blessings..so in a way those that continued in the wilderness are truly blessed but they did not receive the promise. So we can be truly blessed by God( HE loves us anyway) with a good job, nice,car and house and yet we stilll can be missing out on the promise of seeing His Kingdom come in Malaysia! So what will it be to enter the promise or live off the blessings. It's not going to be easy the day they entered the Promise land the manna was no more and form then on they have to work hard for their food but still the Promise.
Here is a bit of economics. I was reading Proverbs 19:17..it reads" He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done"..so it got me thinking about what lending means. When you buy shares in a company you are actually lending money to the people who set up that company to build a road, to build factory to make more computers and so on. In essence you give them your money and they reward you by paying dividends and if they do the job well you shares will be worth more than you put in. Same thing for a bank. When you put money in the bank you are actually lending money because the bank will use that money and loan it to someone to buy a house and when he pays back the bank interest part of it is profit to the bank and another part goes to paying you rinterest so you actually lending money and getting a reward in interests! In fact most economic activities are just elaborate ways of lending and borrowing money. Same thing with the stock market, bonds, banks, insurance companies( you pay premiums and you are rewarded with the assurance that should anything bad happen you will get some money. Most insurance companies invest the money to get profit and also pay the claims), Government( you pay taxes and the Government give you services as a reward but of course there is a bit of pemakanan). But as with all earthly institution they will fail. The Government might be corrupt or overthrown or conquered, there can be scandals, thefts, bankruptcies, wars, runs on banks, default, burst bubble and all sort of things that prenvent you from getting your 'rewards'. So a word of wisdom to all the rich uncles and auties in the church. Why not lend to God and invest in his Kingdom..that way you can always be sure of your reward and returns on investments if want to look at it that way. So be kind to the poor and being kind to the poor always require some money.
I love reading through the Pentateuch. I use to think that they are the most boring books in the world and why on earth that they are in the Bible but that was when I was 9. Yup I am proud to say at 9 I qualified to called a adult( in the Jewish sense only, you are an adult when you've read through the Torah and do a Public reading; so in actual fact i don't qualify because I never did the public reading or most parts of it aloud but I like to think that I was considered an adult at 9 and also the fact I am technically more senior than a lot of people 4 times my age in church) but that is an aside and blowing of my own shofar. Anyway back to reading the Pentateuch and gaining wisdom from it on how to run the church. It si technically a blueprint, ashadow you may say of the King dom of God, just like the Tabernacle and Temple was a shadow. Laws governing rest, welfare and all are in there and being a person who went through a phase of supporting virtually every political system, I can say the best is a theocracy based on the Bible as a constitution. I was Capitalist, Socialist, Communist, back to Capitalism, Imperialist, in fact I can say I was right to left and back again and all these before I was 17 and now I happily settled in Democratic Theocracy( it is not unbiblical in fact it is the most Biblical because God rules this earth but eventhough He is the boss He gives us a choices, we can outvote Him but when things get too bad He will intervene and set things right again.)
So anyway I was assailed by this question that how do we know that we do not have so many people on the field that we do not have enough people supporting them. My response was that has never happened in the whole hisory of the Christian though it will be nice if it happens because this means Christ's coming will be hasten. And it seems everyone seem to think that they wil be the one doing the supporting with money while they get to comtimue with their comfortable lifestyle..so I had a hard time debating these people because I thought we have no precedence until I realised we did have a precedence in the tribe of Levi. The Levites is a whole tribe dedicated to serving God, they get no land except the commonland of the Levitical cities. SO the number of full-time workers, missionaries, and people ministering in parachurch organisations should be one-twelfth at most because never use a number without reason. All the other 11 tribes give their tithes to support this 1 tribe. SO our tithes is not to build church buildings but to support this 12th tribe known as the missionaries and fulltime workers. But you may say why give so much when they should be tentmaking. True because even the Levites when their lot for doing duties is not picked will be farming but the fact is their farming careers or whatever missionaries give up to pursue the Kingdom of God is hindered because a lot of the time the duties of the temple take up alot of their time so it is very diificult to earn a living. You can only plant wheat at a certain time of the year but what if you have to serve in the Temple at that time? You can't expect the levite to starve. Hey the Christian doctor probably will be so busy manning the free clinic he probably have no time to man the private clinic that was suppose to earn his keep. I am not advocating being a burden but the fact is a lot remain to be done and if the church don't support the full-time workers who will? Even if you pay crap to missionaries at least make sure their kids get to go to college or university. God will provide for them but it will be through YOU! In conclusion how do you know when you reach have enough workers in the field and you are spending the tithes correctly? Tithes is correctly spent when it supports missionaries or some kind of mission work or outreach. THe number should at most one-twelfth of the church so if PPBC has 120 members so we should looking at at least 10 full-time workers and or missionaries. DUMC with 3600 members, 300 but the fact of the matter is I don't see these numbers and what does that mean? WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH IN THE FIELD!!