-Should we ask a
blessing on each meal? One person I know bows his head, closes his eyes
and asks this out loud in restaurants as he believes this is being a witness
for
Emmanuel.
This person may be thinking
that he is witnessing for Emmanuel, but he is just lacking in wisdom.
He should study how Paul
dealt with others.
Blessing the food you are
about to eat is a good idea. Why?.John
15:7. But one can do that silently and without waving his hands and/or
arms over the food as in some kind of weird
religious ritual,
attracting attention toward that which may be designed to impress any noticing.
That is akin to
how the self-rightous.Pharisees
of Emmanuel's
time would do:.Matthew
23:14,27,28.
People care more about how
you may treat them, than how you may first appear. People care more about
how you treat them than some weird words of gibberish
they hear from you. They will consider what you are when care about them
exceeds impressions you attempt to make upon them.
In 1Corinthians
9:20-22 Paul talks of how he first considered what company was around
him and would tailor his behavior accordingly.
Matthew
14:14-17 details Emmanuel blessing the food for the multitude that
came to Him. In this case He was teaching them about God. They were interested.
They knew about Him. They wanted to know more.
Paul
does not say in 1Corinthians
10:27-33 that if you attend a feast somewhere, to be sure to let everyone
know you are a spiritual person by bowing your head and saying out loud
a blessing on the food in front of you before you eat it, even if the feast
served food that was previously sacrificed to a pagan idol! Not only is
this annoying to others, as it takes their mind off what they were doing,
but is simply an attention getter by an immature spiritual person. Get
wisdom!
Immaturity is, not considering what others are doing and/or what it is
that they may think of your actions:.Philippians
4:5,6 "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing.(don't
be worried that you may be missing an opportunity to witness to others
if you don't in some way, let them know you are spiritual; don't be concerned
about 'losing points' with God; avoid being religiously fanatical);
but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known unto God.(not
necessarily
to others)." 1Thessalonians
5:22 "Abstain from all appearance of evil."
Leave people alone! When
the Infinite One is ready for them, do you not think He
can call them?.Hosea
4:17 "Ephraim
is joined to idols; let him alone."
If so, Paul would have
instead said 'If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast and
you be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question
for conscience sake, but be sure to bow your head, close your eyes, wave
good energy over you plate and say a blessing on the food loud enough to
draw
attention to yourself so that all will think that you are spiritual
and in that way you are
witnessing
to others for God.(does
God really need you to do anything for Him?).and
making the food not just 'ok' by blessing it quietly, but making it 'double
ok' by being sure others notice. Ha ha!
A spiritual individual's
reasonable
service has to do with his mind and his inner character.(Romans
12:1-3).and
avoiding annoyance and offence to any who may be there that may interpret
this as you being some sort of a 'religious freak'
and representative of something that may seem unduly.(excessively;
improperly).strange
to them and thus would drive them further from Christ:.1Corinthians
10:31,33.
Yet the truth can be presented
properly:.Acts
17:20 "For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We would know
therefore what these things mean." Proverbs
25:11 "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."
Ephesians
4:29 "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that
which is good to the use of edifying,
that it may minister grace unto the hearers."
Instead, Paul does say he
gave thanks.(1Corinthians
10:30).but
indicates he did it unobtrusively.
Can one not give thanks in quiet without anyone knowing? Is it important
that all know you are thanking God? For what purpose?
One who follows this 'religious
freak'
type of 'witnessing' does not realize that all will know God eventually.(Romans
14:11).and
does not realize that by acting this way, he makes himself appear to be
one of the sillily
righteous freaks 'out there'.
Presenting a situation where
others could feel inferior and make them think that food, if not blessed,
may not be proper to eat, is not edifying others:.Romans
14:14-17.
Many follow various doctrines.(teachings).in
their
worship of and evangelizing
about God and feel that others are wrong.(Acts
18:11-13).who
do not believe wholly
as they do, thus hurting the confidence caused by the light each individual
received from Christ:.Hebrews
3:14. We are partakers of Christ through His light.(faith
and love) (Colossians
1:12).and
not by agreement in doctrines.
More.
It is not by others hearing
you that
brings others to
God necessarily, but rather by your actions of concern and help:.Romans
14:18-23; John 13:35; Philippians
1:9,10; 2Corinthians 6:3.
See 'Compassion'.
-Does."vengeance
is mine".(Romans
12:19;
2Thessalonians 1:6;
Hebrews
10:30, and Isaiah 35:4).mean
God will punish our enemies?
The Infinite One
is not out to punish anyone. On
the word 'punish' as it occurs in the Bible.
But, God causes
circumstances so humans learn. Sometimes they don't want to hold to
what they have learnt,
but, just as
God never overrides one's
attitude,
God also never gives up on a person, even if they may have to have severe
awakenings over and over again as happened so often in the Old Testament.
God wants people to realize
that some ways they hold that afflict
others are just not right. This is for the eternal good of both the afflicted
and the afflicter.
This."vengeance
is mine".is God's
concern. For example: One doing deceitful
and malicious
things to another obviously
lacks the character necessary to be a loving progressive
and eternal being in the Kingdom of God and thus.brings
heartaches into his own life here and now.
If everything went well when
we do wrong, how would we ever learn? But God does not allow as terrible
a thing to occur to us as we may have perpetrated
unto another.(Luke
6:35; Psalms 103:10).or
we would already be dead.
Under the old
covenant it was so:.Zechariah
1:6; Matthew 5:38-45; Leviticus
24:20;
Exodus 21:24; Deuteronomy
19:21.
The
Infinite One we commonly refer to as God, has
ways to bring the character He wants each of us to possess in order
to be ready for the next step in existence after our learning time on Earth
is finished.
