Anyone have any clue what this means?

No doubt it’s bringing in Athiests by the droves, but I just don’t get it.

Wow. I am perfectly willing to have a conversation about this, because I could be wrong. But I read this and think, “Isn’t the parachurch still the Church” (capital c)? Does the Church suffer when people are generous? Even if that generosity does not go into the local church budget?

The conversation I heard was regarding the “command” to tithe only to the local church, the storehouse. Malachi 3 is often the quoted in this discussion:

6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.

Obviously, this text supports the idea of tithing to a local congregation. But is that the exclusive application? Are there other storehouses other than the modern local church? Could your parachurch be a storehouse worthy of bringing a tithe? Could the oppressed widow and the fatherless be helped by means other than the local church?

I guess what frustrates me so much is not the issue of tithing or generosity, but the issue of arrogance in interpretation. The arrogance that causes us to divide over minute aspects of theology. That allows us to place ourselves above others for one reason or another. And I’m guilty of it as much as anyone else.

Now this lady was one of those super natural people. In fact, she explained how “Lucy” (a fossilized hominid of the species Australopithecus afarensis, found in Ethiopia) was proof that the birth process is not dangerous for mother or baby (long story). I kind of tuned her out from that point on in the conversation, thinking instead of the episode of 24 that I was missing to be there. But I couldn’t get that phrase out of my head… “the joy of pain.”

As I think about it, I should see it that way, too. But I really don’t. My life has been seasoned with pain as long as I can remember. But the last few months have been some of the worst. The truth is, I know I will look back on this time and be so grateful for it. I’ll see the joy from that perspective. But for now, I find myself trying to medicate the hurt. With distractions or entertainment, with anger, with many things. The joy of pain.

Obviously, Scripture and the life of Jesus demonstrate that we are given a gift in pain, that we are not to avoid it. Through it we are made whole in many ways. We’re commanded to pick up our cross, a phrase I use so often about minor sacrifices that it degrades the reality of murder by crucifixion. I’m commanded to die. (Col. 3.3)

Life brings pain. Only what is alive can experience it. Dead things don’t hurt. “It is the life of self which causes us pain; that which is dead does not suffer” (Fenelon, “Let Go,” letter 2).

Most of my pain is from what should be dead, and is a reminder of the selfishness that still lives so deeply in me. My pride, mostly.

A quote that comes to mind is meant to be funny but is oddly poignant… “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” True isn’t it?

“May the Lord deliver us from falling into the state of soul in which crosses are of no benefit to us. God loves a cheerful giver, according to St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:7. Ah! What must be His love for those who, in cheerful and absolute abandonment, give themselves completely to be crucified with Christ.” (Fenelon)