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Deutsche Version | Wiki Start | Topics Collection iii

How to help? II ...

Friday, August 5, 2011. I have been reading Luke 6 today, searching for some biblical guidance on the topic of how to help. Here, Jesus quite strongly demands unconditional help. He asks us to cut the vicious circle of hatred and bring our environment into a state of love by starting to love.

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Some basic thoughts about help …

One basic law of education is that you need clear limits. If you try to raise kids, but do not pose clear limits, you will fail. Kids try to push boundaries as far as they can. If you do not set boundaries which are adequate, it does not work, you will just move into chaos!

We experience something similar when we talk about rules in society. We need rules, otherwise we cannot live together in a reasonable way. Also, we need to enforce rules, since some people try to break them and that can destroy the comunity as a whole. Again, we need clear steps of how to develop rules, how to set them and how to enforce them.

The bible itself also sets up rules. God talks about what is good for us and what is not. Jesus formulates many rules and puts them into action. He sets clear limits and clear standards. When we start to help someone or a group of people, we need to keep all this in mind.

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What Jesus told us …

Often, we forget the lessons about rules when we read the passages about love. But love does not mean that there would not be limits which need to be formulated. Love needs to set clear standards, otherwise help is not going to reach its goal. Without clear rules and standards, most help we try to give is just useless!

Perhaps a sincere warning needs to be formulated when we use phrases like “clear standards”. Such phrases are often used by people with a rather limited framework of experiences. They like it easy and think that they need to impose their standards on other people. But that is not what I mean here. Love will always try to formulate standards which can be met. Jesus heavily criticized the Pharasees, who put high standards up, but they left people in their misery.

Love will always be an adventure. Love which takes it serious will also quickly learn that standards are needed; consequences of wrong behaviour are crucial! But love also can reach its goal and open a sound way of life … sustainable help can succeed! ... more texts

jn_en_2011_08_05.txt · Last modified: 2017/06/18 16:48 by 127.0.0.1