Thought for Today
1 Kings 10:14 The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred sixty-six talents of gold, 15 besides that which came from the traders and from the business of the merchants, and from all the kings of Arabia and the governors of the land.
Psalm 107:23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters;
Matthew 22:4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,
Not surprisingly, the words commerce and compartmentalize do not appear in scripture. But, Christians know that it is not possible to separate our faith-lives from our daily lives. Many have heard, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.” “It was spoken during an address President Calvin Coolidge gave to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C. on January 17, 1925.” (blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams)
My own father often remarked, “Christians are called to live in the world but not to be of the world.” We like to think that we can compartmentalize our individual lives, living Monday through Saturday in the civil world and then isolate Sunday for the spiritual world. We would like to think that; however, we cannot truly separate Monday and Sunday, or any other day from all the rest. Christians, in America or anywhere else throughout Christendom, are called to live within the societies where we reside. If we are truly faithful Christians, our faith should permeate every aspect of our lives, civil and spiritual should be mutually intertwined and inseparable.
Last Sunday, when in worship we came to what we call Prayers of the People, and I asked for prayer concerns, a request was made to pray for all of those who will be affected by changes in our government’s SNAP program. “SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) provides food benefits to low-income individuals and families to help them afford nutritious food essential for health and well-being.” (Copilot Search)
If you have any doubts about the effect of commerce and economics on our faith lives, talk to your church treasurer about fluctuations in your church’s plate income during times of inflation. Or, if your church like ours has a food pantry, talk to anyone involved about how food insecurity increases and decreases based on costs of consumer goods like milk and eggs.
It is probably rather short-sighted of any of us to think that we can somehow isolate the Creator of Creation from any aspect of the world God has created. Christians often talk about God being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. We toss those words around carelessly. We think God either isn’t concerned with affairs of the secular world or that we can somehow ‘hide’ some of our thoughts, words and actions from our omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent God. We believe we can compartmentalize our lives, our thoughts, our words and our actions into isolatable segments. In our conceit, our gall, our hutzpah we believe we can restrict our worship of God to a single day of the week.
One of the least read books of our Bible is the Epistle of James. That is regrettable. James wrote, “4:13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” He also wrote, “2:18 But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”
James understood that we cannot separate Monday from Sunday, we cannot compartmentalize our lives; we cannot separate our faith from any other aspect of our lives. Christians are called to live our faith in every aspect of our lives. And, as Christians, we know the truth of Paul’s words, “Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—”
Stay safe, live by your faith, trust God,
Pastor Ray