Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Chew On This...

"If they had a social gospel in the days
of the prodigal son, somebody would have
 given him a bed and a sandwich  and
he never would have gone home."

                                                           Vance Havner

8 comments:

Larri said...

You think? I'm not so sure. His money still would've run out, and his friends still would've abandoned him. At some point, he'd really want to go back home.

Interesting thought though. Thanks for sharing. Happy Wednesday! :o)

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

Food for thought there Gregg,

Yvonne.

John Patrick Donovan said...

The other day a girl came up to me in the parking lot at winco, and asked for spare change as her and her boy freind needed a place to stay, it was very cold out and I said no. I felt very badly about it, but I thought to my self that I should get a list of local shelters and ofer a ride to the shelter next time. This isn't the first time I've been approached in a parking lot. as we drove away my wife and I that is, we seen her standing there not approaching any one, I thought I drive a grand marqui I'm older, I must look like an easy mark. I pray that I am not just being sinical.

Scott said...

It's a tough line between helping those in real need and simply enabling those who live off the system. Those of us with benevolent ministries in our church fight that line all the time. When is helping pay a light bill not really helping, and so on.

As for the Havner quote, though, he's right on. While we need to help the poor, it's our job, we also need to be sharing the Bread of Life. Too much "help" is only temporary. Feed the starving without preaching the Gospel and you're just sending well fed people to hell.

Cathy M. said...

I remember hearing A.W. Tozer say that in his day, a preacher would have come along and started the "First Church of the Hoglot" and begin having services in the mud. When passers-by complain about the smell, they'd be labeled divisive or legalistic. (paraphrase)

I'm glad that God's effectual call will penetrate a dead soul in a hog-lot or a Starbucks! Great food for thought, Bro. Gregg.

Arlee Bird said...

...and then there would have been no parable.

Lee
Tossing It Out

Petra said...

I like the quote and the comments, especially Cathy's.

Anonymous said...

The humor and wisdom of Vance Havner has always amazed me. I loved his style of preaching and teaching. He had a way of bringing heaven to earth and making God's word understandable to us common folk :-)