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NASB | Matthew 7:12 ¶ "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 7:12 ¶ "So then, in everything treat others the same way you want them to treat you, for this is [the essence of] the Law and the [writings of the] Prophets. |
Bible Question:
We had once discussed about organs donation in a cell group gathering. One or two of us expressed that they would limit their donations to those patients who were not smokers, drugs users, drunkards, etc. Should christians limit the donation with those conditions? Any biblical view on that? Thanks. Shalom Azure |
Bible Answer: Hello, Sister Azure - Steve and WOS certainly have come straight to the heart of the matter with their answers and I do not presume to be able to improve on them. ...... I wish merely to make a small comment and observation. The Gospel record of Jesus shows Him ministering freely and lovingly to the sinner, the poor, the lame, the blind, the mute, the sick, the leper -- the outcasts and dregs of society. Surely there is a lesson in Jesus' ministry to be learned for ours. He reached out to minister to the multitudes, whoever they were and wherever they were. ....... And another example not so far removed from your question about putting restrictions on organ donations comes to mind. More than once I've been exposed to the following line of reasoning concerning the giving of money to the church for its work. It goes something like this: "I don't give very much (or any) these days because I don't approve of...." (and here the list can include anything from the color of the pews to the cost of the pastor's shoes). The idea is the same, whether we're contemplating the donation of bodily organs to those in need or money to support the church, it really isn't selfless giving when we give grudgingly, or out of an ascetic, gloomy sense of duty and obligation, or insist on attaching all kinds of strings and conditions to it. Scripture says that God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corintians 9:7), and how interesting it is that the Greek word "hilaron" rendered "cheerful" is the very same word from which we get the English word "hilarious." Giving is not hilarious in the sense of being a joke, to be sure. But the passage suggests that God loves a giver with a heart that embraces giving with joy and enthusiasm and finds it a delightful experience. Hence, God loves a cheerful giver. ..... And I can't let go of this topic without a personal note. It was Christmas years ago and one of my sons was 10 years old. He gave me a handsome book bound in leather that he knew I'd dreamed of owning for some time. It was an expensive book, and I wondered how David had raised so much money. I asked my wife whether she had financed our son's Christmas shopping. She said that she had not. It was after Christmas when I finally found out that this little boy, this loving son, had sold some of his coin collection in order to buy me the book. But never in my life have I seen more joy in the eyes of a human being than David had in his that Christmas morning when I opened his gift to me. David died in 1989, three months before his 21st birthday, at the hands of a drunken driver, but I never read those sacred words from 1 Corinthians 9:7, "God loves a cheerful giver" without thinking of that blessed Christmas when David so cheerfully gave me the leather book. It makes it so easy for me to see why God loves a cheerful giver. --Hank |