Comment highlights for week of January 30, 2011

Posted by Alan Knox on Feb 5, 2011 in comment highlights | 1 comment

As I mentioned in the first post in this series, I want to highlight some of the comments that have been left on my blog posts during the past week. Hopefully, this will give more visibility to some of the reasons that I love blogging – dialog and interaction.

Craig from “Jeph and Craig’s Podversations” left (what I believe is) his first comment at my blog on an older post called “Summary – Should elders/pastors be paid a salary?“:

I know this is an old post but I am fascinated with Jewish custom, history, etc. as it pertains to my faith in Christ. Last year I came across a teaching in the Mishnah that prohibits rabbis from taking money for teaching the Torah:

“he who makes a profit from Torah has brought about his own destruction.” Avot 4:5

“Do not charge for teaching Torah. Accept no remuneration for it.” Derek Erutz Zuta 3:3

I discussed this in an article last summer http://jephandcraig.com/?p=432

Charles left a great comment on my post “Expectations for leaders.” The points that he brought up (which I agreed with) helped me explain my position more fully. Here is part of his comment:

But establishing an ethical standard from Scripture is not always an easy task and there is often a fair amount of difference of opinion even among godly and competent interpreters. Some issues are fairly easy (e.g., we ought not murder or steal) but what about watching an “R” rated movie or being a Republican or Democrat? Some would take fairly hard stands on these and other issues and conclude that this or that does not display consistent obedience or leading by the Spirit. This raises another issue, that is, your approach to following means that one must be spiritually mature to be able to recognize whom one should follow. The Scriptures a replete with examples that suggest that people are often not a good judge of who is worthy of following. I am not sure I have great answers but I suspect that following requires both accepting those who are recognized as leaders by the body and evaluating whether they are worthy of that recognition.

I can’t leave out this excellent comment (and example) from Randi at “Seeds in My Heart.” She left this comment on my post “Plant a church in his projects?“:

One of the ‘groups’ we are involved with – the Wilmington Homeless Ministry – means at a VFW on Sunday mornings for a church gathering and such. It started as a group meeting at the local park known for homeless/poor… but the city council put so much pressure to get the homeless out of the parks that the last 3 gatherings we had there, there were 2 to 5 cop cars waiting for us all – which scared all our friends away. but YES YES YES – the church should GO to the people – where they are. totally believe that! GO to them. Go amongst them in THEIR neighborhood. We have so many mission fields in our own country. We even were looking into a laundromat ministry after speaking with one of our new friends… but haven’t done anything yet… so for now we meet at the VFW and invite others to come and we sort of have adopted families… have an advocacy thing going on where we take others under our wings.

I’m looking forward to more great comments next week! Please join in the conversation.