Description: How Our Tribalism and Cognitive Biases Distort the Gospel
“ It is not merely a commendable thing for a man to be kind and bountiful to the poor, but our bounden duty, as much a duty as it is to pray, or to attend public worship, or anything else whatever . And the neglect of it brings great guilt upon any person. This is a duty to which God’s people are under very strict obligation .”
Jonathan Edwards penned those remarkable words over 250 years ago in a sermon called “ Christian Charity .” And despite sitting through 5000+ sermons over the past six plus decades, I was today years old before I ever encountered such forceful instruction about attending to the needy. All my life I’ve been taught that prayer, church attendance and daily bible reading formed the foundation of Christian living. Such disciplines were non-negotiable. They formed the path of faithfulness and kept us from going
Being “kind and bountiful to the poor” fell into the “should do” bin, not the “must do.” It wasn’t a first order mandate like prayer and devotions. Yes, “good Christians” donated to the poor. But a failure in this matter was like a venial type of sin. It wasn’t crippling to the faith, such as a failure to pray or read the Bible.