The first and foremost Biblical principle, not
only in seeking to serve, but in all Christian endeavors, is to daily practice
the two greatest commandments. Love God. Love others. Do
it with all you have! Once that is clearly in
place, we can seek practical specifics.
1. Share—Abraham
fed strangers who passed his tent. (Gen 18:1-8) He did it as a matter of
course, and Bedouins still do it, even if they are enemies. He offered Lot the
first choice of land. (Gen 12:8-11) Lepers shared the food they found with a
dying city (and people were starving enough to accept even from lepers!). (2
Kings 7:3-11) David shared his love of music with Saul, and with the world, for
that matter, to this day. (1 Samuel 16:17-21, and many Psalms) Daniel shared
his prayer request with his three friends. Those three friends later supported
each other through a fiery trial. (Daniel 2:17, 18; 3:16-2) Esther shared her
anxiety and prayer request with all her people. (Esther 4:15, 16) The prophets
and Bible writers shared the Word of God.
More to the point, God asks it of us. In Exodus
12:4, when He is first giving instructions for the Passover, God tells Moses
that if a household is too small to eat a whole yearling sheep, they are to
combine households and share, and this became a custom for all the feasts. Some
900 years later, during the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian
captivity, Nehemiah enjoined the people, “Go, eat … drink … and send portions to
him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord.” (Nehemiah
8:10) It doesn’t sound like he’s telling them anything new. This reads like a
reminder—“this is a holy day, and this is what we do on holy days.”
Of course, the whole duty of the family of Abraham
from the beginning was to share the truth about a loving God with all the
nations around them. (They didn’t excel at this.)
Jesus told stories more than once of people
giving dinners and sharing them with everyone they could find. (Matt. 22:1-14;
Luke 14:1-24) Maybe the ultimate food-sharing story is the feeding of the
15,000 or more people, including 5,000 men. Now there’s a sharing story. They
didn’t even have anything to share until they decided to do it!
Rabbi Marcia Prager has this to say, speaking of
the Jewish tradition of tzedakah, which is usually translated charity, though interestingly, it is
from the same root as righteousness or justice and a “fully enlightened person,”
or righteous one is called a tzaddik: “Giving is therefore not volitional charity. So strong is the
sense of obligation that the mitzvah [good deed] of tzedakah is incumbent on all, not only the affluent. In fact, the only
person Jewish tradition exempts from the mitzvah of tzedakah is one who literally does not know where the next meal is coming
from. If I have only my daily sandwich, tzedakah obligates me to share it with someone who has none. I share it,
even if at that moment I don’t feel like it, because my relationship with God
requires this of me.” (Prager, pp. 152-53)
This is a very simple principle, really. Don’t
worry about who deserves, or who has, or who has not, or whose turn it is. Be a
good kid, share!
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