{"id":49562,"date":"2025-04-11T06:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=49562"},"modified":"2025-04-11T07:13:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T13:13:32","slug":"christ-and-community-2-striving-for-the-ideal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/christ-and-community-2-striving-for-the-ideal\/","title":{"rendered":"Christ and Community, 2: Striving for the Ideal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was a Jehovah\u2019s Witness many years ago that pointed out to me the connection between \u201cthese my brethren\u201d in Matthew 25:40 and Jesus calling those who \u201cdo the will of God \u2026 my brother, and my sister, and mother.\u201d (Mark 3:31-35, Matt 12:46-50, Luke 8:19-21. See the comments in my<a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/christ-and-community-introduction\/\"> last post)<\/a>. I\u2019m interested in what you think of that connection, but I do think that it suggests an element of community building in Matthew 25:31-46 that I see as similar to Mosiah 18:8-9.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Yes, God cares how we treat people generally, but I do believe that Jesus did really care about attempting to create a holy \u201ckingdom\u201d on earth that would only be holy if his disciples in that community were committed to each other through the kind of mutual aid described in Matthew 25:31-46. I see this concept in line with John 13:34-35: the disciples of Jesus love EACH OTHER as Jesus loves them.<\/p>\n<p>I think the JW wanted to make the point that just being generally charitable wasn\u2019t good enough: you had to be in the right church (the JW). We also have a \u201ctrue church\u201d claim, and in my own <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/04\/my-atheist-conversion-3-a-lack-of-theology\/\">unorthodox opinion<\/a>, I don\u2019t hold absolutely to that claim, but instead believe that as we strive to be what Christ wants we do his will. I see us as TRYING to be the &#8220;true church&#8221; and I see such an attempt as\u00a0holy.<\/p>\n<p>Being a part of community that treats each other like Christ\u2019s instructions in Matthew 25: 31-46, John 13:34-35, and Mosiah 18:8-9 is a holy Christian endeavor, whatever the community\u2019s name is (sorry if that sounds heretical!). &#8220;By this shall men know &#8230;&#8221; And yes, I do see Mormons as doing a <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/03\/my-testimony-of-an-imperfect-church-but-the-best-one-in-my-opinion\/\">pretty good job<\/a> at community. So again, if there is a better one, let me know.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, a Christlike community will be kind to those not of their denomination, but I\u2019ll be arguing in my next post that having mutual commitments to each other IS important. And yes, we and other Christians have come far short of creating heaven on earth in our communities. But we should still keep trying, because I do think we can make progress even if we continually come up short of the ideal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was a Jehovah\u2019s Witness many years ago that pointed out to me the connection between \u201cthese my brethren\u201d in Matthew 25:40 and Jesus calling those who \u201cdo the will of God \u2026 my brother, and my sister, and mother.\u201d (Mark 3:31-35, Matt 12:46-50, Luke 8:19-21. See the comments in my last post). I\u2019m interested in what you think of that connection, but I do think that it suggests an element of community building in Matthew 25:31-46 that I see as similar to Mosiah 18:8-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49562"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49605,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49562\/revisions\/49605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}