Christian Responsibility to Other Christians

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Christian Responsibility to Other Christians

All right, we are live. So we are. I'm Andrew Rappaport from strivingforeternity .org. I'm with a good friend of mine, Greg from Dead Man Walking, and we're hoping to get our mutual friend, Keith Foskey, from Your Calvinist together.

This is something we're doing kind of just spur of the moment. I know folks may not have known in our audiences we were looking to do this, but we just we actually had a reason for doing this. We want to talk about Christians' responsibility to other Christians.

We got some good questions that we're going to discuss, hopefully be educational for everyone. But the real purpose behind it is to help a fellow Christian family. Someone that Greg and Keith and I all know got to meet, Aaron Brewster, he was impacted by Hurricane Helen.

And what we're trying to do is do a give, send, go to help him raise money. I'll just show this really quick. That was the wrong one. Both of us there.

There we go.

Make that bigger. That's a picture for those who are watching the video. In the center there, that's his mailbox. That's how high the water came in. We'll talk about it more later on. But basically, they lost their vehicles, their water came up, took out their HVAC system.

His son was living in the RV because he lives in his parents' place while the RV's toast filled with water all the way up to... So we wanted to try to help support him, but we also... And so we have a give, send, go if you want, and we'll put it up throughout.

Give, send, go .com slash SFE has the details there. But we figured, let's not just make this about supporting a person. We want it to get in some good discussion. And so, Greg, when we talk about Christian responsibility to other Christians, I guess the first thing, right?

You and I were talking some questions we should first ask. I'll hand it over to you to maybe... You could either share what you want about Aaron or start us off with some fun discussion.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

First of all, thank you for inviting me onto this live stream because we were talking off air a little bit too, and it's like a lot of Christians talk about charity. They talk about giving. They talk about discipling.

They talk about all these things, but when their money has to meet the road, right? When they got to put their money where their mouth is or however you say that, they disappear, it seems like. It seems like, oh, I don't want to give to that or do that, right?

So I have a brother in you, Andrew Rappaport, when you said, hey, we met this guy. We've hung out a few times. We were with him for three or four days at the conference last year in February. He's got 10 foot of water in his house.

Basically, the house is ruined. I've worked in restoration, water restoration for quite a while, especially in real estate. That house is destroyed. You said, let's raise some money and have a good discussion.

And I went, well, here's a brother that I know, and you're a brother that I know. And I love the fact that you actually are a man of action. And you just don't sit back and write books about charity and talk about giving cheerfully, but you're actually doing it.

And you're using the platform at your disposal. You're using your connections and networking to go, yeah, I want to help this brother out. So, yeah, that link on there. Guys, if you're watching right now, go give freely because we're brothers in the Lord.

He's a brother in the Lord. That's all you need to know. And honestly, that's how the church should work. We should not be waiting for FEMA to give us a $750 check. The Biden-Harris presidency, while giving out millions and millions and millions of dollars and billions to Ukraine and millions of illegal immigrants, they're going to write you a check for $750.

So I can tell you right now, Mr. or Mrs. Christian, the government does not love you, does not like you, and will not provide for you. But who will is God. And how does God provide for you? Through the loving, cheerful giving and charity of your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

That's how it's supposed to work. Right, Andrew? So, yes, we're doing this to help with Aaron Brewster, whose house was essentially destroyed. But also, I think this is an important discussion to have because this is an area where I see a lot of Christians talk about it, but they don't have the action to back it up.

Or they've given and seceded to the secular culture and said, oh, well, I'll get on that welfare check. I'll collect that government assistance. I'll take that PPP loan that's forgivable. I'll take that hurricane money.

Now, look, I'm not saying all of it's sinful or biblically unjust or anything like that. I'm saying we're going to have a discussion about what our default should be as Christians. And I think these four questions that you have here, Andrew, are phenomenal because we're not really talking about it.

And this is a great time to talk about it.

Yeah, no, I have to laugh. You mentioned the $750 that the Biden-Harris campaign is giving to those in need, because I don't know if you noticed or if you heard on the news, but they're like, Biden's press secretary was saying, well, these people don't want it.

They're not taking advantage of it. Yeah, because you're requiring people that have no electricity to first go online.

Online, yeah.

You gave them a time limit and they have to have electricity, which they don't have. They need to get a computer, which is not where you like. Are you kidding me?

Yeah, oh, it's ridiculous. Let's not forget, too. And I don't want to make this too political. But for those watching out there, let's not forget that that Trump underfunded the FEMA.

Budget.

OK, you can say that he did do that. He cut it down. Biden came into office. He didn't refund it. He didn't build it back up. He kept it low. But then what he did is he made two subcategories. One was for relief.

One was for immigrants. And he took the money from the relief, gave it all to immigrants, and then said, hey, we don't have any money. And when people press back on, he said, what? I didn't spend FEMA funds on immigrants.

That fund is still there. It's just depleted. So that's the word games that they're playing. So the $750 will barely cover your Uber ride to the next state over where there is a hotel available. It's ridiculous.

We shouldn't be depending on a secular government for anything. I think we should be depending on the charity, aid and love of our brothers and sisters who are we who are we're bonded to by the blood of Christ.

Government Assistance, Church Responsibility, and Biblical Care for the Needy

Yeah.

So a question that we started with, you and I were talking, should Christians rely on government assistance? So what do you think? Should we as Christians? Whose responsibility is it?

Look, look, look, look, look. First of all, you know, me and you are the same here. We need to define terms. What are we talking about when we say rely on? Let's define that for the listeners. Are we saying habitual all the time without looking for any new type of work or changing your situation?

And hey, the money's coming in. So that's what I'll rely on that way or rely on for a few weeks or a few months in a situation where you need financial aid. Are we talking about all those things?

Well, it could be all those things. I mean, right now, specifically thinking with a situation like this, where people have unexpected emergencies that occur. Now we could look, I mean, you think of the welfare system.

I mean, look, where did the welfare system come from? First Timothy chapter five. That's where it came. I mean, that's where we see it, right? It actually comes from the synagogue. The synagogues. Acts chapter six.

Why did we have the deacons, the first deacons? It was because their widows weren't being taken care of because they weren't being treated in the synagogue anymore as believers. So now they needed help.

So it's like, okay, we got it. So it was always in biblical times, it was always the church slash go further back synagogues responsibility to care for those in need, even if they were in need for a long time.

First Timothy five gives us some instructions for the widow, right? Chapter five, verse three, honor the widows who are widows indeed. In other words, and he describes what that means. Okay. They don't have children or grandchildren that could take care of them, but if they are widows indeed, verse five, what do you do?

Well, they shouldn't be left alone. And so it says in verse nine, a widow should be put on the list only if she is less than 60 years old. If she's not less than 60 years old and has been the wife of one man having a reputation in good works, right?

So there's instructions.

Okay.

If she has no other means of taking care of herself, if she can't remarry, Paul says to Timothy, the church has a responsibility to take care of her. And that would be a long term.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, you see biblically our responsibility, the church's responsibility is to those in need, the widow, the poor, right? It's not the government. So first and foremost on should Christians rely on government assistance?

My first answer is no at all costs. Try not to just because the word rely also assumes trust. And frankly, I don't trust the politicians and the federal and state governments that are in charge of our civil sphere right now.

Wait a minute, sir. Aren't you a politician?

Yeah, I am a local politician and I make sure that we not only cut taxes, but we spend appropriately within our means. We've rolled back all kinds of taxes in my tenure in eight years. We're one of the counties in Michigan that are doing that.

We have a budget surplus, which then we reduce our budget each year. That's unheard of. But that's only because there's guys like me on the board that are always pushing for.

That.

You know, a lot of a locally elected official state and federal, they become apathetic. And it's all about how much more can we take? That's why we're running a 30 trillion dollar deficit. But my point being is the churches have stepped back over the last 100 years.

I know you and I were talking offline earlier and just going, you know, 100 years ago, you could go to a Catholic charity if you lost your job or if you had substance abuse issues or you were a widow, they would train you.

They would house you. They would feed you for amount of time. They would job place you. You were required to go to mass, but they would get you back on your feet. And the Catholic church did that. There was many Presbyterian and Baptist churches that had those same types of programs.

And then you have the end of World War one and two. You have the introduction in 1913 of the federal income tax. You have the expansion of the progressive government by Roosevelt. And next thing you know, churches have just stepped back and they've said, oh, I guess it's the government's job to take care of people who can't help themselves.

And instead, the church has turned inward and started building their 10 million dollar churches and running churches like an S Corp, paying their pastors millions of dollars. And now I'm generalizing, but that goes on a lot.

You have to realize if we had if we took 20 billion dollars, put it into a fund, we could buy every single homeless person here in America a house. OK, we said 30 billion to Ukraine just last month, 20 billion.

We could solve homelessness. Guess what? If you take the top 50 megachurches and you add together their budget, it's about 20 billion.

Dollars.

That's insane. That's that's telling you that the church has the resources to take care of every single person in this country appropriately. But we just choose not to. And that's horrendous. So it's on us as the church.

I would say as a person, yeah, don't get hooked into the welfare, to the food card, to to government assistance. I'm on the other side of that. Always have a plan A, B and C to make sure you have backup plan.

As a Christian, we should be planning right. We should be looking forward and saying, what can I do in these situations if I'm a husband or a father and I have to provide for my kids and my wife and even provide for myself if I'm single, I should have passive income set up.

I should have things going to where I don't have to look to a civil government to say, please help me. I can look to my brothers and sisters in the Lord or I have plans set up to where I can be self-sufficient.

You know, they put this thing at Ross. Ross Perry says it's like he's almost as if he was listening to you and I talk before.

We started.

And he's just a great straight man here. He says, why has benevolent funds? Why benevolent fallen aside? And I really think Ross said that.

You said that.

Yeah.

Before we talk about it.

So it's I didn't plan that. But Ross, I mean, really, I think the reason really comes down to we were you know, Greg and I were talking before we went live. I said, I think it's because of the Scopes Monkey Trial.

You think about it. What happened after the Scopes Monkey Trial? The argument for evolution in public school, you end up having an embarrassment from a fundamentalist. And for the record, I graduated from a dispensational fundamental Baptist seminary.

Right.

But it was the fundamentalist.

We forgive you.

Yeah.

It was the fundamentalist, though, that they were embarrassed by the Scopes Monkey Trial when the lawyer got put. He was allowed to put him. He let the other lawyer put him on the stand and ends up arguing for a mix between evolution and creation.

Oh, God created evolution. And it was a theistic evolution. It was an embarrassment. And what did what did the fundamentalist churches do? Pulled out of society altogether, pulled out of churches, pulled out of everything.

And in doing so, they created this vacuum for secular humanism and the government to just come right in. So where the church used to do the well would do welfare and take care of people, the church has pulled into themselves, created this vacuum.

And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, you think about the New Deal and all that. I mean, it's just, yes, we'll take you. We'll create a welfare system. We'll take you all. And you just have to keep voting for us to keep this going.

That's that's such a good point. I didn't even really think about that trial. But yeah, you see a pulling back. And you also see the church not being the center of the cultural center of the local neighborhood or city or town or village.

Right.

Like think even 100 years ago, more prevalent, maybe 120 or 130 years ago, but even 100 in the 1920s, before entertainment, before rock stars, before celebrities, before radio stars, you had the church was the cultural center of your geographical area of your town or village or whatever, wherever you lived.

I mean, it was like, what's going on at the church? What has the what did the pastor preach about this week? He's visiting the smaller towns. It's like we've really stepped back in the churches. You know, we haven't been the cultural center for 75, 80 years, 100 years now.

So it's like, how do you expect the church to step in and help when they've abandoned all their other duties as well as being being the cultural leaders? We've just bowed to the secular culture. And we've said, OK, federal government, state governments, you take care of our widow and.

Poor.

We don't think that's a true commandment in the New Testament. Just like you pulled up earlier, Andrew, we're going to abdicate our duties and we'll let the politicians sort it out. And I get more I'm more upset of churches making that decision over the last 75 years than I would ever be upset with someone taking assistance.

I'm just saying I don't think it's not a good road to go down. Try to be self-sufficient, trust in the Lord. He's sovereign overall. Now, look, there might be times when that is part of God's plan. And that is something that that's why we are wise and discerning.

And we meditate on the word of God and we listen to the Holy Spirit when he speaks through the word of God. But overall, generally speaking, for question one, yeah, not a good idea to be part of you. You have a partner in the federal government when you do any of that.

When you own a business, when you take welfare, when you take assistance, when you take loans or grants, they are a 50 -50 partner now. And don't be unequally yoked, as the Bible says.

I probably think they're more than a 50 -50 partner. I think they see themselves as 100 once they get in a little bit. You know, it is kind of interesting because around Christmastime every year when I used to pastor a church, we would get people that are on government assistance and they need something for the kids for Christmas.

And you know what the government would do? Call your local church. They would send them to a church to, you know, I'd get these calls, oh, I need something for my kids for Christmas. You know, I'm on welfare.

I have nothing, you know, get all the sob stories. And, you know, but like you said, we did require they had to come to church. If they came to church, we'd share the gospel with them and then do things.

Yeah, it is a thing. You made a good point. Relying on it, I think as Christians, we should be finding means, you know, if you have someone in the church who is really not looking for work, you know, they're on government assistance, they're not looking, and they're able-bodied, that could be a sin.

But as you and I were talking about—.

You don't work, you don't eat, the New Testament says, yeah.

Yeah, but then Question now is, if relying on government assistance is a sin, whose sin is it? Is it the individual who does that? Okay, well, it could be, but could we also say it's the church's responsibility because they didn't do anything?

Or disciple them properly to say that that isn't what you should be doing, right?

Yeah, I mean—.

Yeah, no, I agree.

I mean, it's the church that pulled out. I mean, if the church is not taking care of, especially those within their church, right? I mean, that's a command we see or instructions we see in Timothy. Why is the church not doing that?

Yeah.

I mean, it's very easy for us, I think, Greg, to say, oh, government bad, government bad, let's all blame the government, but the government took over what the church used to do. We complain about the government, but it used to be the church 100 years ago, before the Scopes Monkey trial.

It was the church that did the educating.

Yeah.

It was the church that was the—that's why evolution became such an issue, because the public education was done with a heavy Christian emphasis.

Yeah.

And so when the church pulls out, well, now you got that problem, though. The government comes in and says, okay, we'll take the education, we'll take the welfare, we'll—everything the church used to do.

Yeah.

No, you're absolutely right. Yeah, so question number two here says, during disasters, who is the first in to help the church or—wait, who is the first in to help, the church or the left that claims they are?

They're caring.

A little snarky on your questions there. Yeah, that's a good point, though. Like, say what you were saying earlier, how you were like, we don't see any leftists down there right now. We see a bunch of churches helping people.

Right now, you have Milton, you have Helen, these two hurricanes. Who are the first ones in?

Yeah.

It was the Christian churches that went in there. I know people that—from different parts of the country that weren't affected, but they went in there. Now, granted, I do know one that, after Helen, someone who I know was—had—knew a Christian brother that came out to try to bring him food, water, different supplies.

And he was stopped by FEMA. FEMA stopped this person and said, if you go—they had—FEMA wanted to confiscate all the water, because he had just gallons and gallons and gallons of water. All this water and food in the back of his bed.

They wanted all of it. And they were going to distribute it. And if he didn't, they were going to arrest him.

Wow.

It was like—.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

It's like, no, I'm going to a friend's, and I'm going to help someone individually. But yeah, I mean, this is the thing. It's the Christians that go in first. The left, they say they care with $750. By the way, that's the—those that came here illegally that got the FEMA money don't have to pay it back.

But I don't know if you know, Greg, the FEMA money for those in the hurricane, the $750, if you have a working computer and have electricity and can apply. And also part of that is there's all—there was like, you know, how much money you make, things like this.

But if you can get that, don't forget, you've got to pay that back.

Yeah, it's a loan.

It's a loan.

That's crazy, man. So—. Yeah, I don't know.

$750 is not going to pay off all the—.

Jump on your point as well, too, and just say, look, that's all we see all day long is leftists and progressives and nonbelievers going, where's your charity? You guys don't care about the woman. You guys don't care about the climate.

You guys don't help people. The big argument on abortion is, well, what about after they're born? Why don't Christians believe in, you know, and it's a false argument. Of course, more adoption agencies are owned by Christians, more, you know, aftercare, pregnancy centers, all Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian, right?

But here's where the rubber meets the road. And if you go take your cameras down in the last two, three weeks, down to these places that were hit, I don't see any blue-haired people. I don't see any purple-haired, you know, nose and, you know, lip ring people walking around non-binaries.

I see a bunch of churches. I see the Red Cross. I see a bunch of people, you know, using it as a mission field. So it's like, what are we talking about here? Because the church has always been the first to respond.

I, you know, we just, in the last segment, you know, basically called out the church and got mad at him, but, you know, and said, hey, fix your stuff. But I will compliment the Western Christian church for this.

We are very good at making sure we respond in times of crisis. Maybe it needs to be more than times of crisis, but at times of crisis, we're the first in line to help, to give money, to give time, to give effort, support.

So I would say kudos to the church because, yeah, that's all you saw on the videos down there were churches.

And that's why we're doing this as a way to help at least one family, the Brewsters, who were struck by the Hurricane Helen. He is someone who's devoted his life to Christian ministry, lives in a very meager means so that he could be in full-time ministry.

We've brought him on as one of our speakers at Striving for Eternity, and we're trying to raise the funds to help him out. So you could go to GiveSendGo .com slash SFE, GiveSendGo .com slash SFE. I'm going to have that here on the video.

You know, I'll have this, I'll put that in, I'm going to make, at least I'll make this into a podcast episode and we'll, I'll put it in the show notes.

Can you show that picture again for those watching?

Sure.

Look at that.

I mean, so you figure that's at least five foot of water there.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the house across the street from the, in the center, there is his mailbox. So it's all the way up to the mailbox.

Not only the house, but think about personal items, all the time and effort it takes for all those people to get back documentation and all that stuff, man. And it's like, it's so heart-wrenching. And absolutely, Aaron Bruce is a brother in the Lord.

He needs financial support. We're going to support him. So yeah, GiveSendGo .com forward slash SFE.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things to realize is you mentioned documentation, things like that. Well, all of that was stored in their basement. And that's what, so he was, and he shares the story in this, they had several sump pumps going, pumping out a hundred gallons a minute until the electricity went out.

I mean, you know, you're, you're just, you're pumping, pumping, pumping, pumping. So they knew they were, once electricity went, they were done. And so all the storage they had in the basement, it's all gone.

I mean, you know, so, I mean, but this, this is the thing. When we think of these, these disasters, the question is, is how can, how can we as the church take care of others in time of disaster? And I mean, yeah, we can be the first ones in.

Disaster Relief Through the Church and Christian Volunteers

Yeah.

There are some people who are EMTs. And if you're an EMT, I mean, there's, there are, you know, maybe there's not much the Southern Baptists do well, but at least, at least one thing the Southern Baptists do well is they do have an emergency relief group that is one of the first ones to go in and, and they're volunteers.

So when you're giving to them to support those efforts, you know, and I get it that some people have, feel they can't give to the Southern Baptist Convention, but, but if you are, I mean, you're giving, you're giving to volunteers to go into situations like that.

It's much better than the Red Cross. You know, I'll just, I'll just let you know. Big thing happened with the Red Cross in 9 -11. They raised a billion dollars after 9 -11. Some of you are going 9 -11, what's that?

I'm not that old. Yeah. Okay. You'll read about it in the books, but they raised so much money in outpouring to help the families that what the Red Cross did was they were like, oh, well, you know what we should do?

We should put this money in the bank and we'll use the interest.

Nice.

Granted the interest on a billion dollars is enough to take care of people, but people are like, no, no, no, we didn't give you the money so you can have a, you know, have a nest egg for the organization.

But that's how some of these big organizations now think.

Yeah.

You know, but there are churches that are going around trying to raise funds and help. And there's churches in that area that have been devastated.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's why we want to do this. We wanted to do it, you know, what little we could do to help at least one family. That has a lot of expenses now and they don't have the means.

And you've got to realize that as a church member, as a believer, churches just don't help by writing a check. I mean, you have congregations that have gifts, congregants that have gifts and skills, right?

Especially, you know, I think of my church. We have guys that own drywall companies, construction companies. I'm a real estate broker. I have guys that are painters. I have guys that do fire and water restoration.

We have guys that do web design. Right. And they're all very skilled. Most of them own their own business. If not, they're an influencer or a decision maker at their business. That's how you can help as well, too.

I mean, we built a 20 ,000 square foot church and it was all on the back of the congregants coming in and doing the concrete and doing the roof, right? Not all passcode and everything. Don't worry. You come to my church.

It's not going to collapse. We're all skilled labor. But the point being is there's ways for churches to help outside of just, oh, here's some money, right?

Correct.

A church I used to go to, we had flooding in mid-Michigan up here. Some dams broke and it flooded a whole city. And all the churches down here in Monroe County, which we were 200 miles away south, all the churches got together and sponsored a whole house and went up with their church members and ripped out drywall, re-studded walls, re-tiled, right?

Now there was some money given, but the majority of that help was done by actual labor, by skilled congregants and church members. And that's just as ineffective. And sometimes it's harder to do, right?

To give your time and your skill instead of, ah, just write them a $500 check. I'll write them a thousand bucks, right? That's easier to do when you have actual believers that go, I want to give my time away from my family and my wife and my job or whatever to go help this person.

I mean, that's true charity. So it's not just writing a check. I think in that third question, how can we care for people, how the church can care for people in disasters, that's one way too. Let's think about how we can use our skills that God gave us, our gifts that he gave us, how we can use it better for the kingdom and helping others too.

And some of this stuff doesn't take, you don't have to be an expert in drywall or anything. Some of it's just, after a disaster like this, you just need someone to come and just sift through all the garbage, throw out the trash, sift through this.

Okay, yeah, no, this toss it, right? I mean, a lot of it's just going to be thrown out. And it's, you know, I mean, that's what Aaron had to do. So Aaron actually couldn't leave his house because I think his father has health issues.

So his father couldn't be evacuated. So his wife and daughter got evacuated. His son happens to be in Washington, DC. He is an actor in the Pilgrim's Progress play that they have there at the Museum of the Bible.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, it actually was kind of neat. I went down there not knowing his son was going to be in there. And so I got to hang out with his son at the Museum of the Bible. But you look at that, he had to stay behind, take care of his father, try to, and they're trying to like, he's trying to take as much of the storage out from the basement, get it as high as they can.

They tried getting everything as high as they could, but, you know, he's not a young guy anymore. He's like, you know, going down there and doing all that. He was like, he was in pain. And he had to speak at the ACBC conference in Dallas, like a week or so after that.

Wow.

So he's trying to like get his family set up. So he was working nonstop when the water started to recede to get them where they, you know, like to be where they could be able to be okay for him to go and speak.

And so you had to wait to try to get out of town and, you know.

Well, look at if there's anyone on this live stream too, that would feel the urge to donate to this. I would say do it. He's a good brother in the Lord. He's been through a lot. Give send go .com forward slash SFE.

I know, Andrew, you have it here up on the screen. I'll make sure I link it to this live stream when we're done as well too. And I mean, Aaron, what a fun time we had with him in February. Really loved his sense of humor.

You and him together are hilarious. And we all stayed in the same house for like three or four days. But just a good brother in the Lord, doing a lot of good stuff for family ministry as well too. I know he's connected with striving for eternity, but last time I checked, he was doing a lot of family ministry stuff too, right?