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Link: http://vref.me/kjv/mt6.31-33
I was reading this morning in Zechariah 8 when it struck me that the blessings God was speaking of in that chapter, and in the entire Old Testament, were quite physical and material. The emphasis was on God providing them, not the false gods whose idols the pre-captivity Hebrews worshipped.
The physicality of the blessings enabled me to realize that Matthew 6:31-33 was a distinct promise for physical blessings. However, there is a catch:
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
It struck me that the church I used to go to was very adverse to talking about God giving literal, physical blessings, emphasizing that the spiritual ones were so much more important. The denomination, on the other hand, emphasized the social gospel to the point of discouraging any thought that the recipients of any charity or government benefits be thankful to anyone for it. They effectively wanted to excuse the recipients from having to seek first the kingdom of God before they could get help. Indeed, if any physical help to be given them is to come from a governmental entity, then it necessarily must exclude any reference to the spiritual to adhere to their concept of the separation of church and state.
Thus, I have changed the side-bar to "Zion First. THEN Jerusalem." "Zion" is a reference to the City of God that is Spiritual Jerusalem, and thus is the capital of the earthly portion of the Kingdom of God. It represents the spiritual blessings of the Gospel . "Jerusalem" refers to the physical City of David, and thus to the physical blessings of the Gospel. The desire of the social gospel is that "Zion" and "Jerusalem" be kept separate, but the message of Jesus Christ was that "Jerusalem" is given to those who strive to enter "Zion".
I need to clarify that the use of these words is stricly allegorical: I deny that Christianity has replaced Judaism in the economy of God, and thus has any claim of any sort on the physical city of Jerusalem that is the capital of the modern state of Israel. I ran the above ideas by some fundamentalist Christians who clearly understood that this was a spiritual metaphor, so any liberals who think I'm referring to literal cities merely demonstrates their lack of spiritual discernment.
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