'Do evangelicals' actions and belief match Jesus'?

[lazarus]

Christians attempting, for the first time, to create a system that would include everyone as equal participants.

Is this the United States of America you are talking about? Now who's re-writing history.

Herein lies the essence of the problem. If one buys into the notion that the USA is/was a Christian nation then one has to accept and applaud many of it's actions even though they are not Biblically supported.

There still has not been any Scripture presented to support the some of the more questionable actions of Western Christianity. It is simply for the the reason that no scripture exists.

[ClubV12]

Well not exactly founded on christianity, all though many of the founders were christians. It was founded on religious freedom. "Christians" is a relative term, then and now. Many of the founders were also slave owners and christian in name only.

The Civil War was DIRECT punishment (OK, lets call it rehabilitation), by God, for slavery. Not my opinon, EGW writes about it. God allowed BOTH the South AND the North to suffer heavy loss. The South because they were steeped in slavery and the North because they didn't take a firm stand against it until much later in the war. Returning Northern captured slaves to the South, for instance, was common early in the conflict.

Interesting that early on they had death penalty laws for those that opposed the religious/political power base. Roger William, was a preacher who supported religious freedom in England, before coming to America. Miller had to flee for his life, for preaching that same message in America. He escaped and lived with the indians for a time, before he eventually founded what would become Rhode Island. The FIRST colony with actual religious freedom.

As it was in the begining of this great Nation, so it will end in similiar manner. A religious/political system that will pass and force, under penalty of death, religious laws. Not my opinion, EGW lays it out in detail.

Many "good christians" will be behind this and will be convinced they are doing the right thing. Evangelicals will only be a part of this group, which will include virtually the entire world (Muslims, Catholics, Christians, all among the "frogs" of Revelation). That world wide "movement" will be led by the USA.

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: cardw

You will note that I actually post my evidence. I think you would be more convincing if you would post yours rather than claiming that it exists.

Yes you do post your evidence but after reading it I can't figure out why you use it to oppose the death penalty.Every single example you cite supports the death penalty. By your own evidence the death penalty is not itself evil. Every single reference allows for the death penalty to be justly imposed under restricted circumstances. This is something that the overwhelming majority of evangelical/conservatives believe in.Zuckerman is the one who offers no evidence for his assertions that Jesus demands an end to all governmental punishments.Zuckerman offers no evidence that Christians support the death penalty for even the most trivial of crimes. By the evidence you've posted his blame would extend to Franklin,Jefferson,and every other signer of the U.S. Constitution who allowed for the death penalty in cases such as treason and murder. So why do you present the arguments of those men as proof that they were against the death penalty if, in fact, they favored it?

The reason I included those references was because it was the Christians who wanted to maintain the death penalty for all those Old Testament infractions like homosexuality, non belief, bestiality, adultery, stealing, etc. etc.

You will note that Jefferson in his letters was even against the death penalty for murder because he didn't think that the justice system was perfect and would rather allow people to live rather than make a mistake and kill a person unjustly.

Because Jefferson fought the same type of Christian mentality in his day he had to compromise politically to at least get some reforms of the death penalty.

[cardw]

Zuckerman's whole argument is dressed in the sheepskin of "Why don't Evangelicals support governmental programs that are in perfect harmony with the teachings of Jesus?"

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: ClubV12

If for no other reason than the mistakes that have been made with the death penalty, those wrongly convicted condemnded to death, we have to stop. "Mankind" is just not qualified enough to make a life or death decisison, life in prison is the only reasonable alternative.

This, of course,presents the issue in a false either/or light. Was it a mistake to put Adolf Eichmann to death? the Bible allowed for the death penalty under very strict circumstances, are you suggesting that it was wrong for God to require that because of potential mistakes? The Bible is clear that a degree of certainty would be necessary for justice to be carried out. Sadaam,Joe Stalin,Idi,Hitler,Pol,ect... any uncertainty about whether they had done anything deserving of death? Maybe the wrong guy? Does this not cheapen the real value of human life?If we keep the taker of human life alive are we not saying the human life has no real value? If the circumstances are absolutely clear then what's the issue?

What's inconsistent is you are unwilling to trust the government with the care of the poor, but you are fully confident they can justly govern the death penalty.

[ClubV12]

"Was it a mistake to put Adolf Eichmann to death?"

I don't know, I wasn't there at his trial and have not persoanlly reviewed the evidence. Same things for all those listed above. We have to "trust" the authorities to get the identification right and present a case without prejudice or bias toward the condemned. What "we" are left with is news reports and a largely one sided argument justifying the outcome. What are left with is "faith" they got the rignt man.

We have to many examples of where "authority" got it wrong, tragically wrong. So, in a nut shell, I don't trust "authority" enough to give them the power of death. Especially the "authority" in the State of Illinois, or Texas, or Geneva, or the world court, or my hometown.

[CoAspen]

Originally Posted By: ClubV12

...Which of God's commandents would you be willing to compromise...

I think that idea is an underlying point of the article. It seems that a large percentage of Evangelicals have decided to make a choice among the commandments of the One they claim to follow and have decided it is expedient to compromise. That compromise results in "love your enemies, unless..." etc.

What Jesus said while walking this earth as a man are the commandments that Christians are to follow. That includes, "Love your enemies", "Whatever works you have seen me do, do likewise", "Do not even hate", "Turn the other cheek", "If one in authority over you demands your coat, give him the shirt off your back as well", "Go the second mile" , etc.

And I am afraid that Adventist are little different than their Evangelical cousins. I suspect that if given a choice between compromising on the Sabbath or loving our neighbor as ourselves, many of us would rather hold the Sabbath in higher esteem than someone in need. How many of us spend our Sabbath doing as Jesus did, going out in search of someone needing his help? Some us would be willing to die rather than violate the Sabbath. But how many of us would die in service of another, even die for an enemy? Or as Jesus did, die for breaking the Sabbath by helping those in need on the Sabbath?

Would be an interesting poll.....but suspect it would be true based on the rhetoric surrounding sabbath keeping, when sabbath begins,ends, etc and the lengths that some will go through to down play the poor, needy, your neighbor, etc by super defining the who those people exactly are and if we should actually be helping them.

Tom and cardw have pointed out some very important priorities in Christ teachings and actions. Do we as SDA's have our priorities in line with Christs demonstration???

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: cardw

This is what I have been saying all along. If we have the United States become a Christian nation then all the OT death penalty laws will be put into place because according to you Jesus supports people being put to death for adultery, homosexuality, trying to convert people to another religion, breaking the Sabbath, and more. Here is a link for a complete list.

Since our founding as a nation, we've been a Christian nation with a secular form of government. THis was a great part of the genius of our founding fathers. Christians attempting, for the first time, to create a system that would include everyone as equal participants. It speaks to the strengths of modern Christianity,that it would include even those who disagreed with their religious beliefs in the governing process.If such laws as you have listed above were imposed upon the country it would be a result of the majority of citizen's voting to revamp the constitution and throw out it's religious protections,these protections are something that 99.999% of today's Evangelicals deem necessary for the country's prosperity and unity mainly because Evangelicals themselves are greatly divided an all these points.

I never thought I would see the Supreme Court deem a corporation as a person. And it happened.

What you should be fighting is big business, not liberals. And that is the biggest crime of evangelicals. They support big business in the name of capitalism as if Jesus taught capitalism.

If you want to talk about freedoms and you ignore the role that the financial, the drug, the oil, and the insurance industry has played in our country you have missed the most powerful players. They have the smarts, the resources, and the ignorant masses to keep them in power. They have mobilized and played the evangelical community like fools. How do you think George Bush got elected and managed to drain our country of it's surplus and start 2 major wars? He couldn't have done it without the support of the evangelical community.

And evangelicals are so ego driven they can't even admit when they make a mistake. And you wonder why I have no respect for Christianity?

[John317]

And evangelicals are so ego driven they can't even admit when they make a mistake. And you wonder why I have no respect for Christianity?

But that is not why people don't accept the truth of the gospel or believe in Christ as their pesonal Savior and Lord. It really has nothing to do with the issues you're discussing. Jesus Himself tells us in the Gospels why most people don't accept Him and listen to Him. If what Christ says is true, it won't matter what other people do who claim to be Christians. Christ has already told us that there will be many false Christians, so we shouldn't be surprised or affected by it.

You and I don't know the hearts and minds of the evangelicals you're attacking. You talk about their 'egos' as if you had seen them. That's called judging others' motives and hearts and we can't do that.

[doug yowell]

Originally Posted By: doug yowell

Christians attempting, for the first time, to create a system that would include everyone as equal participants.

Is this the United States of America you are talking about? Now who's re-writing history.

Herein lies the essence of the problem. If one buys into the notion that the USA is/was a Christian nation then one has to accept and applaud many of it's actions even though they are not Biblically supported.

There still has not been any Scripture presented to support the some of the more questionable actions of Western Christianity. It is simply for the the reason that no scripture exists.

Look carefully at what I wrote, I said a Christian nation, a secular government. You seem to ignore the fact that Christianity itself does not applaud itself for every action taken by a professing Christian and in a secular government non-Christians are as culpable as Christians for unbiblical actions.Many Christians (myself included in all probability)would argue with many of the things you might list as examples of unsupportable Biblically. But the thread began with Evangelicals who support government (a non-Christian entity)policies that others deem anti-Christ in nature. I began with their support for the death penalty which Zuckerman listed.If one cannot defend that support from Scripture then it still does not follow that the position itself is anti-Jesus, it is still up to the antagonist to prove from Scripture that Jesus required secular governments to outlaw the death penalty.I've given a brief Scriptural defense and have yet received no Scriptural response.Claiming that Jesus would forbid human governments from invoking the death penalty for crimes against society because He told his followers not to respond to personal persecution with vengeful responses is not a truthful or valid connection.

[doug yowell]

[i never thought I would see the Supreme Court deem a corporation as a person. And it happened.

What you should be fighting is big business, not liberals. And that is the biggest crime of evangelicals. They support big business in the name of capitalism as if Jesus taught capitalism.

Big business itself is every bit as liberal (probably more) as it is conservative.it is amoral. Big business supports anything that makes itself a buck including supporting liberal causes and doing business with the most despicable of the earth. Liberals portray big business as the puppeteer of conservatives when in fact liberals are just as indebted to big business for the support of their agenda as the conservatives are. Hollywood is big business! It's executives are as wealthy as any corporate exec. It employs the same business principles for it's financial success as does Exxon.There are today more millionare Democrats in Congress than Republicans. The definition of morality for liberals is equality, particularly financial and sexual equality. That is why they view capitalism and Christianity as evil. They promote the idea of financial parity as moral and reject the idea of character parity as offensive. They demand that Evangelicals, like themselves, drop the sexual,and otherwise focus and devote their entire energies and finances to the pursuit of world egalitarianism. Despite the fact that conservative Christians are heavily committed worldwide in the relief of human suffering and the rehabilitation of the human spirit, liberals continue to criticize them for either not doing anything (a big fat lie)or not doing enough. The Bible does teach Capitalism but with a personal responsibility to create a unified, caring society not a governmental bureaucracy which determines who gets what and how much.The best a sinful worldly government can do is try to find pathway somewhere in the middle(since no government can create human goodness or eliminate human selfishness)As far as the Supreme Court deeming a corp as a person....very strange.

[cardw]

Originally Posted By: cardw

[i never thought I would see the Supreme Court deem a corporation as a person. And it happened.

What you should be fighting is big business, not liberals. And that is the biggest crime of evangelicals. They support big business in the name of capitalism as if Jesus taught capitalism.

The Bible does teach Capitalism but with a personal responsibility to create a unified, caring society not a governmental bureaucracy which determines who gets what and how much.

The Bible does not teach Capitalism at all.

We can start with the Old Testament where the Jews weren't allowed to charge interest on loans. You are also forgetting the year of Jubilee where there was a serious redistribution of wealth where all debts were zeroed out and all family lands were returned.

This prevented the rich from completely subjugating the poor by manipulating land ownership, charging interest to keep the poor in debt, and controlling the large majority of national resources.

This is not Capitalism at all. Supposedly, according to you, Jesus authored these principles. Instead the evangelical community supports policies that continue to overly favor the extreme rich and have nothing but disdain for helping the poor and providing health care. They operate on knee jerk reactions to the inane sound bytes fed them by the Republicans and FOX news. There is no thoughtful consideration or a desire to work together.

I think we can look at what Jesus said about wealth.

You will note that his most direct statements about wealth were his statement on the difficulty of a rich man making it into the kingdom of heaven and his statement to the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. This too was a redistribution of wealth instructed directly by Jesus. This is hardly an endorsement of capitalism.

Jesus did not own property, nor did he pursue wealth. If we were to take the WWJD approach of the evangelical we see an immense hypocrisy.

[CoAspen]

Quote:

The Bible does not teach Capitalism at all.

We can start with the Old Testament where the Jews weren't allowed to charge interest on loans. You are also forgetting the year of Jubilee where there was a serious redistribution of wealth where all debts were zeroed out and all family lands were returned.

This prevented the rich from completely subjugating the poor by manipulating land ownership, charging interest to keep the poor in debt, and controlling the large majority of national resources.

I go with cardw on this one.....the Bible teaches capitalism??

[cardw]

One further point.

We practice the year of Jubilee in this country except that we redistribute the wealth to banks, insurance companies, and auto makers.

Because when they go beyond their means they are now considered people too.

[John317]

But the Bible recognizes human freedom and there's no justification in the teachings of Jesus for the state or government compelling people to do anything against their conscience. The Bible is clear that people get their individual rights and their dignity from God and not from the state or from humans. The state can neither give those God-given rights to people nor take them away. This is precisely what Thomas Jefferson is saying in the American Declaration of Independence.

The laws you speak of in the OT are based on a theocracy, and therefore they show some of God's ideals under a theocratic government. However, we don't live in a theocracy where God rules directly. I believe that a Republican form of government such as the USA has today-- in which the state and church are separate, and where we have a represenative government-- is closest to the principles of the Bible. It allows for people to have private property, and to have freedom of religious expression, both of which are typically not allowed under communist or Marxist governments. The problem with socialist governments is that they almost always make laws that prevent people from being free to practice their religion faith, including preaching on street corners, being completely free to hold meetings in private homes, and teaching what they believe. There's a close relationship between economic freedom and religous freedom.

Max Weber wrote interesting things about the relationship between Protestantism and Capitalism in his book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:

Quote:

Weber is most famous for the thesis in economic sociology which he elaborated in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In this text, Weber argued that ascetic Protestantism particular to the Occident was one of the major "elective affinities" associated with the rise of capitalism, bureaucracy and the rational-legal nation-state. Arguing against what he felt was Marx's overly-materialistic interpretation of the development of capitalism, he instead emphasized the cultural influences embedded in religion.[6] The Protestant Ethic formed the earliest work in Weber's broader project in the sociology of religion: he would go on to examine the religions of China, the religions of India, and ancient Judaism, with particular regard to the apparent non-development of capitalism in the corresponding societies, and to differing forms of social stratification.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber

[John317]

....the Bible teaches capitalism??

The Bible certainly doesn't teach that the state has the right to take people's freedoms away from them or to make laws which dictate to the churches and individuals what they must do or teach, yet that is exactly what happens under Marxist/communist/socialist/fascist forms of government.

Bible principles teach that the individual is made in the image of God, so that he has value and freedom apart from the state. Socialist systems tend to see the individual as of value only insofar as he is useful to the state, and therefore it tries to control people's personal lives in a way that capitalist systems do not.

[Bravus]

Didn't we deal with 'not everything other than state capitalism is state socialism' question on about page 1 or 2 of this thread? It's possible to recognise the damage done by Christian support of the most extreme forms of robber baron capitalism without therefore automatically being an advocate of state socialism.

[cardw]

John,

You're doing it again. You're responding to points that I did not make.

I noticed that you avoided what Jesus has to say about the accumulation of wealth.

I fail to see the connection logically between religious freedom and giving large corporations the power to accumulate wealth at the expense of those who have no power to defend themselves.

What is the difference between the state taking those freedoms and corporations doing the same?

[doug yowell]

The Bible does not teach Capitalism at all.

We can start with the Old Testament where the Jews weren't allowed to charge interest on loans. You are also forgetting the year of Jubilee where there was a serious redistribution of wealth where all debts were zeroed out and all family lands were returned.

This prevented the rich from completely subjugating the poor by manipulating land ownership, charging interest to keep the poor in debt, and controlling the large majority of national resources.

This is not Capitalism at all. Supposedly, according to you, Jesus authored these principles. Instead the evangelical community supports policies that continue to overly favor the extreme rich and have nothing but disdain for helping the poor and providing health care. They operate on knee jerk reactions to the inane sound bytes fed them by the Republicans and FOX news. There is no thoughtful consideration or a desire to work together.

I think we can look at what Jesus said about wealth.

You will note that his most direct statements about wealth were his statement on the difficulty of a rich man making it into the kingdom of heaven and his statement to the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. This too was a redistribution of wealth instructed directly by Jesus. This is hardly an endorsement of capitalism.

Jesus did not own property, nor did he pursue wealth. If we were to take the WWJD approach of the evangelical we see an immense hypocrisy.

You bring up some good examples that need closer examination. I don't have time right now to explore each one but if we can agree on a definition of what constitutes capitalism it'll probably help in future clarity, we might be talking apples and bananas.My reference point begins with the right to own property free from the interference of others (otherwise known as private property) Each individual's assets were theirs to do whatever they wanted with (is that improper grammatically?)There was no legal social demand on it's use or non-use. No outside body had the right to demand that one MUST do this or that with it.This did not change until Israel created a monarchy in place of it's original God given model.I'll look at general definitions of capitalism to see if my understanding of it is way off. I think your use of the term is soley judging the system by the failures of it's advocates to use it's benefits for the causes that God ordained them to be used. This is not the fault of capitalism but rather the fault of personal character.Changing the system will not cure the economic plight of all mankind nor will it create a proper attitude towards those who will always be less fortunate."I'll be bock"(Terminator)

[cardw]

You bring up some good examples that need closer examination. I don't have time right now to explore each one but if we can agree on a definition of what constitutes capitalism it'll probably help in future clarity, we might be talking apples and bananas.My reference point begins with the right to own property free from the interference of others (otherwise known as private property) Each individual's assets were theirs to do whatever they wanted with (is that improper grammatically?)There was no legal social demand on it's use or non-use. No outside body had the right to demand that one MUST do this or that with it.This did not change until Israel created a monarchy in place of it's original God given model.I'll look at general definitions of capitalism to see if my understanding of it is way off. I think your use of the term is soley judging the system by the failures of it's advocates to use it's benefits for the causes that God ordained them to be used. This is not the fault of capitalism but rather the fault of personal character.Changing the system will not cure the economic plight of all mankind nor will it create a proper attitude towards those who will always be less fortunate."I'll be bock"(Terminator)

Capitalism isn't really well defined and has many different forms. Just because I'm against corporate capitalism doesn't mean I want to take away private property rights. You are presenting arguments against positions I haven't taken. The issue is that capitalism doesn't take care of the poor. It is simply an economic system, not a moral system.

The issue here is how do we treat those who are at the bottom of the economic scale because that is what Jesus talks about. He doesn't talk about capitalism that I know about. Those who don't have the intelligence or the resources to function within a competitive capitalistic economic system are abandoned in our society and I see that as a main concern of Jesus.

In out country we throw our mentally disabled out on the streets unless you have family to look after you. Sure Christians operate food distribution centers and temporary "housing" but these are under funded and many require people to sit through a gospel presentation before they can sleep or eat there. It's very hard to sit through these sermons when you can obviously see that many people there don't even understand half of what the preacher is talking about.

It becomes very obvious that Christian organizations are largely patch work and ineffective when it comes to how they deal with poverty. The quality of life they are able to provide is marginal at best.

There is no incentive for private enterprise to provide care for the disabled in a capitalistic system. That is a major failure of a capitalistic approach to the problem of poverty because it has no moral code.

What I see evangelicals doing is simply presenting what they are against. There is no effort put into an intelligent method of taking care of those at the bottom of our society either through government programs or by Christians themselves. It it those people who Jesus was talking about. But it is those people who evangelicals vilify.

If Christians took care of the poor there would be no need for government programs. What I hear instead is an excuse based on Jesus saying that the poor will always be with us. So since the poor will always be with us that negates a whole sermon on the mount dedicated to taking care of the poor.

And the OT even has some pretty strong things to say about poverty.

Deuteronomy 15:7

7 “If there is among you a poor man of your brethren, within any of the gates in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. 9 Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, ‘The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,’ and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the LORD against you, and it become sin among you. 10 You shall surely give to him, and your heart should not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand. 11 For the poor will never cease from the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.’

[Tom Wetmore]

...You are also forgetting the year of Jubilee where there was a serious redistribution of wealth where all debts were zeroed out and all family lands were returned.

This prevented the rich from completely subjugating the poor by manipulating land ownership, charging interest to keep the poor in debt, and controlling the large majority of national resources...

It was the Jubilee proclamation (the year of the Lord's favor) from Isaiah that Jesus used to announce his mission when he began his ministry. The opening line is bringing good news to the poor.

[Gail]

If you are going to argue it out, why not from the viewpoint of how greed makes either system to fail, while genuine benevolence contributes to how they work?

Is that a rub? (I like that saying, There is the rub )

[cardw]

I would like all of you to watch or listen to this story of a police chase that could have ended quite differently. Just click on the following link

Wanted to be killed by cops

What you are witnessing, with this case, is the results of experiencing violence. This is what happens to people when they are overwhelmed.

Portions of our society, particularly the poor, experience a much higher incidence of violence. The human person reacts the same whether the violence is from war or from one's neighborhood.

In this story this soldier got help and was given the resources to recover. The typical outcome of this type of standoff would have been his death as soon as he pointed his gun at the officers.

My point is that evangelicals are typically anti counseling and favor violent solutions to societal problems and ignore the very insightful advise of their own god to love one's neighbor as themselves and love their enemies.

Prison is not a disincentive for violent crime. It increase violence because people are treated with violence. This is not about letting people get away with things. This is about placing resources into rehabilitation instead of punishment.

Many people who survive prison and grow older are thrown out to the street with mental illness and the resources for services to treat and take care of these unfortunate people have systematically been removed under the argument that these people made bad choices and deserve what they got.

I'm not talking about individual evangelicals. I'm talking about the 80% that aren't even willing to dialog about effective alternatives to take care of the poor when at the same time they support policies that allow the most wealthy in this country get aide.

It is so backward that it is simply unbelievable how ignorant and blind the collective vision of the evangelical community is. They are so concerned that everything has the proper label and says god and jesus christ every 5 seconds that they can't see the suffering they sustain.

They would rather believe the myths that the poor are all lazy and freeloaders. What happened to our concern about every individual?

I can't wait for the day that religion breaths its last toxic breath.

[doug yowell]

The issue here is how do we treat those who are at the bottom of the economic scale because that is what Jesus talks about. He doesn't talk about capitalism that I know about. Those who don't have the intelligence or the resources to function within a competitive capitalistic economic system are abandoned in our society and I see that as a main concern of Jesus.

That is a major failure of a capitalistic approach to the problem of poverty because it has no moral code.

/quote] This seems to be the basis of the problem. You demand a moral economic solution to a secular economic problem. You use the Israel/Jesus model of economic outcome while rejecting the moral basis on which the succeess of all Biblical/Jesus demands are inexorably connected to. The main problem that Jesus was concerned with was the sin problem,not the relief of all society's economic inequities.He passes this same concern on, thru His Spirit, to those who will accept it.Nowhere does Jesus or any of the NT writers command His disciples that their main mission in life is to rid the world of injustice thru the redirection of governmental resources (something that the religious right is constantly charged with when discussing other moral concerns). Any economic ststem that must resort to the use of force in order to create "social justice" is itself in violation of God's moral order even if it's goals are commendable.

[doug yowell]

[it was the Jubilee proclamation (the year of the Lord's favor) from Isaiah that Jesus used to announce his mission when he began his ministry. The opening line is bringing good news to the poor.

Yes, and the good news was......?Seems I remember an incident that followed Jesus feeding of the 5000 where those fed now wanted to make Jesus king because of what He could provide them.