The Christian Community at its Best.

I will quote the inestimable F F Bruce somewhere in the service tomorrow:

"The Christian community is to be a little welfare state,

a society practicing mutual aid among its members

in spiritual and material respects alike.

Within its fellowship those who need help should be given the help they need….

it is a ministry in which all can have a share.

The timid must be encouraged,

the weak must be strengthened,

those who stray must be led back to the right path,

and all must be treated with patience –

especially those who make the greatest demands on the patience of their fellow Christians."

(Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary, pp. 126-7.)