Guys,
I want u to read the following news bulletin, and whilst reading it ask yourselves the following question:
a) Am I helping these people with Christian advice, teaching, and behaviour??
b) What can I do to help? Am I influencing them to my standard, or are they influencing me??
c) Am I segregating myself from my community although they are not Christian. Apparently, according to many bishops and priests, its wrong. We should not just hang out of Coptic people.
d) Finally, even though u are Coptic, the Diaspora has become our home. Is this the home u wish your kids to be in?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7383571.stmThanks
Comments
I am confused of what you are asking :-\
QT_PA_2T,
I am confused of what you are asking :-\
I was listening to this sermon on CTV given by Anba Moussa (Bishop of Youth). He was talking about our role (as Copts) in society. He was saying that its wrong for us to be left out. We should mix with others who perhaps are not Christian, and our affect on them should be a positive one.
Now, reading the news link below, ask yourself, if your influence on your friends is a positive one. Your friends at school who are being pressurised into doing anything immoral. I think, after hearing anba Moussa's talk, i regret tremendously staying quiete at school when my schoolmates were telling me the immoral things they were doing. I just stayed quiete as if "These people do not belong in my life".
That was wrong. Reading the news story below, I see that many families raise their kids in a non-Christian way. I didnt really realise how much kids were being influenced / and literally pressurised to have pre-marital sex. They themselves are ignorant and just follow the trend.
So, my question was this: read the news bulletin, and ask yourself if u are a positive influence on your peers at school who happen to think as they do in this news bulletin???
You cannot go around trying to force your beliefs on others in a society that disagrees with them... that will just push people away. We should befriend all, but we should never really 'fit in' as such. How can we fit into the world if we are not of the world? If our friends come to us for advice, then we are in fact required to 'preach' to them the word of God, though this must be done in a way as to not push people away. Our morals may be hard to accept for a person who does not know where they come from or why we abide by them. A simple 'because God said so' could force this person to distance themselves from you and your church.
Vas, you never know how your friends reacted to your behaviour. Perhaps they found Christ, and it was because of your behaviour and selective speech around them. There is more than one way to show God to others.
As much as I'd like to think I'm a positive influence on my friends... I don't know that I am. Perhaps God has showed Himself to others through me, I don't know, but I do know that I pray for them and I ask for God to reveal His glory and show to them His love and compasion, to show to them a better answer, a happier ending.
I think that's the best thing that we can do.
One of the saints said :by all means teach people about Christ, and if necessary, use words.
My opinion is straightforward and simple. In your own actions, and in your behaviour, you should not be afraid to state your beliefs and morals in front of your peers. THe issue is that, and I faltered here when I was young, was that I didn't mix with people who had different values than me. Moreoever, I never preached. At all.
I just didnt associate with them. What i think Anba Moussa was talking about was that you should associate with them, and not to alienate yourself from the community, but you should have an effect on them. They don't know any better. Honestly. They honestly think that the more people u can have sex with in the shortest period of time, the more you've lived life.
What can I say?? This report from the BBC speaks volumes: They are pressurised in doing things they are not even convinced with yet do it simply because of the pressure, and there's no alternative voice to influence them.
[quote author=bentBABAyasooa` link=topic=6554.msg86901#msg86901 date=1210133071]
QT_PA_2T,
I am confused of what you are asking :-\
I was listening to this sermon on CTV given by Anba Moussa (Bishop of Youth). He was talking about our role (as Copts) in society. He was saying that its wrong for us to be left out. We should mix with others who perhaps are not Christian, and our affect on them should be a positive one.
Now, reading the news link below, ask yourself, if your influence on your friends is a positive one. Your friends at school who are being pressurised into doing anything immoral. I think, after hearing anba Moussa's talk, i regret tremendously staying quiete at school when my schoolmates were telling me the immoral things they were doing. I just stayed quiete as if "These people do not belong in my life".
But i thought there was a verse that said
Do not be deceived bad company corrupts good habits
what if i dont want to be close to them of fear of walking away from God with MY OWN two feet?
What if hanging out with these people means i miss sunday school or 3asheya or alhan lesson??
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=6554.msg86908#msg86908 date=1210155555]
[quote author=bentBABAyasooa` link=topic=6554.msg86901#msg86901 date=1210133071]
QT_PA_2T,
I am confused of what you are asking :-\
I was listening to this sermon on CTV given by Anba Moussa (Bishop of Youth). He was talking about our role (as Copts) in society. He was saying that its wrong for us to be left out. We should mix with others who perhaps are not Christian, and our affect on them should be a positive one.
Now, reading the news link below, ask yourself, if your influence on your friends is a positive one. Your friends at school who are being pressurised into doing anything immoral. I think, after hearing anba Moussa's talk, i regret tremendously staying quiete at school when my schoolmates were telling me the immoral things they were doing. I just stayed quiete as if "These people do not belong in my life".
But i thought there was a verse that said
Do not be deceived bad company corrupts good habits
what if i dont want to be close to them of fear of walking away from God with MY OWN two feet?
What if hanging out with these people means i miss sunday school or 3asheya or alhan lesson??
Everything has to be done within moderation.... if you know somebody is goignt to do somethignbad.. you go tell them and try to teach them... you are not supposed to talk to them unless you are 100% sure and solid on what you are talking about.... u don't want them to start shaking your faith....
and because you talk to them and tell them what is right, it dosn't mean that you have to hang out with tthem...
something like: "drop the bomb and leave" ... sya what you have too, then leave, let the bomb explode and hopefully the effect would knock some sence into them and you don't have to hang out with the person, and defenatly not miss anything at Church...
plz correct me if i am wrong... and does what i said make sence???
[quote author=QT_PA_2T link=topic=6554.msg86908#msg86908 date=1210155555]
[quote author=bentBABAyasooa` link=topic=6554.msg86901#msg86901 date=1210133071]
QT_PA_2T,
I am confused of what you are asking :-\
I was listening to this sermon on CTV given by Anba Moussa (Bishop of Youth). He was talking about our role (as Copts) in society. He was saying that its wrong for us to be left out. We should mix with others who perhaps are not Christian, and our affect on them should be a positive one.
Now, reading the news link below, ask yourself, if your influence on your friends is a positive one. Your friends at school who are being pressurised into doing anything immoral. I think, after hearing anba Moussa's talk, i regret tremendously staying quiete at school when my schoolmates were telling me the immoral things they were doing. I just stayed quiete as if "These people do not belong in my life".
But i thought there was a verse that said
Do not be deceived bad company corrupts good habits
what if i dont want to be close to them of fear of walking away from God with MY OWN two feet?
What if hanging out with these people means i miss sunday school or 3asheya or alhan lesson??
OMG!! I said EXACTLY the same thing to abouna my FoC!!
lol
I said the SAME words! lol
Wow.. we have something in common.
You know what he said to me (and he wasn't a happy camper when he said it by the way). He said "Does the salt give flavour to the food, or does the food give flavour to the salt?".
You know what he said to me (and he wasn't a happy camper when he said it by the way). He said "Does the salt give flavour to the food, or does the food give flavour to the salt?".
so ...sorry for the stupid post but, what exactly is the answer for this question.. i know it has a deep meaning , but whjat is it?
we are the salt of the earth. we should affect those we interact with and not vice versa... we "flavor them" because if we don't then what good are we? What is our purpose in life but to help others reach God?
Yes. THanks.
We should show God's light to others, their darkness should not dim out Christ's light that shines in us. Should it?
Oh.. now i get it, thanks a lot...
You know Coptic Pharoah, I lost many friends for being righteous. For even helping them. Many.
I was invited to a Bachelor party in barcelona once.. I was so young at the time. It was a bachelor party for an old Uni friend. He invited all his friends from Uni too.There was around 15 of us.
At one point, they decided to just send this guy to a prostitution house. I discreetly objected and tried my best to not let them go. (For his own sake!). I knew my friend, but I didnt know his friends that well. I couldnt believe he changed so much. He was a very descent kid at uni. Then they tried to plan the same again. At that point I strongly advised him not to go. I told him: "Tell your fiance that you were advised to go and that u preferred not to go out of respect for her.. that way she'll love u more after marriage".
A few of his friends really began to hate me for that. What's weired was they were all married. I was the only single bachelor there!!!
They were complaining saying that "i'm judging them". lol.. everyone uses this term to go and do vile things and if u say "its wrong", then u are judging them. Well.. i never said what they were doing was wrong. I just gave my friend another option: Rather than go to a prostitution house, just don't go and by not going you can tell your wife something nice after u get married that will make her like u even more.
Anyway, i let them go and just left. I didnt go with them.
When I joined them in the late evening.. u know what happened? I found them back at the hotel SOOOO EARLY. None of them went. They all felt bad about going to a prostitution house, that they didn't go. They even thanked me for it. lol
They said 'yea, we were about to go, but u were right, its not right to go'.
Now, I didnt say it was WRONG to go. I spoke to my friend personally and told him it was "wrong" - but in front of them, whilst they were suggesting the idea of going to a prostitution house, i raised an alternative idea that they could do.
As for me, I had a great time in barcelona still, but to be honest with you, the best memories I have were NOT going to do something wrong with them. And these memories last for a lifetime.
Did they hate me for objecting? Yes. But then, blessed are u for suffering for Righteousness sake. Not only is there a blessing in heaven for that, but my blessing is just as big even on earth.
Its amazing how u try to do something good and people complain at u. Like Christ when He healed someone on the sabbath, everyone was complaining. Don't worry about these things. Worry more about what God thinks of u who has blessed you with His Salvation and will judge us by our deeds in the end.
(( this is one of many many stories ))
Of course we shouldn't go around preaching things that even we don't always obey...
But we should be the salt, the light as Christ said.
People should see our good deeds and glorify God, or if they don't believe in God, maybe they would just be curious and try to find God...
However it's important to remember that we shouldn't throw bread to the dogs, or pearls to the pigs... Meaning that we have to be careful about what we say in front of whom.
Some people KNOW about the right way, but they CHOOSE the wrong one. Talking to people like them, might only lead to trouble.
As for me, when my friends ask me about my thoughts and my religion, I answer them with honesty, yet I don't condemn their 'immoral' (according to church dogma) deeds. Meaning I don't go around telling them don't have sex before marriage and so forth...
I believe that if I did that they would hate the church and God and religion in general more than it is already hated for being conservative, old-fashioned and so forth.
I try to behave in the correct way and hope that maybe they'd be influenced by that.
It's hard though to see your friends far from God and not be able to do anything about it, and they're not the ones to be blamed, since none of them were raised in a christian house.
I mean let's be honest, if you were born in Europe and were never taught about religion and such, you would probably just go on and act just like them. Unless maybe you met someone who is religious and saw how he looked upon life and chose to see what his faith is all about.
Let's pray that each one of us can be that person.
God Bless
Be careful how you live you might be the only Bible some people will ever read.
Thats is so true
pray for me
joe
[quote author=coptic pharaoh link=topic=6554.msg88373#msg88373 date=1211518222]
Oh.. now i get it, thanks a lot...
You know Coptic Pharoah, I lost many friends for being righteous. For even helping them. Many.
why are you proclaiming this to the world??.... O righteous one?