Sharing Plans Cannot Replace Brotherly Aid

Every church member is called to actively build up the church. How can each member, especially Christian women, contribute meaningfully to the church in alignment with the direction given in Scripture?

Peter Eby did much for the health of the Mennonite church in the 1800’s. Merle Weaver tells the story of Peter’s life with special attention to his pastoral work and spiritual life. We can learn much from this leader who ministered in a strikingly different historical context from our own.

Practical crucifixion is not separate from practically putting on Christ. Within the larger context of beholding Christ and the work of the Spirit our actions help orient us to what is true and good.

During World War 1, opposing soldiers called a battlefront truce on Christmas Eve. Ben Metzler asks us to think about what this reveals. They knew the Prince of Peace should bring peace. Do we? Or do we buy into the hostilities around us?

Scripture describes baptized believers as “dead” with a life that is “hidden with Christ.” Marlin Sommers explores the contrasts of this joyful “death-life.” What does it look like when we put on Christ and put off the old human?

Anabaptists have been known for their refusal to use the power of the state to accomplish Christian goals. Dan Ziegler warns that Anabaptists on both the left and the right are losing this commitment. He calls us back to a biblical understanding of the two kingdoms for the sake of the church and her ministry. 

When we are young life is filled with ambitions, dreams, and possibilities, but life happens and we easily become cynical. Merle Burkholder gives practical steps and challenges us to become people who do the work God has given us to do.Read the essay and comment at https://anabaptistperspectives.org/essays/how-passionate-25-year-olds-become-fruitful-45-year-olds/ 

Do medical "sharing plans" give an example of bearing one another's burdens or do they make us self-sufficient and individualistic? Marlin Sommers argues they are an economic tool distinct from brotherly aid. He challenges us to share to address actual needs and to pool our resources to support ambitions Christian teaching. https://anabaptistperspectives.org/sharing-plans-cannot-replace-brotherly-aid

Conscience made Adam and Eve hide from God. Fred Wiebe explores the way we all experience this separation due to sin and God’s solution to bring us from shame and guilt to joy and belonging as children of God. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers, and he is the hero we attentively model ourselves after.

Each of us do and say things because of the culture we grew up in. Is that wrong? No. However, we as God’s children need to look beyond our culture and try to look through other cultures’ glasses. God is not bound to culture, and all of us can be thankful that the Bible is not culturally bound. John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”