When God calls a person to provide goods or service to benefit another, he also calls the other to appreciate the act of compassion. Appreciation initiates a process toward realizing the long-term benefits of human service by motivating a hunger to be good to others, sensitivity to others’ needs, and a disposition to accept and complete responsibility in a subsequent call to compassion. Thus, appreciation unlocks the long-term benefits of human service by empowering the receiver of an act of compassion to motivate self and others as the initiating link in a potentially infinite network of provider-receiver relationships.
A call to compassion invokes a complementary call to appreciation. That is, when God calls a person to provide for the needs of another, he also calls the other to appreciate the act of compassion. Thus, a call to compassion establishes a provider-receiver relationship and assigns responsibility to the candidate provider as well as the candidate receiver. Your responsibility as the candidate provider is to recognize the need, care about the needy, commit to doing what you can, and persevere in seeking to alleviate the need. The receiver responsibility is to appreciate the act of compassion. That is, receive the provided goods or service with appreciation.
Appreciation initiates a process toward realizing the long-term benefits of human service. An act of compassion provides a short-term benefit of addressing the immediate need of the beneficiary and, in addition, sows the seed for long-term benefits that are dependent on the receiver’s appreciation. By appreciating the act of compassion, the receiver is motivated to seek to be good to others and sensitive to their needs. As a result, he or she is motivated to accept and complete responsibility in a future call to compassion. By doing so, he or she motivates another that motivates yet another: in a potentially infinite network of provider-receiver relationships. Thus, appreciation motivates the receiver of human service to “go and do likewise” [Luke 10:37] toward fulfilling God’s purpose for the distribution of human service.
This bible study focuses on understanding the relationship between compassion and appreciation in fulfilling God’s purpose for provider-receiver relationships among people. Subsequent studies will discuss Christ teaching and other information in the bible to understand the role of appreciation in human interactions and relationships.
Appreciation motivates a “hunger and thirst” for righteousness that extends the benefits of human service through more people and time. We join this year’s celebration of thanksgiving and use the opportunity to discuss Christ’s teaching on appreciation as a motivator of positive human interaction.
Thanksgiving is celebrated in different parts of the world at various times. In several places, the celebration is associated with harvest and appreciation for the “fruits of the land.” Also in several places, thanksgiving is celebrated near the end of the calendar year in appreciation of all that was good during the year. For example, in several countries of North America, thanksgiving is celebrated late in the calendar year, usually a few weeks before Christmas; thus beginning a season of giving, receiving, and appreciation that lasts through the remainder of the year. People and institutions exchange gifts and greetings to appreciate each other for being who or what they are and for events of the year that brought their paths to cross.
We join in this year’s celebrations: to express our appreciation to all that interacted with our program one way or the other during the year. We thank God for you and appreciate this opportunity to learn his word and share our understanding through Banking Blessings Ministry. We celebrate this year’s interactions and use the opportunity of the celebration to discuss the value of appreciation in motivating positive human interaction.
CHRIST’S TEACHING ON APPRECIATION We examine Christ’s teaching on appreciation based on his interactions with two people he healed from persistent illness. The interactions suggest he wanted to emphasize appreciation as important to the healing, as if the healing was incomplete without it. The interactions occurred in regard to a woman he healed of long-term bleeding and a man that was the only one of ten that returned to thank him for healing them of leprosy. In both cases, he appeared to be telling them and us that their appreciation enabled them to receive full benefits of the healing. However, we know based on the biblical accounts that the physical healing was complete in each case before the recipient stepped forward to show appreciation. Therefore, his interactions with them lead us to understand that each recipient needed more than the physical healing to receive full benefit of his/her interaction with Jesus in the healing incident.
HUNGER FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS His interactions with the two lead us to understand that every human service offers two potential benefits to the recipient:
Surface-value or short-term benefit that arises from the service addressing an immediate need, such as physical healing.
Long-term benefit that arises because the recipient’s appreciation motivates him/her to be good, not only to the provider but also to other people.
If the recipient is good to another person as a result, the other also is motivated to be good to yet others. Thus, an act of goodness whereby a person provides a service to alleviate another person’s need could benefit several more people because the recipient’s appreciation motivates him/her to be good to others that are, in turn, motivated to be good to yet others. Thus, the long-term benefit of human service lies in the potential to motivate an expanding community of people to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” [Matthew 5:6] and earn blessing as Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount. This long-term benefit is more important than the short-term benefit. Christ emphasized its value through personal interactions with the two healing recipients.
This is the second of a two-part bible study on Christ’s teaching on the call to compassion. As we discussed in previous bible studies, God creates every person to be his provider assistant and assigns responsibilities to each of us through a call to compassion. Through the parable of the Good Samaritan (first part of the study at This_Link), Christ illustrates the circumstances of a call to compassion and what is expected from the chosen provider assistant. This bible study focuses on the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, where he provides a more general teaching on God’s call to compassion.
A mutual provider-receiver relationship results from God creating every person as his provider assistant. Through calls to compassion, he provides opportunities for every person to be a provider sometimes and receiver at other times. Christ uses the parable of the Sheep and the Goats to describe the responsibilities of a provider assistant, rewards for accepting a call to compassion by performing the assigned service, and punishment for declining the call by denying a service.
HUMAN SERVICE God’s call to compassion is about human service. He assigns tasks to individuals to provide them opportunities to help others. A person earns blessing by providing the service or incurs punishment by declining. As we discussed previously at This_Link, earned blessing and incurred punishment accumulate and coexist as parallel promises from God, which he fulfills at his time, except that he will forgive a promise of punishment if the sinner repents and asks for forgiveness. Christ uses the parable of the Sheep and the Goats to explain that he will judge each of us based on our performance as his provider assistant. People that accept God’s call to compassion by providing services placed in their path will inherit eternal life. In contrast, people that decline the call by denying services placed in their path will inherit eternal punishment.
We examine Christ’s teaching on appreciation based on his interactions with people that he healed. The interactions suggest he wanted to emphasize appreciation as an aspect of the healing process, as if the healing was incomplete without appreciation. We examine accounts regarding a woman he healed of long-term bleeding and a man that was the only one of ten that returned to thank him for healing them of leprosy. In both cases, he appeared to be telling them and us that their appreciation was necessary for them to receive full benefits of the healing. We know the physical healing was complete in each case before the recipient stepped forward to show appreciation. Therefore, his interactions with them lead us to understand that more than the physical healing was needed to complete the healing process.
BENEFITS OF HUMAN SERVICE Examination of these interactions lead us to understand that every human service offers two potential benefits to the recipient: a short-term benefit that arises from the service addressing an immediate need, such as physical healing; and a long-term benefit that arises because appreciation by the recipient motivates him/her to seek to be good to the provider and an expanding human community around the provider. We believe that this long-term benefit is more important than the short-term benefit and is the reason Christ wanted recipients of his favor to show appreciation and congratulated them after they did.
In this bible study, we attempt to use information from the childhood of Jesus and other relevant bible passages to understand God’s purpose for parental responsibilities. We learn that God assigns parents responsibility to provide for the basic needs of children: physical basic needs (i.e., food and drink, clothing, and shelter), protection, and community values training.
CALL TO FAMILY TRAINING God issued his call to family training and definition of parents and parental responsibility when he appeared to Abraham in human form, accompanied by two angels. He said [Genesis 18:18–19]: “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” Although spoken about Abraham in this account, the statement is applicable to all humankind and appears directed at defining parental responsibilities. The statement defines the responsibilities of a parent as consisting of two parts: first, providing for basic needs to bring up children; and second, training the children in the process, to direct them to follow the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. Also, by corollary, the statement defines a parent as someone assigned the responsibility of providing this service to one or more children. Recall that parenthood is an appointment from God (see previous bible study at This_Link).