PRUDENCE SLAMMED BY JESUS

Cult leaders don’t like the virtue of prudence for they want to fool their victims and don’t want them thinking for themselves. Jesus was no exception.
 
It is a cliché that worry is useless and therefore bad. Worry is only bad when it is excessive and does not make you do something to prevent the feared situation taking place. If you did not worry about your teacher’s response to your homework you would not do it right.

Jesus said that God is more likely to make sure we have what we need when he makes sure that the very grass of the field had what it needs though it is not as important. “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will He not much more surely clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6). The clothing of the grass is a part of being grass so he is making an absolute guarantee. So he certainly did teach that we should have no thought for tomorrow. Why think about today if tomorrow is to be ignored? This attitude is completely unrealistic.

Jesus said, “Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing?” This was a part of his argument that we should leave our needs in the hands of God. He meant that God will preserve life for he is good. He meant that we should not worry about food and stuff for life is more important meaning that it is important with God. This was probably a mistaken denial of the supreme might of God because if God ought to keep us alive like this passage says then God should not let the destitute die of hunger. He said that God takes good care of the birds and they don’t gather into barns like we do so we shouldn’t worry. So, us putting grain in barns is a sin. Jesus did not wash but travelled the country living on donated food and slept outdoors. He had the apostles doing the same and got them to leave their homes and wives.

Jesus taught that it is wrong and sinful to worry if God exists for God is up there to look after you. But God does a lot of terrible and frightening things to his own. The Old Testament book of Job said so. You cannot blame them for being frightened of something bad happening to them. Jesus wanted to turn people on emotionally to take advantage of them regardless of how much damage their looking at the world though rose-tinted glasses would do to them and others or God.

There is some advantage in everything that happens. It is therefore stupidity to tell people not to worry about evil happening to them because God is allowing it for a purpose and that they should look on the good side. You could be hurt by God not for your own benefit but for somebody else’s. And the attitude leads to indifference to suffering.

If there is a God he could take you to Heaven or wherever in death any time he wants. There is no way you can be sure you will be still alive in ten minutes. If there is no God you can say it is likely that you will still be alive. So if you prepare for tomorrow, it is just in case you will be around to see it. When “in case” is all you can think about and are supposed to think about then you will have to worry. What about your children and friends if you die? If you love them then you will be afraid for them. Jesus forbade worry and then preached theism which is the very thing that will produce it. But it will be objected that the same is true if there is no God. Sudden death is still possible. But naturally you know the score. You know that nature is likely to do this and that. But if there is a God you are less sure for he meddles with nature all the time and makes changes.

Jesus told us that God answers prayer. He can solve our problems and make them into non-problems if we consent and try to co-operate. This means that you should wreak as much havoc as you are able to and as long as you intend to do something to correct it if you are spared and God will make it the same as if you had behaved yourself. For example, if you hurt a person really badly you can make an apology of some sort and God will turn the evil into good even if that person does not want to hear it. Who wouldn’t do a lot of evil if prayer can make it something to feel good and useful about? As long as you try to repent of all your sins there is no fault in any of this wickedness. What an evil faith!

Jesus was speaking to an everyday crowd so he meant it all literally. There is no hint that he didn’t. The earliest Christian writer Paul, would have agreed with Jesus’ attitude for he boasted of his weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9,10). He was glad to have them to suffer for God even though they brought misery to others.