Thinking backwards about "whatsoever you do."

[AlanFromWichita]

Matt 25:40
And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Does this equivalence relations (equating what we do to least of brothers with what we do to Jesus) have the commutative property?

IOW, is it true that whatever you do to the King, you also did to the least of His brothers?

And does this scripture factor in somehow? …

James 3:7-12
For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh.

Is it even possible to actually bless Jesus while cursing the least of His brothers? By the equivalence above we know we would also have curses Jesus. If in addition, the commutative property holds, then we will have also blessed the brother. :nerd0:

Alan

Edit: Perhaps it’s about what we do to any soul we do to all of them?

1 Cor 12:12-14
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many.

 

[R_C]

Alan, this sounds very profound I do not think the commutative property holds…after all, each of us is but an imperfect share in God’s being and goodness…thus what we do to another creature relates to God - as the Lord told us - but not necessarily the way we relate to God expands to other creatures (this is why the Church speaks of a fides informis and of a fides formata, the former being indeed a faith in God that can even move mountanins, but untouched by that charity which is the mark of the faith that saves souls).

Anyways, just wanted to share a thought I had…I hope I did not say anything too wrong

 

[fred_conty]

From the various figurative images of the church, such as the vine/branches, wheat/grains, body/organs, that each part’s health or goodness does affect the whole and the other parts.
From this then it appears that a person living in sin is pulling the body of Christ down, and the person who is living as another Christ is building up the body of Christ.

Someone else explained it as the ripple effect. Throw a pebble in a calm pool of water, and the wave goes out from the center thru the whole pool of water.

Just a thought.​

“There is one Lord, there is one faith, there is one Father of us all, …” (hymn)

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Alan, this sounds very profound I do not think the commutative property holds…after all, each of us is but an imperfect share in God’s being and goodness…thus what we do to another creature relates to God - as the Lord told us - but not necessarily the way we relate to God expands to other creatures (this is why the Church speaks of a fides informis and of a fides formata, the former being indeed a faith in God that can even move mountanins, but untouched by that charity which is the mark of the faith that saves souls).

Anyways, just wanted to share a thought I had…I hope I did not say anything too wrong

Thank you for your ideas! :tiphat:

No, you didn’t say anything wrong. This was intended as a thought exercise, not a scholarly conclusion.

One thing I might ask, though, is if one is cursing fellow man and praising God, does that make the praise of God devoid of substance? Or looked at another way, if I curse my fellow man, then have I not cursed God?

Another way I can think of it is whether cursing God amounts to cursing fellow man. I’ve seen that done, too.

From the various figurative images of the church, such as the vine/branches, wheat/grains, body/organs, that each part’s health or goodness does affect the whole and the other parts.
From this then it appears that a person living in sin is pulling the body of Christ down, and the person who is living as another Christ is building up the body of Christ.

Someone else explained it as the ripple effect. Throw a pebble in a calm pool of water, and the wave goes out from the center thru the whole pool of water.

Just a thought.​

“There is one Lord, there is one faith, there is one Father of us all, …” (hymn)

One thing I’d like to know is how Christians, Catholics no less, can judge and condemn other people – and I see this every day – and they do it in the name of God. To protect the sanctity of this or that, or to “defend” God or the Church or society at large against someone who has no power over either. They can be anywhere from family members to coworkers to people they hear about on the news. But we think it’s our Solemn Duty to call these people “what they are,” and I don’t mean “children of God.”

I’m not talking about the judicial process and protecting people by locking up dangerous people. I’m talking about condemning them in our hearts and with our words. Saying, “this person is dangerous and needs to be locked up” IMO is not a problem in and of itself, but as soon as we add, “… and is worthless trash that the world would be better off without,” then it’s a problem. On a more personal basis, if I say, “I don’t want to see my uncle because he always teases me,” can be benign while “I hope my uncle gets in a car accident and doesn’t make it for Thanksgiving,” might be a little harder to explain to God.

Alan