Believers Armed and Dangerous

What is the church?  Certainly we see churches on streets in our neighborhoods, downtowns, in almost any populated area .  But, are those churches in the biblical sense of the word?  According to the Bible, the church isn’t a building, it’s a group of people, of saints, of fellow believers.  In fact, very few church buildings were constructed prior to the early fourth century.

What does the bible say about the church?  Jesus spoke of His Church (Matt. 16:18).  His use of the term speaks of a large universal group.  Then there’s Paul who addressed some of his letters to particular churches:  1 Corinthians 1:2 (ESV)  “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”

So, the word “church” can be a large body or a small local one.  In fact, the Greek word for “church,” (ekklesia) simply means “assembly.”  We, the church, are the assembly of God’s people, “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”  With this understanding, we may have a number of local churches in our own city or town, but there is only one church worldwide, the total number of living saints, followers of Christ.

This also would lead us to understand that most local churches as we most commonly use the term, have non- believers present.  In the biblical sense, these folks are not truly members of the church.  Some are seeking God.  Some are seeking refuge.  Others are quite good at playing the Christian role.  They pray publically, they do good deeds, they help others, they even profess their faith and perhaps witness to the lost, but they are lost themselves.

I was one of these people.  For five years, I played the Christian game.  I thought being a Christian was just being someone who went to church regularly and tried to live a good life according to biblical principles.  I was mistaken, and I think there are a lot of people in local churches unknowingly playing the game like I was.  Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a bank makes you a dollar bill.

Others have less godly motives.  Some join a local church for the business connections, maybe to find a spouse, or maybe just because they’re lonely.  We welcome them to our local bodies of believers to hear the Gospel message, but biblically spaeking, they are not truly church members until they have turned control of their lives over to Christ.

The church is truly God’ family.  It is called “the body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27).  As such, we are the visible representation of the invisible God.  When people look at us, they should see the love of God.  When they watch what we do to help others, they should see the hand of God operating in their lives.  And, when they hear the words we speak, they should hear the voice of God calming the angry, reasoning with the uninformed, caring for the suffering.

We have no excuse for anger, rudeness, or disrespect toward others, even to our enemies.  We are told just the opposite: 2 Timothy 2:24-26 (ESV)  And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,   correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,   and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Who do we think we are confronting others who are hurting as we were, misused as we were, lost as we were?  We are the church, God’s ambassadors to a foreign land (2 Cor. 5:20).  Let us represent our King well and see to it that His work is done.

2 Peter 3:15-16 (ESV)
¹⁵  And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶  as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Scripture twisting is nothing new.  It was present in the first century, and I imagine, in Old Testament times.  Sometimes it’s harmless enough.  For instance quoting something as Scripture when it isn’t at all: “God helps those who help themselves.”  Jesus didn’t say that, Ben Franklin did.

An extreme example of Scripture twisting was committed by the Marharesh Mahesh Yogi when he said, “‘Jesus said ‘Be still and know that I am God.’  So, be still and know that you are god.”‘  Too many things wrong with that one to list them all, but Jesus didn’t say this at all.  It’s a quote from Psalm 46:10 where God says we are to be still and know that He is God.  See how the Yogi has twisted this to suit his own purpose?

The Mormons claim the stick of Joseph mentioned in Ezekiel 37 is a prophecy predicting Joseph Smith and the establishment of the Latter Day Saints.  There is no foundation for this belief.  The passage speaks of the reunification of the tribes of Israel.  But Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS, used this Scripture in an attempt to lend God’s authority to his group.

Jehovah’s Witnesses take Psalm 83:18 as their action verse:  (KJV) That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

The word “Jehovah” is not a Hebrew word.  There is no “J” sound in either Hebrew or Greek.  “Jehovah” is a mistranslation of “YHWH”, the tetragrammaton which represents God’s name (see earlier blog posts for a detailed description of this) .  So, we don’t actually know God’s name.  Yet the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society wants to identify their people with that name to lend biblical authority to their organization.  They believe they must be God’s organization since they carry God’s name.

Additions to change the meaning of a passage of Scripture is another way to twist it.  The New World Translation (NWT) of Jehovah’s Witnesses translates  Colossians chapter 1:16-17, this way:  Speaking of Jesus:  “because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him.  Also, he is before all other things, and by means of him all other things were made to exist, “

See the word “other” included in the passage four times?  You won’t find that word in any other translations.  It isn’t in the Greek either.  It only appears in the New World Translation.  So, why do they put it there?  Because it makes Jesus one of the things created rather than the Creator Himself which supports their  theology.  Remove “other” and Jesus is clearly God the Creator.

Not everyone who claims to be one of God’s people or a member of God’s organization is.  As Peter says, they twist the Scriptures to their own destruction.  The Bible says to watch out for these people and for yourself:  1 Timothy 4:16 (ESV)   Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.  Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. 

So, we need to be careful and check everything we hear against Scripture as did the Bereans (Acts 17:11)

I don’t often recommend books, but I do recommend “Scripture Twisting” by James W. Sire on this subject.  It’s available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback forms.

We are all tempted every day.  But, is temptation sin and does it come from God?  James, speaking of sin,  tells us it’s a progression: 

James 1:13-15 (ESV)
¹³  Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

According to James, then, temptation doesn’t come from God, but is the first domino.  If we stop with temptation, we have not sinned.  It’s when we dwell on the temptation, roll it around in our minds, ponder our desire, that it becomes sin.

If God doesn’t tempt us, where does temptation come from?  Satan is called “the tempter” in 1 Thess. 3:5.  Then temptation comes from Satan and his underlings.  But, there is another source for temptation and eventually sin, our own flesh.  Romans 7:21-25 says that our body leads us into sin.  Our body has desires and needs.  Some of those are not to be honored.  We struggle all the time against the desires of the flesh, the desires of our bodies.  But, Scripture says we should not live according to our fleshly desires but according to the spirit, God’s way (Rom. 8:1-8).

Even Jesus was tempted (Matt. 4:1; Heb. 4:15).  So, we have a God Who personally and directly understands the temptations we face (Heb 2:18), yet He did not sin.

Why does God allow us to be tempted?   James talks about that, too:

James 1:2-4 (ESV)
²  Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³  for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Temptation, when it  is resisted, increase our faith and produce steadfastness or endurance.  It makes it easier to resist temptation next time it arises.

1 Cor. 10:13 says we will not be tempted beyond our ability to resist.  It says God will provide a way of escape, and that’s just what we should do at times.  When Joseph was tempted by Potipher’s wife, he ran.  Sometimes, we need to run, too.  There’s no shame in that.

Another technique for dealing with temptation is to memorize Scripture.  I like 1 Cor. 10:13.  It speaks of temptation directly and is long enough that the temptation is often gone by the time I’ve repeated the full verse.

God understands temptation because He has experienced it.  He provides a way out of sin as a result of temptation, and He tells us living by the Spirit of God is the only way that pleases Him.  However, we will fall, we will yield to the flesh or to Satan’s influence.  When that happens, God has provided a way to be forgiven, to be cleansed, through repentance and confession (1 John 1:9)

We must strive to live according to the spirit and not the flesh, but when we fall, God is waiting and anxious to forgive us of our sin.

Last week I promised to address a benevolent God in the light of children’s suffering.  Suffering comes in various forms from illnesses to physical abuse to mental and physical torture.  The question arises, how can a benevolent God allow such things.  Let me say at first that as Christians, our hearts should break over the sufferings of others.  Jesus told us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is with our hearts we should reach out to the suffering.  But, it is with our minds that we should look at the reasons for suffering.

Let’s first look at mental, emotional, and physical suffering.  This comes at the hands of others.  A child is called”stupid” or “a failure” or worse is beaten, raped, even tortured and killed by another usually in authority over them.  Why doesn’t God stop this sort of abuse?

Abuse of any sort, of course, is done according to the will of the abusers.  As we’ve seen in previous posts, God has given us freewill. It’s as much a law of the universe as gravity.  For God to stop these godless acts, He would have to change the laws or violate His promise of freewill.  God doesn’t break His promises.  He has given these laws for a reason and will seldom violate them.  Yes the deviant who sexually molests a child is evil, but it is his own freewill he’s acting on, not God’s.  The child’s will to stop the abuse can’t be acted upon because the pervert overpowers the child.  But, the fact this pain occurs is not to say God is not present.  He is and weeps at the godlessness and barbarity of man.

God loves us and wishes for us to love Him.  A world with freewill but without suffering is unrealistic.  God grants us freewill so we might love him freely and genuinely. If He had created us with the love for God built into us, it would have been a forced love, not given freely.  The cost for us to freely love is the choice not to love God, to choose to do things which are ungodly.  It is then that suffering is imposed on others who are weaker.  This isn’t the result of God’s will but man’s. 

The second category is natural evil, the pain of illness,birth defects, accidental physical injuries and such.  Paul tells us suffering is a fact of life.  Yet, for the Christian,suffering builds our character, and our  relationship with God and man.

Romans 8:16-17 (ESV)
¹⁶  TheSpirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷  and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

While we certainly may not enjoy the suffering, it draws us closer to our Lord.  James tells us in the first chapter of his epistle that we are to embrace the trials in our lives as they build character and endurance  by proving our faith.

We spend about 70 years on this earth.  That time is so short compared to the eternity we have awaiting us.  Paul agree and says the suffering of a few years seems almost insignificant compared to eternity.

Romans 8:18 (ESV)
¹⁸  For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

As Christians, earthly suffering produces much.  It should cause us to act like Christ by comforting and assisting those who are hurting.  It draws us closer to God and gives the world a chance to see the heart of God through the acts of His children who seek to comfort those in pain. Suffering also brings many who suffer to Christ seeking the peace He provides. 

God is no masochist. He seeks to use us as His hands and feet to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and comfort the hurting.  We are His ambassadors to a hurting world.  We are the body of Christ.

I’ve been talking with an atheist friend lately about God killing thousands of innocent people in the Old Testament.  My friend’s complaint isn’t just that God slaughtered these people but that He did it when they chose not to worship Him but other gods.  After all, He gave them free choice, why did He kill them just because they chose wrongly?

Actually, God didn’t kill them because of their choices, at least not physically.  Most of these gods and their ancestors were worshipped for centuries without such consequences before the Israelites entered the land.  He killed them because their choices effected His people and drew them away from the truth, from the worship of the true God, leading them to spiritual death.  As I’ve said in earlier blogs, I believe God is much more interested in the condition of our souls than that of our physical bodies.

Some of these pagan gods required worship through temple prostitution and live child sacrifice.  One of them, Ashtaroth was worshipped by heating his iron idol until cherry red then placing live children in its arms where they suffered a torturous death.  Some gods required the firstborn to be killed and buried under the doorstep of the family home in order to bring blessings.  These were not “innocent” people.

“But, He didn’t give them a chance to turn to Him”, you might say.   We know Sodom and Gomorrah and Nineveh were warned, of course. 

In 1968, an ancient town known as Ebla was discovered in Syria.  Ebla was founded around 3500 B.C. and was at its heyday around 2700 B.C. The king of Ebla at that time kept records of everything he bought,everything he did, and all the news in the city.  Some 17,000 of the king’s tablets have been found by archaeologists.  According to these tablets, a prophet entered the city and told the people of the great God “Yah” (a shortened version of “Yahweh” and the same Yah we praise in our term “alleluia” meaning “Praise be to Yah”). There are even recorded names of individuals dedicated to Yah: ish-ma-ya meaning “Yah Hears”and eb-du-ya meaning “servant of Yah.”   So, the pagan nations were told of the One Who was to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob centuries later.  These pagan cultures were warned.  They weren’t ignorant of Yahweh’s call to worship Him.

If we were to see someone killing a loved one of ours, we would be justified in killing the perpetrator. In the same way, God saw people of other cultures as spiritual threats to His loved one, Israel, so he killed them to protect His people.

My friend wanted to know how a benevolent God could allow children to suffer.  We’ll address that next week.  God bless.

At this time of year, we often think of others in need.  We help strangers carry their packages, feed the Salvation Army pots, help out in soup kitchens, or deliver meals.  These are all good things we should do. 

Good works are an important feature in the Christian life as well.  But, the question is do we help others to gain favor with God, or do we help others because we’ve already gained favor with Him?  Let’s look at what the Bible says:

James 2:14-17 (ESV)
¹⁴  What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?  ¹⁵  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,  ¹⁶  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?  ¹⁷  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

 

James seems to say we need works, doesn’t he.  But, when we look a little closer, we see James says if you claim to have faith, but that faith doesn’t produce work, yours is a dead faith.  He’s saying those who have a faith which doesn’t cause them to want to reach out to a lost world and help others should reexamine what they believe.

He’s also saying that other people can’t see our changed hearts as God can.  It’s our good works that show others our faith in Christ.  Like Him, we want to help the poor, heal the hurting, and feed the hungry.  It’s Christ in us that causes this.  A few verses later, James repeats his theme of justification by works using Abraham as an example:

James 2:21 (ESV)
²¹  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

In Romans, Paul says he was not justified before God by his works:

Romans 4:2-5 (ESV)
 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.  ³  For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”  ⁴  Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.  ⁵  And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

 

These two passages don’t contradict one another though it might appear so.  James says we are justified by men through our works just as Abraham was.  Men saw him climb the mountain with Isaac to sacrifice him to God.  They could see his devotion to God in no other way.  But, God saw Abraham’s heart before he even climbed the mountain, and he was justified before God by his faith.

 

So, we shouldn’t help others by carrying packages, feeding the homeless, or feeding the Salvation Army pot to gain favor.  As Christians, we’ve already received His favor.  God’s Spirit now resides in us.  It is He who prompts us to reach out to all people, people for whom Christ died.

“Incarnation”  is one of those big theological words Christians throw around that a lot of people, especially non-believers, just don’t understand.  We can impress our friends when we say it, but, do we know what it really means? 

It’s a little like chili con carne, “chili with meat.”  “God incarnate” means “God with meat”, “God with flesh”, “God in human form”.   As I said in a recent blog, Jesus draped His divine nature with flesh just as we drape our eyes in flesh when we blink or sleep.  The eye’s nature is still there.  It just doesn’t function as it would if it did not have flesh covering it.

We get this idea straight from the Bible:  Philippians 2:5-8 (ESV) “…Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

So, Jesus always existed in the form of God, as God, but a little over 2000 years ago He came in the form of man.  Jesus is called God in Scripture (Titus 2:13), so while Jesus since conception in Mary’s womb until today has had two natures, divine and human.  The human nature of Jesus had a beginning.  His divine nature did not. 

Jesus is fully man and fully God.  The two are not mutually exclusive any more than being round and being blue are mutually exclusive for a ball.

This biblical teaching clarifies a lot of passages that would be problematic if we didn’t understand the incarnation.  Passages like John 14:28 where Jesus says His Father is greater than He, for instance.  Of course He is.  Jesus humbled Himself and took the form of a servant.  The Father is not better than Jesus as “better” is a word depicting quality.  The Father is greater because, positionally, Jesus is submissive/obedient to the Father by His own choice (Phil 2:8).

It is why Jesus prayed to the Father and yielded to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42).  It’s how Jesus could still be God but die on the cross.  It was His human body which died, not His divine nature, and it was His human body which was raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3-4).  It’s how Jesus could be called “a little lower (positionally) than the angels” (Heb. 2:9).  It’s why Jesus could say the Father was His God (John 20:17).  As a man, the Father was His God.

The fact that Jesus took on human form also has great benefits for believers.  If Jesus had not become human, He could not have died for us nor have been raised.  Jesus’ death and resurrection are the foundations of our faith.  If He did not shed His blood, our sins remain (Mat. 26:28).  If Christ is not risen, we are lost (1 Cor. 15:17). 

Even more, our continued growth in Christ  depends on his taking human form.  As a human being, He was tempted as we are (Heb. 4:15), yet He did not sin.  And, because He has a human nature and walked the earth as we do, He knows what it is to be one of us.  So, He is the perfect mediator, advocate, for us before the Father (1 Tim. 2:5).

The infinite God merely spoke, and all things came into existence.  That God humbled Himself to the point of washing the feet of the humans He created, then dying on the cross for them so that they/we might be with Him forever.  How truly great He is.

John 15:12-14 (ESV)
¹²  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  ¹³  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  ¹⁴  You are my friends if you do what I command you.

This being Veterans’ Day, I thought I’d share something related to that.

My time in the Navy was an uneventful one except for meeting my wife.  I went in at Alameda, spent three weeks at Treasure Island, then was assigned to Miramar Naval Air Station north of San Diego as a Photographer’s Mate (just a photographer in normal language).  I spent several months putting cameras in reconnaissance aircraft, then was transferred to the base photo lab.  Much of my time was spent in an air conditioned building.  Miramar also had the third best galley in the Navy, so the food was great!  Not only that, but I met my wife during that time and could drive up and visit her almost every weekend.

A high school friend retired as a three-star general.  A few years ago we were emailing, and I told him I felt almost ashamed to have served the way I did while many of our friends, including him, had risked or lost their lives in Viet Nam.  His response to me was straightforward and stunning.  He said, “Mike.  I have two things to tell you.  First, you signed the check.  You signed on the line telling the government they could cash that check up to including your life if needs be.  So, you are no less a veteran than those who served in combat.  It wasn’t your choice where they sent you.  Secondly, you had easy duty.  Don’t you think we prayed for your duty when we were in combat?  You shouldn’t be ashamed.  You should be grateful.”

Our lives with Christ are very much like that.  Sometimes we kick ourselves over how easy we have it.  We shouldn’t be ashamed of our work for God, that it seems so trivial or easy.  We’ve signed another check.  We’ve turned over everything we have and everything we are to Christ our Savior, our God.  He can cash it in any way He sees fit.  If He chooses to use us in our home town in a comfortable office with a loving family, we should be grateful.  We are no less a Christian than the single missionary who is called to a dangerous place like Saudi Arabia.  God doesn’t play favorites (James 2:1-13).  We are all expected to grow where God has planted us.

So, wherever we are, we need to be sure that’s where God has placed us.  If we’re sure, then we should sink roots and start to grow spreading His gospel and sharing His love.  And we shouldn’t think we’ve been overlooked in His kingdom because we live in Hawaii, Palm Springs, or Prescott, Arizona.  God has a purpose for us.  Let’s get down to it, find out what that is, and get to work.  After all, we’ve signed that check.  Now let’s honor it.  We are simply to do as instructed, no more and no less.  We’re just looking to serve the Master well.

Luke 17:7-10 (ESV)
⁷  “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? ⁸  Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
⁹  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? ¹⁰  So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

I’m told the way they train bank tellers to spot counterfeit bills is to have them handle real money for long periods of time.  As a result, they become so familiar with the genuine article that they don’t even have to look down when a counterfeit bill crosses their palm.  They know right away.

In the same way, we as Christians should know the genuine article so well, we should be able to identify false teachings without much effort.

2 Corinthians 11:3-4 (ESV)
³  But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴  For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

The Bible tells us to test all things (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21)

But, what sort of things are we to test?  We are to test everything.  We are to test our own beliefs (2 Corinthians 13:5)  We are to test what the pastors and others in leadership teach us (Acts 17:10-11).

How do we test it?  We test it by God’s Word.  It and it alone is the standard by which we are to test everything.  This is one important difference between Christianity and every other Major religion except perhaps Judaism, the instruction to test all things. 

But, where do these counterfeits come from.  Certainly, if they are different from what Scripture teaches and the folks are teaching you error, these people are sent from the counterfeiter himself.  Many, no doubt, are sincere.  Many live lives that make us blush with embarrassment as we look at our own.  No doubt we should be living exemplary lives, but it is not our lives and how we live them that saves us.  It is Who we know.

It is the counterfeit which tries to tell us works are needed for our salvation.  It is the counterfeit that tells us we’re not holy in God’s eyes through Christ’s sacrifice.  It is the counterfeit that tells us we cannot understand Scripture for ourselves.

Satan’s desire is to keep people from the truth.  If that person is a non-believer, Satan wants to keep them lost at all costs.  If the person is a believer, he wants to make her as ineffective as possible.  Walter Martin used to say, “The next best thing to a non-believer is a sterile Christian.”  There’s a lot of truth in that.

Let’s not be sterile Christians because we’ve accepted a counterfeit we haven’t examined, haven’t tested. 

2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV)
¹⁵  Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Acts 4:32 (ESV) ³²  Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

I’ve had a discussion lately with a lady about her belief Christians should embrace socialism because it’s what the Bible teaches.  Others have chimed in supporting her.

The Bible doesn’t speak to governments, it speaks to individuals.  Over the centuries, unfortunately, we the church have yielded to the government our responsibility for providing aid to the poor and needy.  We see it here in the US through various public assistance programs, even more so in western Europe. 

As I’ve said in another post, the US system takes our money through taxes and distributes it to those the government deems needy.  This creates some problems the biblical “system” does not.  The government system takes the taxpayer’s money raising anger in the taxpayer as his money is taken involuntarily and wasted to support the bureaucracies which collect, count, and distribute the tax money.  Much of the money is gone before the recipient sees it.

Then the recipient receives a check or direct deposit from a faceless nameless government which does not often hold that recipient accountable enough for looking to improve his lot.

The result is that recipient becomes “entitled” to the money, and human nature being as it is, will often not work to resolve his situation.  In fact, often entry level positions pay less than the government check does.  This encourages idleness.

The biblical system of the individual helping the individual causes the recipient to face his benefactor.  He sees a man or woman sharing food, clothing, or money with him.  As a result, a feeling of gratitude develops accompanied by a desire not to live off of someone’s charity.  In this system, the benefactor is much more likely to detect possible fraud.  This more often points the individual in need to seek ways to help himself rather than to face the charitable person asking for repeated assistance.

The biblical system also creates a kinder heart in the individual sacrificing voluntarily to help another human being.  It makes him more aware of the person’s needs and improves society by raising awareness of those needs and prompting more good works.  The biblical system also eliminates the wasted expense of the middlemen, the bureaucracies.  This provides a more efficient use of funds.

The passage quoted from Acts chapter 4 is a historic statement, not a biblical command.  With human nature being what it is, we know there will be those who will abuse the system.  Ananias and Sapphira show that in the very next chapter as does the instruction against idleness in 2 Thessalonians 3:10-11.

2 Thessalonians 3:10-11 (ESV)
¹⁰  For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ¹¹  For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.

The biblical system has nothing in common with socialism.  To equate the two is like equating the military with free health care.  Members of the military receive free healthcare, but healthcare is not the central purpose of the military.  In the same way, benevolent socialism (such as Norway’s) does not equate with compassion and charity.  Just as you can have the military without healthcare, you can have socialism with no compassion or charity (Venezuela for example), proving one does not require or equate with the other.