If subjugation of people to Christian imperial rule, or even their individual enslavement to Christian masters, furthers
the goal of their eternal salvation, the earthly injustice and suffering can not compare to their eternal betterment.
Not exact matches
Following Bonhoeffer's exposition
of the Sermon on the Mount, he gives an exposition
of Matthew 9:35 - 10:42.39 Short vignettes are drawn
of the harvest (the people are without a shepherd, without relief, deliverance, and forgiveness) for which one must pray for laborers; the call
of the apostles (who are given power stronger than Satan's and are bound together only by their choice and call); the work (fulfilling their commission to preach, traveling as messengers
of the King, living in «royal poverty,» warning men
of the urgency
of the times); the suffering
of the messengers (as Jesus was persecuted so the messengers will be, but they are forewarned; because Christ will return the disciples are not to fear man, or to be gullible in thinking that «there is good in every man «40); the decision (man's
eternal destiny is determined by his decision on earth for the devil or for Christ); and the fruit (the disciples are fellow workers having as their
goal the «
salvation of the Church»).41
about the
eternal life in God; nor does anything point to moral improvement and perfection as an indispensable condition for the achievement
of this
goal... It is only just to say that every man has an inherent right to favorable conditions for him to enjoy all - round development in his striving for a full - blooded life... However one can not agree with the opinion that where there are no conditions
of life worthy
of man one can not even speak
of salvation today.
The Holy Synod
of the Russian Orthodox Church has felt sometimes the WCC has not placed its thinking on the social content
of salvation solidly within the perspective
of the ultimate
goal of salvation... the
eternal life in God, «with the result that appropriation
of eternal life is made to depend on social conditions rather than social conditions on the appropriation
of eternal life»; and the Ecumenical Patriarchate has warned us that in «turning towards the anguish
of the man today», the WCC must not forget the basic truth that man sees himself as hungering for an answer to a basic question over and beyond his acute interest in the most vital socio - political problems
of the day.»