Proper expectations on unbelievers

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
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Ernie
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Ernie »

Neto wrote:I think that a corporation can obviously have dress standards. But in a partnership, those issues should have been handled at the beginning.
I don't think anybody on MN is disputing that this should have been talked about before the partnership went into effect so I don't think we need to keep talking about this.

I think the differences on this thread are...
1. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their business partners?
2. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their employees and customers who come to their place of business?
3. What kinds of expectations are reasonable for plain people to expect of people who frequently come to their home?
4. What values discussions and requests are plain people free to address with non-plain people and which ones are unreasonable?
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The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
Neto
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Neto »

ohio jones wrote:
Ernie wrote:
ohio jones wrote:If we expect others to respect our standards, should we be able to respect theirs as well?
Sure. But not sure what you are thinking of. Can you give some examples?
The examples would be the ones just mentioned above: Wearing shoes when others do. Wearing formal clothes when others do.
But this sort of begs for the opposite question to be asked: What about NOT wearing shoes if others don't, or NOT wearing formal attire if others don't, or cannot afford it? I wouldn't take this too far, or you'll end up like some missionaries I know, who went naked because the tribal people did. But within reason, maybe it should be considered. When I was growing up, my best friend from (public) school started coming to our congregational meetings. His parents never came, he came with an older couple who lived near them. He did not have a suit, so came in common nice clothes. I was always self conscious about wearing a suit myself, because I didn't want him to feel out of place. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the congregation offered to give him a suit - I usually wore hand-me-downs myself, either from one of my older brothers, or from one of the more wealthy families in the congregation. But I also wouldn't be surprised if his dad would not have allowed him to accept a gift of that kind.)

So do you go by the average, to decide whether to wear a suit or not? I almost never do anymore, because my wife doesn't want me to, and actually, probably well less than half of the men in our congregation do, even in winter. (We never did in the summer in Oklahoma - no AC, and that would just be silly, like businessmen wearing them on the street in northwest Brazil, where we lived. Talk about suffering!)
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Hats Off
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Hats Off »

Ernie wrote:
Neto wrote:I think that a corporation can obviously have dress standards. But in a partnership, those issues should have been handled at the beginning.
I don't think anybody on MN is disputing that this should have been talked about before the partnership went into effect so I don't think we need to keep talking about this.

I think the differences on this thread are...
1. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their business partners?
2. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their employees and customers who come to their place of business?
3. What kinds of expectations are reasonable for plain people to expect of people who frequently come to their home?
4. What values discussions and requests are plain people free to address with non-plain people and which ones are unreasonable?
I have worked with and in public all my life and have had very few bad experiences. One time a young Jehovah's Witness woman came into the workplace to share her message. I would have loved to tell her that if she wants to go witnessing, she should at least dress modestly. Instead I only told her that I do not respect her for coming in to talk to me on my employer's time. I told her it is okay to come to my home but visiting businesses to talk with employees is highly improper. One salesperson (female) used to come in dressed quite immodestly - if it would have been my business I would probably have requested that she not come in unless she was dressed more appropriately. This way I just tried to keep her visit short and never utilized her company's services.
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Neto
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Neto »

Ernie wrote:
Neto wrote:I think that a corporation can obviously have dress standards. But in a partnership, those issues should have been handled at the beginning.
I don't think anybody on MN is disputing that this should have been talked about before the partnership went into effect so I don't think we need to keep talking about this.

I think the differences on this thread are...
1. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their business partners?
2. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their employees and customers who come to their place of business?
3. What kinds of expectations are reasonable for plain people to expect of people who frequently come to their home?
4. What values discussions and requests are plain people free to address with non-plain people and which ones are unreasonable?
1.) I come back to the same thing - whatever was decided upon when the partnership was formed.
2A.) For employees, what ever the stipulations were when the person came to work for them, unless the employer institutes a change to something more lax.
2B.) Customers - Generally, only what is commonly accepted in general society, such as "No shirt, No Shoes, No service." You can attempt to establish a standard, and I think that it is within your right to make additional stipulations if they are clearly posted at the entrance, like I mentioned previously in reference to the government offices in Brazil.
3.) If they are believers, I would talk to them about any really flagrant immodesty, but if I was seeking to reach the person or family for Christ, then I would say very little, or meet them elsewhere, if I did not want my children to be exposed to their clothing choices.
4.) It seems to me, if I understand the question, that the answer would vary depending on the setting (i.e., home, business, or a public place).

This sort of ties in with your previous post, addressed to Sudsy, if I understood correctly. (See below.) But because we lived in this sort of setting, I will give my thoughts.
Ernie wrote: I assume that at some point in your interactions with natives in foreign missionary settings, you would encourage them to be kind to their neighbors, deal honestly, and not steal from others, even before they were committed Christians.
Just because God would give you the power and grace to interact with them while they are mean and dishonest, does not mean a person should wait till they are a Christian to teach them what God wants.

Just curious if you would wait till after they were Christians to start talking to them about modesty or if that is something you would talk to them about before they became a Christian?
We didn’t do any of these things. There is the witness of the Holy Spirit, both by example, and also by the image of God in their own life & culture. They already know that being unkind, dishonest, stealing, fighting, raping, killing – all of these things – they already know that these things are wrong (at least in relation to another person of their own tribe). Maybe some will think that our approach was off, but we didn’t see any benefit in trying to make them live like Christians before they had Christ in their life. Seems to me that creates false Christians.

Edited to add: Or is this the sort of example you are thinking of:
We did not allow other children to play war games at our home on the mission base. If they insisted, we sent them home.
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RZehr
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by RZehr »

Ernie wrote:
RZehr wrote:As far as the community garden goes, I would just leave the dress standards alone unless until an actual problem comes up.
If the garden is primarily for your personal use, then it is an extension of your home, and I would tend to be more restrictive.
If the garden in primarily to build relationships with people that come there to garden, I wouldn’t start off with restrictions. If you are successful in building relationships with an improperly dressed person, maybe you can use that as a teaching moment on the issue of clothes.
But I would not feel bad about banning a stiff-necked troublemaker from the project. And I wouldn’t be against a dress code either. I just probably wouldn’t start out with one.
So it is our garden, next to our house. Sometimes we invite people to be involved. Sometimes people ask if they can be involved. We already have had "problems come up".

In light of this added information, would you answer differently?
I feel that my personal home (in our culture) it is not a social place that is open to the general public. With your scenario, the public doesn't have a reason to assume they are welcome to join the gardening. It is by invitation, or permission. It is my belief that I have a high responsibility to keep my home environment pure, a responsibility that is not as high for a location where people have reason to assume they will be welcome as a member of the general public.
For that reason I would not feel comfortable having improperly dressed people regularly on my property and acting as if nothing is wrong with that.
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Sudsy
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Sudsy »

Ernie wrote: I assume that at some point in your interactions with natives in foreign missionary settings, you would encourage them to be kind to their neighbors, deal honestly, and not steal from others, even before they were committed Christians.
Just because God would give you the power and grace to interact with them while they are mean and dishonest, does not mean a person should wait till they are a Christian to teach them what God wants.

Just curious if you would wait till after they were Christians to start talking to them about modesty or if that is something you would talk to them about before they became a Christian?
I view this text 1 Cor 5:12 that says - 'What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? ' that I need not get involved with teaching them what God expects of them in their spiritually dead state.

So modesty would not be a topic I would talk to them about that God expects of them. In my experience, when God changes a person's heart, dressing modestly is often one of these changes that occurs as the Holy Spirit guides us to what God wants. My understanding of dressing modestly is not as much about avoiding sexual attraction but rather about not drawing the wrong kind of attention to one's appearance. Fancy and immodest clothes and hairdos and jewelry and tatoos, etc are means of attracting attention to the body whereas what scripture teaches is our adornments are to be our spiritual character and our good deeds. Jesus said we should first clean the inside of the cup and the outside will become clean too - Matthew 23:26 so that, imo, should be our primary mission with unbelievers. They first need to be born again and then to be baptised and filled with the Spirit to begin their learnings on what God desires.
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Neto
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Neto »

I've been thinking more about the question Ernie raised about talking with unbelievers about what is sinful, etc. This in the context of our missionary work among a tribal people. Here is what we DID do in that vein - when they asked me to, I read Scripture, and then explained it. Also, since they readily came & "confessed" the sins of others to us, we would reply with "We statements", using the 1st person inclusive plural pronoun, in other words, statements that included ourselves. I also confessed my own sins & shortcomings to them, as an example. So in that sense you might say that I talked to them about sin before they became the children of God, because I said "I did so-and-so, and that was bad. According to God's writing, It's bad for us (inclusive) to do that."
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Ernie
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Ernie »

Neto wrote:
Ernie wrote:
Neto wrote:I think that a corporation can obviously have dress standards. But in a partnership, those issues should have been handled at the beginning.
I don't think anybody on MN is disputing that this should have been talked about before the partnership went into effect so I don't think we need to keep talking about this.

I think the differences on this thread are...
1. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their business partners?
2. What kind of expectations are reasonable for plain businessmen to expect of their employees and customers who come to their place of business?
3. What kinds of expectations are reasonable for plain people to expect of people who frequently come to their home?
4. What values discussions and requests are plain people free to address with non-plain people and which ones are unreasonable?
1.) I come back to the same thing - whatever was decided upon when the partnership was formed.
2A.) For employees, what ever the stipulations were when the person came to work for them, unless the employer institutes a change to something more lax.
2B.) Customers - Generally, only what is commonly accepted in general society, such as "No shirt, No Shoes, No service." You can attempt to establish a standard, and I think that it is within your right to make additional stipulations if they are clearly posted at the entrance, like I mentioned previously in reference to the government offices in Brazil.
3.) If they are believers, I would talk to them about any really flagrant immodesty, but if I was seeking to reach the person or family for Christ, then I would say very little, or meet them elsewhere, if I did not want my children to be exposed to their clothing choices.
4.) It seems to me, if I understand the question, that the answer would vary depending on the setting (i.e., home, business, or a public place).
I wasn't asking for your opinion on these things. (although it is fine if you share them)
I'm saying that we on MennoNet differ on each of these four things. For example on #1, what I think may be reasonable to ask of a business partner when the partnership is formed, is different from what you think might be reasonable. Everybody on MennoNet agrees that you shouldn't spring something on somebody after the partnership is formed. Now if someone developed a conviction about something after the partnership is formed, then they would need to go to the other partners and explain what has transpired in their heart and be willing to exit the partnership and take a loss.
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The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
Neto
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Neto »

Ernie wrote: I wasn't asking for your opinion on these things. (although it is fine if you share them)
I'm saying that we on MennoNet differ on each of these four things. For example on #1, what I think may be reasonable to ask of a business partner when the partnership is formed, is different from what you think might be reasonable. Everybody on MennoNet agrees that you shouldn't spring something on somebody after the partnership is formed. Now if someone developed a conviction about something after the partnership is formed, then they would need to go to the other partners and explain what has transpired in their heart and be willing to exit the partnership and take a loss.
Sorry, without intonation in spoken language, I misunderstood it as a set of questions to answer. But anyway, I agree with what you've written here. It doesn't really matter if we agree on what might be reasonable for one partner to ask another when the business is being formed, but I would say that any thing at all is reasonable, if it is an area of concern for one of the individuals. So I wouldn't say that you & I disagree on what can be brought up in partnership discussions. (Maybe your 'you' was the plural 2nd person; English doesn't distinguish, at least not in your dialect.) Everything should be on the table at that time. That's how these situations can be avoided later, unless, as you say, convictions change. (And I also agree with the solution as you described it here.)
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Ernie
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Re: Proper expectations on unbelievers

Post by Ernie »

Neto wrote:
Ernie wrote: I assume that at some point in your interactions with natives in foreign missionary settings, you would encourage them to be kind to their neighbors, deal honestly, and not steal from others, even before they were committed Christians.
Just because God would give you the power and grace to interact with them while they are mean and dishonest, does not mean a person should wait till they are a Christian to teach them what God wants.

Just curious if you would wait till after they were Christians to start talking to them about modesty or if that is something you would talk to them about before they became a Christian?
We didn’t do any of these things. There is the witness of the Holy Spirit, both by example, and also by the image of God in their own life & culture. They already know that being unkind, dishonest, stealing, fighting, raping, killing – all of these things – they already know that these things are wrong (at least in relation to another person of their own tribe). Maybe some will think that our approach was off, but we didn’t see any benefit in trying to make them live like Christians before they had Christ in their life. Seems to me that creates false Christians.

Edited to add: Or is this the sort of example you are thinking of:
We did not allow other children to play war games at our home on the mission base. If they insisted, we sent them home.
Yes. Your last example is the kind of thing I am thinking of. I don't see any difference between asking children to not play war games or asking them to wear a shirt when they come to play.

Traditionally, Evangelicals have thought in terms of presenting the Gospel to people and try to help them become saved, and then disciple them. My experiences the last year having Bible studies with pagan Chinese is to teach what it means to be a disciple and explain how God miraculously saves those who choose to be a disciple. I encouraged my students to read the Bible, pray, love their enemies, etc. I let the Lord decide how and when he wants to save them. I don't feel like that is my responsibility.
My experience mirrors that of a friend who is hiring Somalian Muslim refugees and training them in Kingdom of God principles at the same time he is training them in Graphic Design.
Both of us will be talking about our experiences at REACH if you have further interest.
Perhaps we need to start another thread about Discipleship and New Birth and whether it matters which one comes first.
0 x
The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
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