Page 22 22 The call to be a Bethany is not a call to individual prayer or Bible study. This is not at all what I’m saying. It is a call to live as a community–to live out your life in the context of a body of believers who are making a home for their Lord together . . . to give Him a place to lay His head. The early church gathered together daily in one form or another. They lived a shared life together. The church does not exist to make you and me better citizens in society. That is incidental. It’s not what the church is. The church is an alternative society. It’s not a supplement to this world. It’s a world of its own out of which we live our lives in society as God’s people. And God’s people live as a shared-life community. Make no mistake about it: You cannot separate devotion to Jesus Christ from devotion to His house. God wants a Bethany. An extended family made up of sisters and brothers who give Christ His rightful place. You can’t be a home for Christ yourself. It takes a community of believers to do that. And it requires your time . . . a great deal of your time. Let’s now look at the fourth and final narrative.
Remember children are born with a definite bias towards evil, and therefore if you let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong… (Their) hearts are like the earth on which we walk; leave it alone, and it is sure to bear weeds.
J.C. Ryle