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Secrets of the Kingdom Life  /  Chapter 25, How Church Standards Can Help  /  Discussion Questions
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Question 10
The standards also require positive duties—merciful care for bodies and souls, economic preference for fellow believers (“buying from one another… helping each other in business”), frugality so “the gospel is not reproached,” and disciplined practices like fasting and the Lord’s Supper; what would it cost your life (time, money, reputation, relationships) to adopt even a portion of that “rule of life,” and what might it reveal about what you most fear losing?
Another way to ask: If you tried to follow even part of this “rule of life” (mercy, simple living, helping believers, fasting, Communion), what would it cost you in time, money, reputation, or relationships? What might that show about what you’re most afraid to lose?

Direct Answer The transcript suggests adopting this rule of life would cost real time (weekly meetings, prayer, Scripture, fasting), real money (giving to the needy, simpler living), and possibly reputation (bearing “the reproach of Christ”). It would reveal whether we fear losing comfort, social approval, financial security, or independence more than we desire to “work out” salvation in community.

Support from Transcript:

  • Positive duties include mercy “to their bodies” (feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick or in prison) and “to their souls” (instruct, reprove, exhort).
  • Economic obligations are explicit: “employing them preferably… buying from one another, helping each other in business.”
  • Lifestyle expectations: “living with all possible diligence and frugality, so that the gospel is not reproached.”
  • Spiritual disciplines required: “public worship… the supper of the Lord… family and private prayer… searching the Scriptures, fasting or abstinence.”
  • Social cost is expected: “willingly bearing the reproach of Christ… expecting that men will say all manner of evil… falsely.”
Discussion Follow-ups Which cost feels most threatening—money, time, or reputation? How might “watching over one another in love” require surrendering independence, not just habits?

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