Hey simple olh Larry just wanted to address an issue that’s been brought up in a lot of Christian communities a lot of Greek black Greek communities and people that aren’t in Greek letter organizations and the issue is can you be a Christian operating as a Christian
And still be a part of one of these organizations I’m speaking from of course my own personal perspective my own theology and my own experiences with obviously Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated which is the organization that were part of the first the arguments out on the table are ones of
We being some sort of devil worshippers they Greek the organization’s worship Satan if you will in some cases the arguments are they become false gods or idols in our lives some cases you see different arguments of how can you be a brother to a non-believer that’s that was one argument that’s actually been
Brought up in seminary my time I tell my seminary student and just various different arguments about whether or not you can really truly be sold out for God and be in a Greek letter organization a lot of people on the opposing side have said that Greek letter organizations
Represent a world system and the Bible says for us to be in this world but not of this world so when we look at of this world a lot of people take that from a outward perspective in terms of how you dress the the type of organizations are
Involved in how you look other people use associate yourself with it reflects an outward thing but if we really look at what the text says in the Bible during the Gospels and first what Paul and the different possible said they were really speaking to invert transformation when we think about what
The world will like the difference between Jews and Gentiles who look at the context of what people actually looked like back then there weren’t a whole lot of differences of course you notice the difference between Gentiles and Jews versus Jews and Greeks and all these different segments based off of their cultures of
The way that they speak circumcision obviously their rituals of Prayer and a lot of those different aspects those are the aspects that were really differences that distinguish people but if you looked at what Paul was seeking to do Paul being apostle to both Jews and Gentiles he kind of became all things to
All men so that he may win them and I believe that that argument still applies today now where this plays into Greek letter organizations let’s deal with the various aspects of people constantly attacked number one how can you be a brother to someone that is a non-believer
I myself have younger brother he does happen to be a believer but should he not be a believer that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s any less my brother what that really means is that he and I don’t share that level of Brotherhood I believe that the highest Brotherhood that you could have with
Someone is to be their Christian brother that’s even above your blood below the brother that’s even above your relationship in Alpha Phi Alpha or any other type of Brotherhood that you may have the highest level Brotherhood that you can achieve with someone is to be their brother in Christ Jesus Christ
Himself had brothers James was known as one of his brothers so we look at all those different aspects when people asked him you know who is his brother he said his brother was whoever does the Loden work of the Father that meant that that Brotherhood superseded the Brotherhood of the natural sense okay
So to say that me being an alpha and having an alpha brother is unbiblical I would take offense or not so much offense but issue with that because he is my brother however that brother doesn’t supersede the Brotherhood that I’ve established with those in Christ and that doesn’t
Necessarily mean that I fellowship with those who are outside of the body okay you fellowship with ones in terms of exchanging ideas and exchanging them information pertaining to your beliefs and things like that and people who you have let influence you a lot of those people in my life are Christian so I
Think that to take the argument of can this person really be my brother is not necessarily one of true validity because of the fact that like we said we have brothers in a natural sense there are other Brotherhood’s such as the fireman’s Brotherhood such as a police Fraternal Order these are all different
Other fraternal orders but are they satanic because they’re not their emphasis is not a Christian I don’t think so personally that doesn’t necessarily line up with what I believe the scriptures are telling us about what it means to be in a Brotherhood I believe the Scriptures are just telling
Us how we are to relate with our Christian brothers all right the next thing that I like to address is the whole notion of being Greek a lot of people take issue with that because of Greek gods and goddesses and saying on part of a Greek fraternity we’re
Ascribing to that particular tradition I don’t think that we’re necessarily as as part of a Greek letter organization ascribing to any type of Greek gods and goddesses on mysticism in that respect I think that Greek culture just as Egyptian culture just as all these cultures have played their role in
Shaping history as well as shaping people in general if you look at what the words occurred in the biblical sense Hellenistic culture in a lot of sense is shaped the beginning of Christianity if you think about it because a lot of the places that were that were that the
Gospel was spread was under what we would call a Greek Roman influence being in the Roman Empire so to use that and say oh well we’re ascribing to some sort of traditions of Greek culture yes there were a lot of traditions that it’s time however because of all these
Different religions one of the one of the theologies that I’ve learned in New Testament theology is that with us being with Greek being so open to different religions it made it that much easier at the time for the gospel to be spread to those who didn’t believe although the
Church was persecuted that was one of the factors that played into the beginning of the early church one of the other aspects that I believe is also mentioned is Egypt a lot of people come at me personally in terms of my fraternity and the the references to
Egypt however if you look at scripture there was a point in time where Egypt was submitting to God’s rule that was a time where Joseph was more an authoritative figure Egypt as a whole withdrew and kind of fell shortened and it fell off in terms of how it used to
Follow the lead of the Hebrews the lead of the Hebrew men of God so there was a point in time in Egypt culture where Egypt wasn’t under a anti-god pagan mystic type of influence so to say that oh because we embrace Egyptian culture there are a lot of things that we do
Learn from the different culture and Greek culture such as mathematics such as all these different things that that we’ve taken intellectually women can even embrace the fact that they there was a period of time biblically where they were under God so just addressing that issue as well um
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