There is no real religion without ministry, no true spirituality without service. It’s all about people. Everything else is theology and academia. It’s very stimulating and interesting to discuss so many issues but the bottom line isn’t what you believe- it’s what you do with what you believe.
Joshua studied, it’s true. He studied human beings, trying to understand how they thought and felt. He did this not out of dispassionate intellectual curiosity but because he wanted to help them and he needed to know how. A doctor can’t really help a patient unless he thoroughly understands the nature of the problem.
Joshua also spent a lot of time in intense study trying to understand the religions of the world as well as science and mathematics and many other things. He was a Renaissance man in some ways - he had a well-rounded character and a broad-minded, big-hearted worldview. He was cosmopolitan even though he was down to earth.
He was an intellectual genius but he wasn’t a snob. Everything he learned he tried to teach others in such a way that the common person could understand it. He dumbed it down. He tried to teach religion in the simplest terms, drawing on examples from nature that everyone understands.
He didn’t try to appeal to the wealthy or intellectual class but instead appealed to the poorest, working classes and those society had rejected. He went after the sinners, the lost, the downtrodden, the depressed and the marginalized.
”Go out quickly, therefore, into the streets and lanes of the city, out into the highways and the byways, and bring hither the poor and the outcast, the blind and the lame, that the marriage feast may have guests.”
He taught that a tree is known by it’s fruit. Fruits means acts of service. “I serve, therefore I am” might be a good motto for a follower of Joshua ben Joseph. There is always someone who needs you, there’s always someone who is in a worse space than you no matter how bad things seem. Everyone has a personal ministry. Just remember to keep it simple. 🌳🍎👍😊
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