{"id":615,"date":"2006-10-03T11:01:51","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T11:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res.html"},"modified":"2006-10-03T11:01:51","modified_gmt":"2006-10-03T11:01:51","slug":"the-churchs-res","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res.html","title":{"rendered":"The Church’s Responsibility to Orphans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Convar216_1\"<\/a> I’m reading an amazing book right now entitled, Under the Influence<\/a> by Alvin Schmidt. It describes the role of the early church and what they ‘did’ that attracted so many people to Christianity. <\/p>\n

What did they do you ask? Any guesses? You got it! They rescued the orphan, they took in the babies the Romans were sacrificing to pagan Gods. Poor people would sell their babies to the rich and the rich would literally cut the baby’s throats and throw them on the ground to die. It was sport to them. The early Christians bought the babies from the poor and cared for them as their own. The very first cases of Christian adoption!<\/p>\n

Why did they do this? Because they understood the value of a child. They knew how much God loved these babies. They knew how precious and special they were because they were created in the image of God. These kinds of practices defined the early Christians. They loved the orphan, because the understood that orphans are "King’s Kids!" <\/p>\n

\"July_trip_280\"<\/a> That’s why Psalm 68:5 tells us that "God is a Father to the fatherless." He loves the orphan and he’s given us the role of taking care of them. We get to be the Father’s Heart to them, we are His voice and His hands. It’s the greatest job we will ever have this side of eternity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m reading an amazing book right now entitled, Under the Influence by Alvin Schmidt. It describes the role of the early church and what they ‘did’ that attracted so many people to Christianity. What did they do you ask? Any guesses? You got it! They rescued the orphan, they took in the babies the Romans…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Church's Responsibility to Orphans - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Church's Responsibility to Orphans - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’m reading an amazing book right now entitled, Under the Influence by Alvin Schmidt. It describes the role of the early church and what they ‘did’ that attracted so many people to Christianity. What did they do you ask? Any guesses? You got it! 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}