Man who is created with two hands and two legs has a sole purpose for the Creator to make in His own image and likeness, despite God can do any work without any hands and legs. The difference between man and animal is that man is two-footed and animal four-footed, and the power of speech given to man for the control of animals and universe also is an exclusive right and privilege that exhibit that he is the highest creation of the created order. Just as animals cannot communicate in lucid language to the steward of this planet, man is also restricted in talking to God in our everyday life, though he can do it at a higher level of his extrasensory solitude. We hear God’s speech when we are mute, so also man is able to listen to animals even if they can’t speak in clear language; barking or bellowing surely convey something. Psalms 19 reminds us that silence is the language of the created order and universe. “Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth”, Ps.46: 10.

Despite man and animal have digestive and reproductive systems, the exclusive power of speech given to man is for the glorification of God’s exalted position, and the hands given to man is the completion of our worship of God at the Altar and by giving our service to God’s handcrafted creatures, our brethren. Seemingly, this is the reason for Jesus short listing the Ten Commandments under the two headings of worshipping the Creator by glorification and helping our brothers by our charity works. God has no tongue but ours; God has no hands but ours. “Your need is greater than that of mine”, Philip Sydney, is the lifeblood of our philosophy. If there were no other human being on earth, we also would have walked and lived like animals that walk on four feet, hence the existence of other homo sapiens is a great gift given to us by God; consequently we ought to serve others is a law that is replete with a sacrosanct self-interest self-motive.

Functions of the tongue and hand:
The hand and tongue given to man have been taken as the weapons for a class war after his epic fall from grace. The masculine man tries to bring woman to his control by the use of his strong muscular hand that has been a cause for family feud and distress, whereas woman’s sharp weapon of tongue that goes deeper into the heart which is fathomless is the organ that can either create a harmonious or acrimonious venue whether at home or elsewhere. “We men rule the world, and our womenfolk rule us”, is the exasperate utterance of Bismarck, the iron man of the world. He was a sick hen in front of his wife; then what to speak of men’s role in this corrupt age of secular equality which is distinctly different from natural equality of complementing role functions given in the Divine law that govern the universe, Is.3: 12.

The first commandment was given to Adam before the creation of Eve, and there is no proof that God ever spoken to her. Adam obeyed the commandment implicitly and didn’t dare using his tongue to question or argue about it in timelessness, whereas Eve’s counter questions and baffling answers to the infernal guard made a magnetic effect that enticed her to touch the fruit. Using her tongue that gave the magnetic communication to the hand was the reason for the first man’s and his partner’s plunge into the abyss. The tongue and hand that differentiate man from animals, therefore, have been disallowed her to recite the celebrant’s role at the Altar and touch the Holy Mysteries, the Eucharist, the fruit from the Tree of Life. The tongue and the hand that she used for counterargument and plucking the fruit has been the real tragedy that vibrate upon each human being since then.

Special considerations and financial encouragements are given by Governments to the male to join in the teaching workforce today, so as to enable them to boost the morale of the downtrodden boys who lost the vision of their roles due to the tacit passivity of the role model status of the majority female teachers and girl students, thereby boys losing their masculine roles that play a vital role in protecting the family and society. Maternity is for caring and nourishing the family for its growth and welding with the fire of love, and paternity for earning a good name that protect and insulate the family from any evil effects which may befall on the family in the social intercourse of life. The tongue is the most used weapon that either can create a miniature heaven or hell. “If any man thinks that he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is vain, Jas.1: 26…So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great is a forest set ablaze by a small fire… and the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell….From the same mouth come blessing and cursing…Jas.3: 5-18.”

Tithe:
Many people claim that they give the tithe and are blessed abundantly by earthly rewards. It is a great sacrifice that they setting apart and giving what is due to God of the Old Testament period, forgetting that there is no mention of the tithe by Jesus or the apostles. The Beatitudes suggests to give 100%of our belongings to the person who sues us, Mt.5: 40, and John the Baptist recommends to give to the needy if only one needs the other 50%, Lk.3: 11. The early Christians sold all that they had and submitted themselves and everything to the apostles; Annanias and Saphira died instantly on account of keeping the 50% for them. The widow and her two penny is the model of Christian worship and charity; first she offered herself at the Temple, secondly she put all her possessions at the Temple treasury.

Not only that the early Christians sold everything and made themselves as mere paupers, but also they had the unity of mind that helped them to worship the God who has no place on earth to hide His face. Non-possessiveness is the supreme quality that helps us to unlock our hearts to a pauper God of Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient, just as children who have nothing in this world can easily socialize whole-heartedly with other children of any ethnic origin, caste or creed. A humble and simple heart that kindles the fire of pure and higher love is the greatest possession in this world. The unity of one heart and one soul, Acts.4: 32, is the quality of Christian love that drive out the passion of possessiveness.

Offerings of the New Age:
No obligation to give the tithe in this age of mercy, but we are indebted to give ourselves first to God and then to our brethren, so also all what we have, despite we don’t have anything in this world except the stewardship because ownership of everything belongs to God. The same is the reason for the hindrance of the wealthy into the land of the living. Therefore, nothing is ours on this earth that is revolving and rotating on its own imaginary axis, having no fixities and defenities in itself. Sell all our possessions and give it to the poor is the language of the NT age, Mt.19. Give to one who ask is the order or quality of this age, Lk.6: 27-38, because ‘Freely you have received; freely you give’ is the modus-operandi. Jesus who liberated us from the yoke of Satan is the only possession for us in this world; He is a gift of the Father who loves the world. Not only that He emptied Himself His equality with the Father, but also He became our food that earns our permanent residence in the highest place in the galaxy. Acquire the celestial food by selling the earthly food is the logic of salvation, just as Jacob bought his birth right by selling the bowl of soup. If belly teaches all arts, empty half our belly and give the rest of the food to the needy, so that we earn our celestial food by the sacrifice of the moth-eating food which perishes, Jn.6: 27.

Charity Collections:
Just as Jesus had a charity fund, Jn.12, the apostles also didn’t prescribe for the tithe; st.paul collected contributions, not the one tenths, for the saints. ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven”, Mt.19: 21. “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come…..to carry your gift to Jerusalem”, Cor.16: 1-4. Almsgiving and charity gifts are as old as life itself, Mt.6; 1-4; Elk. 11: 41. Cornelius, a devout man, who feared God with his entire household, gave alms liberally to the people, and prayed constantly to God, Acts.10: 2. There is no hard and fast rule in giving; the sky is the limit of the suffering people. Our body, wealth and the whole household comes under the category of our possessions that are to be dispensed with for the love of the Almighty. Complaining against giving and receiving has no meaning. “Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last, Mt.20: 15. The reason for many people to go to inter-continental places and serve the poor and the marginalized ones is due to the love for God that impels them to sacrifice themselves for others.

Jesus’ self-sacrifice:
There was no worldly possession for Jesus to give to others, other than the part of alms given by some loved ones for feeding at least the twelve disciples who were the retinues which used to follow Him always. But He also shared from the spiritual food that He had, Jn.4: 32, such as enlightening others by healing the sick, feeding the multitude while they ended up in uninhabited places, consoling the broken-hearted and chastising the hypocrites and sowing the seeds of the kingdom of God. He proved Himself as the Son of the living God by the reclusive lifestyle and helping the storm-tossed ones that are caught up under the slavery of Satan. Hadn’t Jesus cut a way through the Devil’s aerial realm of Oyar by His precious blood, Ps.24, a way to Heaven is still eternally impossible for man to achieve at any cost. His aim to open a gateway to Heaven by cutting through the realm of Oyar that was the only narrow path left for man to go through to the abode of the Most High was achieved by the sacrifice of the unblemished one. Despite His crucifiers were not aware of the then closed eternal door to Heaven, to kill the Lamb after getting the unearthly help for the chronic victims of Satan was an ungrateful act of treachery that was played upon the Holy One.

The Saviour’s passive role:
The self-centered ones assumed that the miracles that He performed were with the aid of the demons. They had thought that if they didn’t lay their hands upon Him, He might establish a kingdom of Beelzebub by annihilating all of the Jewish hierarchy that was trying to fight against and defeat the Roman bondage. Giving tax to Caesar was a pretext of appeasing the conqueror who might help Jesus in finishing off with the Jewish hierarchy. Jesus was in between the deep sea and the devil due to the inability in not divulging out His Divinity openly because His anonymity was a shield for Him; otherwise the Devil wouldn’t have crucified the Son of Man who ought to liberate mankind at one point of history. In order to compensate His anonymity He served them with Heavenly and earthly food. They wanted miracles that were the food of the prophets of the OT life. Despite He served them with the food of the miracles, they were not happy due to the fact that they were yet run by sensual instincts, thinking that black powers was the art of His success. As they were the slaves of the passions of the flesh, neither the inner nor physical food provided by the Lamb was palatable to them.

He offered His Heavenly service to a bunch of ignorant lot of His own ethnic race that often proves to be a universal cudgel which works against the providers. Betrayal by one’s own kindred is always a universal truth. Betrayal and ingratitude comes from within the same group or family. The spouse betraying the spouse, son treating the father treacherously and the daughter fighting against the mother and the mother-in- law ill-treating the daughter-in-law and vice-versa are all naked truths that cannot be genetically modified by easy means. “Diamond cuts down diamond itself’ and the dog eats dog’s flesh is a fact that cannot be modified by known methods because hatred and ingratitude are the basic outcomes of the forbidden fruit which work in the form of sexual magnetism of love and hate passions simultaneously. This is the reason for Jesus’ statement, “A prophet is not without honour save in his own town”. They didn’t believe in Him, the reason for Him not making any miracles in Capernaum, His father’s birth place. A saint is a saint only if we look at him from a distance. A servant doesn’t find the greatness of his master, so also a wife of her husband and vice-versa.

Ingratitude:
The core aim of ingratitude is the selfishness that makes a metal frame of protection from outside forces. The breeding ground of ingratitude is from our own close circles. The Canaanite woman had the humility of accepting the crumbs from the master’s table with gratitude. Jesus cleansed ten lepers, but only one of them came to express his obligation of giving thanks to the cleanser. “Was no one found to return and give praise God except this foreigner? Where are the nine?” Lk.17: 11-19. This sort of lifestyle exacerbates the relationship of family members who are reaping the harvest of the fossil money by going abroad, after leaving their spouses and children. Unless they give the expected share quite regularly to the peripheral recipients, their own family members will rise in rebellion against their own kiths and kinds and become dead enemies for life. This is a paradox of life that even spouse or children themselves will betray one another due to the excess of artificial money of the modern age. As a consequence of the excess minting of fossil money that has manufactured dysfunctional families has become a painful sore to the society. The nuclear and also in many cases the extended families are the prototypes of manufacturing dysfunctional families that fall into the snares of the Devil very easily.

Over protection:
Self love that begets ingratitude is the gateway for the protection of the nuclear family. Thanks to the progress of Family Planning that can curtail the family size with one or two children who enjoy all types of high-tech blessings due to the exorbitant income of money, at the same time the parents who also try to enjoy the marital lifestyle with all available extravaganzas overprotect children by giving anything that please them, so that they make it as a chance to alienate them from their un-wealthy relatives who expect many things for the service they rendered them previously. Alienation is a wise tool of giving overprotection to their own children. Overfeeding with obese food and medical and food supplements and medical treatment are only a couple of maltreatments that the ignorant parents always feed with their young ones. Without understanding anything about genetics and spirituality the parents push and pressurize their children to get the highest scores in their examinations that should achieve them to get a covetable job and position in society. The parents who don’t realize the body chemistry, metabolism psychology or physiology push and overfeed them for better scoring of marks that needs private tuitions, making them unfit in body mechanism and normal social life. I said so much to convey that we cherish an anti-social life, due to the fact that once we become self-sufficient in life. We ignore the people who helped us to build our foundations. Ingratitude thy name is man!! Such bunch of people first shows their bitterness to God and then to man. This is a paradox of life that proves that human beings are no better than the apes.

Jesus, the way of salvation:
The Saviour owes anything neither to His family nor any other human beings. He came down by offerings Himself as a self -sacrifice that carved out our salvation. We owe everything that includes our breath and blood to Him. Not only that he earned us an eternal place in the Heavenly mansions but also helped us to be liberated from Satan’s bondage that crippled us spiritually and physically for ever. Chronic sicknesses that are the infections of the demonic forces could be healed only by spiritual medications. Jesus cured the physical and inner infirmities of the multitude and Adam’s race by evicting the infernal forces who preyed upon the spiritual outcasts for 4,000 years. Nobody other than the unblemished Lamb could take an immaculate conception in a virgin, could pray for the crucifiers who crucified for no guilt of His own, resurrect by bursting open the sepulcher seal on the third day and ascend to the Infinite heights. If this is the sufferings for the salvation of mankind, the help of freeing the sick and the lame from the slavery of Satan and feeding the multitude with nourishing food and keeping firm in their faith are worth for our earthly life. The spiritual nourishment of providing His living Body and curing the physical ailments and providing the earthly food are His free gifts to us.

Other side of the coin:
The other side of the coin is the ingratitude that exhibits against Him plagues against man for his spiritual progress. Jesus’ heart was cut apart due to the thanklessness of the people whom He loved so dearly. Jesus’ kindred thought as alleged, “He is beside himself”, Mk.3: 21, and wanted to drag Him away from public life. “For even his brothers did not believe in him, Jn.7: 4-5, consequently they said to Him, “Leave here and go to Judea that your disciples may see your work you are doing”. As the Jews wanted to kill Him, His brothers wanted to escape from the aftermath of the bloodshed that might create detrimental problems for them.

The Jews wanted to kill Him because they thought that He was a traitor. He came down to save us, but they disowned Him due to their spiritual blindness that they imagined that their earthly positions would be in jeopardy. King Herod was a cunning fox that bought the Jewish kingship by bribing Caesar and wanted to keep it at any cost. He would lose his position if Jesus became the king. Pilate, though he knew that Jesus was innocent washed of his hand for his position as Governor of Palestine and the surrounding provinces.

Thus, the trinity of power mongers wanted to crucify the immaculate Incarnate for their own earthly glory. The sinless One called Herod as a cunning fox because it was not a false statement. Judas’ betrayal from the inner sanctum was a heinous treachery; thus he was called as Satan. The greatest man on earth doubted the Master’s identity. The denial of St.Peter added the pain of the wounds of ‘Prajapathy’, making an outcast in His own household. “If one asks him, ‘what are these wounds on your back’? He will say, ‘the wounds I have received in the house of my friends’”, Zech.13: 6; 7: 11-14. Despite He came down to His own kindred, He was done away with maliciously, notwithstanding, He paid back our debts by carrying the burden of our own sins and praying for our infirmities to be forgiven by sitting at the right hand of the Father.

Role Model Status:
I cry for my helplessness to live as a follower of our role model because of the stains of my shortfalls, as I go in tune with the call of the flesh. If Jesus is our role model, we have to do all what He had shown to us by the pain of His flesh and feelings. When people treat us maliciously, do we have the intention and courage to forgive and pray for their ignorance and foibles? When our own household members ill-treat us for no faults of our own, do we have the courage and determination in forgiving and praying for the faults of them. We find excuses and try to fight against them. Knowing well that the family feuds that the fossil money creates are havocs, do we try to solve the problems by the tacit methods of patience that our Saviour used? When our neighbors and daily friends turn against us and abuse for what we haven’t done against them or anybody, what tools do we have to employ in neutralizing the boiling acrimonious situations?

The righteous people always will have dead enemies who are employed by the hit man, Satan? Satan’s friends become the enemy of virtuous people. The fight against Satan is equivalent to a world war in real terms for an individual. Don’t think that God always will give us victory in earthly terms, similar to once what David did to Goliath. Life is a defeat and wins war that occasionally frustrates our good intentions and our thirst for virtuosity. What Jesus did always was good, but most of the times the reactions from them was adverse and acrimonious to Him and His mission. What we do is that we identify with righteous people and claim that our stand is perfectly ideal and try to over-impose our idiosyncrasies over others. Jesus is God and we are frail human beings with bundle of contradictions and shortcomings.

Despite our saviour was always right, He didn’t want to subdue and defeat them by falsities and unwanted arguments. His retortive method of answering had thrown the hecklers into utter disarray. Not only that He carried the yoke of Adam’s sin and nullified them by His own blood but also forgave all what they had done against Him maliciously. We also have two main roles in our life, firstly to share the burden by sacrificing our life for others; secondly the fallout that we suffer for the help we have rendered to them is to be treated as our prime duty in life which has some inherent side effects. Unless we have the patience of undergoing sufferings and sacrificing our life for others, we end up like Saul, the first king of Israel.

People claim that so many things were done for certain people, but not reciprocating in the way that we have done. If the recipient responds well, know that the timely help was sincere, otherwise for selfish helps given to others may crop up problems from the other side. Jesus’ enemies were mainly the onlookers who want to destroy His mission, but most of the times our enemies are the recipients themselves. Benevolent giving reaps up rewards, insincere help for establishing our authority over others will have backlashes. Jesus’ mission that helped the outcast and the storm-tossed was His selfless service, but the enemies who stood against His sincere service were totally besieged at the end. However, it is not easy to erase from our thoughts for the ingratitude and the resultant torture that others cause for our free and benevolent service rendered for others.

The head side of the coin of Christian life is the pure and true worship of God with our whole heart and strength and the tail side is the righteous life of Christian endurance. Instead of highlighting our service to others, think that we have done something that God had made us as the instruments for some timely service. We don’t have anything to claim because we give to others what have been given to us as a gift. It is only a transfer of service that we have got from God. A selfless service always will be recognized, as we worship our Rescuer who parachuted down into the abyss for lifting us up. Don’t waste time against our thankless friends who are, after all, a bundle of flesh that is weak. The Christian endurance that goes through fire and flood is the way to salvation. “No thorn, no crown”. “When you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘we are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’”, Lk.17: 10. Having blind faith in the redemptive mission of Jesus and the culture of forgiving and forgetting like a child is the starting point for the Marathon race of our salvation. “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it”, Lk.18: 17.