The General Letter of Phileo Agape to the Americans

Chapter 1

1. Phileo Agape, one sent of Jesus Christ, to the ecclesia of God in America
2. To those who have been separated from the world and adopted into the holy family of God:
3. Grace and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. I know of your deeds, and the struggles you have had, to set up and maintain your lampstand in a dark world.
5. I know the trials you have faced: accidents and illnesses and unemployment, and the discouragement you feel when your brothers and sisters fall away from the Truth.
6. But nothing has happened to you which is extraordinary for the people of God.
7. You must remember that it is through much tribulation that we will enter the kingdom.
8. To paraphrase one of your own songwriters, God “never promised you a rose garden.”
9. Don’t you realize that you are always in God’s hands? He has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”
10. You know, don’t you, that life in the Truth isn’t supposed to be easy? You know, don’t you, that there are supposed to be tough choices and hard times?
11. That must be so, because you have promised to follow Christ, and that means, as he said, taking up a cross (a cross! brothers and sisters) and following him.
12. I do have some words of admonition for you, and I must write them, although it is not pleasant for me.
13. I must not shirk my responsibility, and that is to declare to you all of God’s counsel, as I understand it.
14. I do this, not out of any sense of superiority — because we (you and I) are all sinners, and all in need of exhortation and forgiveness.

Chapter 2

1. Brothers and sisters, I hear that you have been whining and complaining about your hard times and your problems.
2. Don’t you know that real faith, if you exercise it, rules out all fretting and grumbling?
3. Our Lord gave a command — not a suggestion –when he said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.”
4. And he meant what he said. Moses didn’t climb mount Sinai to receive ten “suggestions”!
5. Why do you groan and moan, like you are the only people who ever had problems?
6. Is it because you can’t really see God’s future promises, and the glories of the kingdom that is being prepared for you?
7. If this is so, why can’t you “see” that wonderful hope?
8. I believe I know the answer: it’s because you are not reading your Bibles as you should.
9. In Jamaica and Guyana and parts of Africa, there are brethren in Christ (“Christadelphians”) far worse off materially than you, in every way that can be measured — ten times worse off.
10. Sometimes they don’t have enough to eat, and when they get sick they don’t always have doctors and medicine.
11. But they don’t worry and complain like you do; they get on with the business of living as best they can, they preach to their neighbors about the Truth, and they sing hymns while they go about their daily tasks.

12. For them the kingdom is a reality, no question about it!
13. I pray to God it might become the same reality to all of you.
14. Like I said, I believe most of your poor attitudes arise directly from your disinterest in real Bible study.
15. And I am especially distressed with those of you who have been in the Truth for several years.
16. You ought to be setting the example for those who are new to the Truth: they ought to see your enthusiasm for the Bible, your eager attendance at every Bible class, and your daily Bible reading.
17. They don’t know any better; they might suppose that the Christadelphians on a daily basis are not really any different from others, because they only have you for examples.
18. Do you realize that your laziness is the only example they have? And that you are pulling them down along with yourselves?
19. Brothers and sisters (and especially am I still writing to those of you who have been in Christ for several years), you are the ones who should be leaders.
20. Some of you are even called “arranging brothers:” you have willingly assumed a responsibility for the whole ecclesia.
21. What are you doing to build up the “young ones?”
22. I grieve when I hear that Bible classes have attendance of only six, seven or eight.
23. If you wonder why you are spiritually low, then you don’t have to look any further; there’s your answer.
24. And if you don’t think there’s a problem, then you are even worse off than I first thought.
25. If the blind are leading the blind, as our Lord said, then soon everyone will fall into the ditch; and there will be no more lampstand in America. And it will be your fault.

Chapter 3

1. Why is there so little preaching going on any more? At one time, the American ecclesia was alive and excited about the Truth, and eager to share it with others.
2. Of course, I know what you are going to say; that some of the brethren actively involved in that work have left America to go elsewhere, and that others cannot or will not help.
3. So what? Our beloved apostle Paul preached in a hundred towns and cities, and when he left one place to go to another, the ecclesia he left behind had to do without his help. But most times they worked even harder after he was gone.
4. Why aren’t you doing the same thing? Don’t you care any more?
5. Christ has a lot of people in America — they belong to him: they just don’t know it yet. You have to go and tell them.
6. Don’t you care about them? Don’t you have compassion on them, just like our Lord has had compassion on us?
7. They are waiting for you, they need what you alone of all the people in America can supply.
8. And what are you doing about it? You are feeling sorry for yourselves when you should be feeling sorry for them!
9. One of your philosophers said, “People wrapped up in themselves make very small packages.”
10. Break out of your “wrapping paper” and look around. God needs people who are willing to do something for him. God needs you.
11. I perceive in your midst a very strange way of thinking. It goes something like this:

12. “Since times are hard, we need to work even harder to take care of ourselves, and we need to spend even more time than before to get good educations and good jobs so we can take care of our futures.”
13. Foolish Americans, and slow of heart to believe, don’t you know, don’t you believe, that today, and tomorrow, and next year, and the year 2020 — for that matter — are in God’s hands?
14. Take care of your duties to God first; seek his kingdom first; and see that your children do the same. Then all the other things you need (or think you need) will be added unto you.
15. He will see to that! Or don’t you really believe that any more? I know you once did.
16. Some of you say you are “social people,” and you need close friends, and lots of busy, “fun” activities, and that since you can’t find them in the ecclesia then you must look outside.
17. What is that but one more round­about way of complaining? And you all seem to do that better than anything.
18. Don’t you know that “the friendship of this world is enmity toward God?” If you would read your Bibles, you’d know that.
19. And you’d know also that the only true and lasting friendship is based upon, and centered around, God’s message in the Bible.
20. Some of you are looking in all the wrong places for something that only God can provide.
21. I am afraid for you– lest all the labor bestowed on you will ultimately be in vain.

22. Some of you say that the Bible classes are dull, or too difficult, or you don’t really have the time.
23. What you are really saying (can’t you hear yourselves?) is that you don’t think real Bible study is worth the effort, or really important.
24. Even if it were true (which I don’t believe for a minute) that you don’t get anything out of some particular class, then why not think about what you can put into it?
25. And how perhaps you can encourage someone else, just by being there and being interested?

Chapter 4

1. Oh you silly Americans, some of you are turning into “world-class” grumblers!
2. If there were an Olympic event for complaining, you’d be on a plane to Atlanta right now!
3. You remind me of the spoiled chil­dren who cried to the prophet, “Speak to us smooth things.”
4. You don’t like it this way, and you don’t like it that way! You always want everything to be easy.
5. Play just the right music at just the right speed, at just the right time and place, and maybe…maybe then we’ll dance! But don’t really count on us!
6. You don’t want the “water of life;” you want ginger ale, with ice and a twist of lemon and a straw, served in a tall glass while you recline in the cool shade!
7. There are people in Africa who walk twenty miles to Sunday meeting, and you sleep late and shrug it off.
8. Forget not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is. I write this to your shame.
9. Some of you laugh off any suggestions that there are problems. You say, “I love God. We all love God. All God’s children love God. Love is the answer to everything.”
10. It’s true — love is the answer. But not the “love” that ignores problems! That’s not love at all; that’s silly, blind sentimentality.
11. Christ said, “If you love me, then keep my commandments.”

12. And he also said, through his beloved apostle Paul, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
13. Sometimes it seems that the word “love” is just a cloak, to hide whatever you want to do.
14. Love — Biblical love — requires hard efforts, tough decisions, and sometimes real sacrifices.
15. And all that effort produces a real working faith, not soft, warm, fuzzy “I’m okay, you’re okay” nonsense.
16. “You are my friends,” Christ said, only “if you do what I command you.”
17. I know, as well as you, that we are “saved by faith.” But faithful effort in loving obedience after we have been initially “saved” is the only thing that will keep us in the “place” where we will be finally “saved” by that faith! Otherwise, our “faith,” being without works, will be dead — as James said.

18. Mere professions of “love” just won’t cut it, to use another of your modern phrases.
19. I have more to write, but I doubt that you can bear it now.
20. Some of you, as I said, should be teachers of others, and here I am still trying to teach you the simplest things. So the other things I should write must wait for another time.
21. I have written to you some very hard things, but I firmly believe that they are all true, and that they need to be written.
22. Please keep in mind this positive thought: if I didn’t think there was a chance for you to improve, I wouldn’t have bothered to write this in the first place.
23. Please repent, and do what you did at the first, before it is too late. The Judge is at the door.
24. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.