1. Should Christians donate, receive, buy or sell human organs for transplant?
2. Should Christians businessmen sue their Christian brothers in court to recover business debts?
3. Should Christians practice Tax Avoidance?
4. Should sex education be taught to Christian children?
5. How do Christians forgive and forget?
6. How do I know the Holy Spirit is with me?
7. How do prayers
help during bad economic times?
First, only very few of this merit a simple 'Yes' or 'No'. Perhaps the reason why God left so many questions unanswered (or not so straight-forwardly answerable) is that He wants us to grow through the process of discovery. Ambiguity certainly begets learning in some areas and some ways more than does precision. The essence of the answers below pivot largely on the effect the 'activity' in question has or will have on your dance with God. Our Lord is usually more concerned with personalistic solutions and criteria, rather than mechanical 'should' or 'should-nots'.
So here goes:
1. Should Christians donate, receive, buy or sell human organs for transplant?
Nothing in Scripture prohibits this. As long as everything's 'clean'
(no shady business / politics), the full consent of the relevant individuals
obtained, things should be okay in the moral/ethical department. In fact, I’ve heard it saves lives
sometimes…(smile).
2. Should Christian businessmen sue their Christian brothers in court to recover business debts?
On the surface, I wouldn't recommend it. But there are many factors the potential plaintiff must consider…
How much is the debt (duh!)? Will his family suffer greatly as a result? A Christian's primary responsibility is to his family, and so I'd think that if the debt was soooo huge that his wife and kid suffer (or the family verges on breakdown of any kind), I'd be much nearer to trying to get the money back.
What is the reason for the potential defendant's non-repayment? Has the person been responsible in his business decisions? Can he repay possibly at a later time? If the person involved has suffered some kind of external crisis which wiped out his previously responsible business plans and actions, then in NO WAY would I sue him merely because he faces a current default on his debt to me. This is even more so if I can still live comfortably with a bad debt, something which many people CAN do!
There can easily be a lot more factors (situation-specific as well as general), but some basic 'rules' (summarised from above) could apply:
3. Should Christians practice Tax Avoidance?
I don't see why not, as long as Mammon does not rule our hearts (and we'll know if it does or is near to doing so), everything is done legally and our colleagues or employees are not turned away from Christ as a result of our actions/attitudes.
These two directives apply to almost every legal
business decision and needless to say, tax EVASION is a strict no-no. See also the discussion related to gambling.
4. Should sex education be
taught to Christian children?
Yes. Important (and obvious) things to consider would be the child's own maturity and receptiveness to the birds and the bees, plus the nature and content of the syllabus.
I would only insist that Jesus(!) is taught more frequently and intensively than reproduction procedures (smile)...but no doubt children SHOULD be given a good and well-informed education.
Note : Parents who put a minimal emphasis on Scriptural or Christian study should be severely rebuked (in my opinion) for asking this question. If Christ-education is hardly given any attention, then this makes any other educational topics in a Christian context quite irrelevant.
5. How do Christians forgive and forget?
If this refers to the actual ‘mechanics’ of forgiveness, I'd sketch it like this : We forgive when we release our obsession or grievance at another person's fault towards us and, with prayer, 'hand it over' to our Lord, trusting that His justice and love will take care of things. This should be eventually (if not spontaneously) followed by a desire to love the person and treat him/her the same or even better(!) than how we did BEFORE the injustice was committed upon us.
As for the 'forgetting', I'm not entirely sure that we CAN or are even
ENCOURAGED to 'forget' what others have done towards us. I would think that it's quite
impossible psychologically to ever get the hurt totally out of our conscious
recollection ever again. And perhaps it's only God alone who can really
'delete' the memory completely. However, we should constantly
check ourselves that we do not allow 'instant replays' of the offense to run
across our minds every now and then, as it can easily ignite the bitterness again.
6. How do we know the Holy Spirit is with us?
Same way we 'know' that we have salvation - because
the Bible says so, and we by faith take hold of the promises therein
(particularly passages about people’s reception of the Spirit accompanying – or
being associated with - our faith in Christ e.g. Eph 1:13-14, John 16:13-15,
Rom 8:14-16, etc.). As a matter of fact, your very decision to accept
Christ as Lord and Saviour is ‘proof’ enough; without the Spirit, you
simply cannot declare in all honesty, "My Jesus, I love you…" (smile)
7. How do prayers help during bad economic times?
The same way they ‘help’ (this word is WAY too ambiguous, IMO, but tentatively I’m using ‘make-things-more-aligned-with-God’s-kingdom’) during good economic times. God hears them and acts according to His love and goals; our love (for Him, each other, etc.) and goals (spiritual, economic, political?, etc.); and His overall governance of the hundreds of self-determined decisions made across the globe, by humans and demons alike(!). (Not much of an answer, is it? But hey it wasn’t exactly a Multiple Choice question, *grin*)
Regards,
AL