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"For the past 3 centuries, Christian missionaries--often at their own expense and peril--have traveled the globe to bring food, medicine, shelter, and custom-made written languages to the world's forgotten in far off places. In the 1700s and 1800s"

You're right. They did great with the Native Americans, didn't they. Well.. At least after they killed off 90% of them. Well.. Maybe not then.

"NOW they (read: we) are to be lectured to? NOW someone comes along, deigns to solve the problem--as they define it--with someone else's money, and because they claim the moral high ground, we're obliged to listen? And not only that, but Christ's name is enlisted in this effort to provide universal mediocrity in the name of compassion."

Maybe Christ's name should be enlisted to provide healthcare and food to all in the name of compassion.

"Mt. 18:8, 9"

Interesting how you take it out of context. Matthew 18:1-14 is about 'Big people and little people' in the Matthean community. Matthew 18:6-7 (which you conveniently left out) is specifically about how the 'little people' in the community are far from being dispensible and are the ones to be "shown the greatest consideration, and that without condescension" (NIB Commentary -- Abingdon Press 375). One should "live one's own life of discipleship in such a way that no stumbling block is placed in the way of the weaker members of the community" (IBID).

We are told that we will encounter stumbling blocks, but that "the more mature members cannot use this as an excuse for their own lack of care for the little people of the community" (IBID).

The portion you quoted, 18:8-9 is a return to 5:29-30 and a call for the "most radical measures to be taken against lust in one's own life" only instead of being applied to disciplining the sex drive, here the measures are to be taken against "the drive to power" (IBID). In 18:8-9 we see the drive towards power makes one into a predator against others and "threatens to dominate one's existence, becoming a threat not only to oneself but to the faith of others and the life of the community" (IBID).

It has nothing to do with prioritizing between physical and spiritual health. It has to do with caring for the weaker people in community and sacrificing one's own lust for power for the bettering of the community.

This is all from the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Volume VIII. So there's no confusion on this matter on the part of Biblical scholars, exegetes or preachers. It seems like the "spiritual blindness" you're speaking of is more projection than anything else.

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