Matthew is quoting Jesus. I don't know who/what is motivating Sirach. In your verses, Sirach focuses on denying "sinners", which isn't well defined. Can a nonsinner be in a hospital? Can a nonsinner be destitute? On the other hand, Matthew's message from Jesus doesn't discuss differences in helping sinners vs helping nonsinners, Jesus makes it fairly clear throughout that he doesn't differentiate. He himself certainly aided sinners - and made a point of it. Your passages say nothing about one's duty to search out those in need - a central issue in Matthew 25:31-. Finally, the passage you quote is not one that is usually considered part of the approach of Sirach to social justice.
BEFORE his conversion. From Wikipedia: " In 1873 he worked for the election of John J. Ingalls as senator from Kansas, and when Ingalls won, the new senator had Scofield appointed U. S. District Attorney for Kansas—at 29, the youngest in the country.[7] Nevertheless, that same year Scofield was forced to resign "under a cloud of scandal" because of questionable financial transactions, which may have included accepting bribes from railroads, stealing political contributions intended for Ingalls, and securing bank promissory notes by forging signatures.[8] It is possible Scofield was jailed on forgery charges, although there is no extant evidence in the public records.[9] Perhaps in part because of his self-confessed heavy drinking,[10] Scofield abandoned his wife and two daughters during this period.[11] Leontine Cerrè Scofield divorced him on grounds of desertion in 1883, and the same year Scofield married Hettie Hall von Wartz, with whom he eventually had a son.[12] Conversion and ministerial career[edit] Pastorates[edit] According to Scofield, he was converted to evangelical Christianity through the testimony of a lawyer acquaintance.[13] Certainly by the late fall of 1879, Scofield was assisting in the St. Louis campaign conducted by Dwight L. Moody, and he served as the secretary of the St. Louis YMCA." What is your beef with Dallas Theological Seminary? They are a well-respected seminary, at least apart from dying mainline revisionist denominations. https://www.dts.edu/ Wow, what is Christian Zionism? Is this more Muslim promotion from you?
Yes. Christianity is HIGHLY fragmented. That's no surprise, as Christianity does not come with a methodology for making decisions concerning doctrine. It's only process to resolve questions is to splinter. So, Catholics accept Sirach and your group doesn't. Who cares? Well, a lot of Christians do care - they just don't agree. I don't mean that to be overly critical. After all, religion is about personal belief - faith wthout evidence. But, this lack of decision making process is something that is important to remember as it is a key aspect of any religious decision.
How does the addition or subtraction of Sirach change the essentials of Christianity, as expressed in the Creeds?
I don't know. I have looked up information about the book, but have not read it. Plus, I would be surprised if the book was clear and obvious, as many similar writings are serious works, but not easy for us to fully know. It could be that Catholics accept the work as historic, leading to Crhristianity, rather than being the living tenets of Catholicism. I'm certainly not surprised that there are those who don't accept the book as authoritative Christianity. Frankly, I think the quotation from that book was chosen to validate the poster's preference for hard core treatment of those who are struggling. But, as I posted above, I strongly doubt that's what the passage actually means. Far more straightforward is Matthew 25:31-on. That is an unambiguous statement of Christian duty, and it is way stronger than the golden rule. Living up to that passage would be a real accomplishment, and the effort to do so would certainly have my deepest respect.
You would be lucky to find one person in the past 2,000 years who has followed the biblical Christian doctrine.
Sirach has as much to do with Christianity as the rest of the Old Testament books = none. But it is an integral part of the biblical fairy tale and has been since the bIble was written about 1,330 years ago. It was deleted just 138 years ago at the urging of a couple of bigoted Englishmen when the English revised the Bible. The Protestants went along with them but the Catholics told them to shove it. In actually, Sirach is probably the best book in the entire Bible. If you haven't read it I highly recommend that you do at your convenience.
The Catholic Church didn't even recognize as canonical until 1546. Your dodge of my question is noted.
When will you get it through your head that the Apocrypha was a part of the Bible until the two nutty Englishmen led the movement which got it deleted from the 1880 Bible revision? Learn Bible history if you are going to comment on the issue. "Up until the 1880’s every Protestant Bible (not just Catholic Bibles) had 80 books, not 66! The inter-testamental books written hundreds of years before Christ called “The Apocrypha” were part of virtually every printing of the Tyndale-Matthews Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishops Bible, the Protestant Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible until their removal in the 1880’s! The original 1611 King James contained the Apocrypha, and King James threatened anyone who dared to print the Bible without the Apocrypha with heavy fines and a year in jail. Only for the last 120 years has the Protestant Church rejected these books, and removed them from their Bibles. This has left most modern-day Christians believing the popular myth that there is something “Roman Catholic” about the Apocrypha. There is, however, no truth in that myth, and no widely-accepted reason for the removal of the Apocrypha in the 1880’s has ever been officially issued by a mainline Protestant denomination." https://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/index.html
Regardless of whether your timeline is any better, I don't see why you think this is even important. It's already clear that issues of religious belief continue - or there would be one denomination. After that, why would you see it as important to take this kind of ham handed approach to such questions?
Pot, meet kettle. Being in the Bible and being considered part of Scripture are two different things. It isn't complicated, read up before you look any sillier. One of my past churches, College Church of Wheaton, IL, had the Apocrypha in their front pulpit Bible, but didn't consider it part of the canon of Scripture. So again, who cares what Sirach says? It's like when skeptics bring up rightly rejected books like the Gnostic Gospels, so what?
There is the issue of intellectual honesty. This issue is easily researchable so there is no reason to speculate about the main points because they are matters of historical records. The reason for the many denominations is that Christianity is a religion that is easily franchised, so any con man (or con woman) with a gift for gab can start a business selling the BS. It's better than doing manual labor like the other sheep have to do.
So you're calling your favorite ethnocentric Middle Eastern Jewish religious fairy tale a lie. I expected that you would do that sooner or later since you ignore passages such as Revelation 22:18-19 = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation22:18-19&version=DRA;ESVUK;WEB;EXB;WYC & 1 Timothy 6:3-5 =https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1timothy6:3-5&version=DRA;ESVUK;WEB;EXB;WYC & 2 Timothy 3:14-17 = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2timothy3:14-17&version=DRA;ESVUK;WEB;EXB;WYC. I wonder how long you will last in the lake of fire?
