Janet is a Christian who does a job for John for an agreed price. The job is too big for Janet alone, so she gets a friend, Mark to help. Part the way through the job, Janet goes on holiday, leaving Mark to finish up.
While Janet is away, John realises that he can get the job done a lot cheaper by doing a deal with Mark, who is happy to work for less money. When Janet returns from holiday, the job is finished. Unfortunately, John refuses to pay Janet anything, saying that he was unhappy with the work, and that he asked Mark personally to finish the job for an agreed fee.
Neither John nor Mark reply when Janet tries to call them.
Janet has spent a lot of money on the job and, feeling robbed, wonders what to do. She reads Jesus’ teaching:
" … and if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well … " [bible:niv:nt:matt5].
So should Janet give more money to John?
3 comments:
If I were Janet I would have drawn up a contract and then be in a position to sue John for baulking on the contract.
I think the cloak in OT times was a very valuable item, people generally only had the one. In OT time if someone offered their cloak as payment, then the person was to return the cloak each night so they could use it as a blanket. Jesus therefore is talking about giving up essentials here. I'm trying to think how this applies to the Janet John thing.
More later. Hey is this the new King's Arms unofficial blog then? If so great!
in the country where janet did the work, a verbal contract is binding so she could take john to court, if that was the way forward.
but is Jesus not teaching that we should exercise grace instead of seeking justice?
re: other blogs, this is an attempted resurrection of a useful forum. read the first post. other than that, there is no place for 'party lines' here.
have you heard the schmelzer talk?
heres a thought.
surely janet is not in a position to exercise grace (i.e. not treating john with the punishment he deserves) until the court has actually found john guilty (and thus deserving of punishment).
a solicitor tells janet that she will most likely win the case, but the trial would have to involve mark too.
janet isnt keen to do this because she thinks it is unreasonable to drag mark through court when all he was doing was 'the best he could'. surely nobody can do more than that.
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