thank you, lawrence:

i found your answer interesting and compelling and can find no fault with it, well said…

i particularly like the wording and challeng of your final paragraph:

In other words, the promise of the future life, when used as a
comfort for those who have nothing else to hope for, stands as
condemnation for us as Christians who do not get on with the business
of changing the world in the name of Jesus so that it takes on the
shape of the Kingdom

with your permission, i’ll quote you on that, because it captures
the very essence of ‘to whom much is given…’ holding the two parallel
communities of the suffering church (which would include sufferance of
genuine poverty, incurable disease as well as persecution?) and the
‘free, fit and able’ church together in the kind of tension that i
think paul would insist upon ("when one part suffers, we all suffer")

i feel that our theology needs a good and constant dose of that
emotional tension, otherwise there’s a danger of a lot of rather vulgar
exulting in our status as ‘spirit-filled, abundant life’ people… who
seemingly haven’t noticed the utter chaos and devastation faced by
everyone else… or worse, are deliberately exulting assuming that will
inform others of what true spirituality is all about…

regards
john