Chapter One
The Biblical Mandate
Although a full-length book
could be written on the subject of this chapter alone, I will give only a brief
summary of what the Bible says about helping the needy.
He who gives
to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many
curses.
Proverbs 28:27
Would you like to lack
nothing? Do you want to avoid many
curses? Then you must give to the poor.
I don't know what these curses are, but I do know that I don’t want
them. And even though we are giving to
the poor, we are still “closing our eyes” to the fact that millions more are dying and we have the resources
to save them as well. The Bible does not say, “Feed some of the hungry and let
the rest die.” It says, “Feed the hungry.”
Faith Without
Works
Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart
from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and
his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing
to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I
was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not
clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” They also
will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?” He will reply, “I
tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
did not do for me.” Then they will go
away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
Matthew 25:41-46
Some people struggle with this passage
because it sounds like salvation by works -- if we feed the hungry and clothe
the naked, we will enter heaven. If we
don't, then we are sent to eternal fire.
Since we know salvation is by grace through faith, how do we reconcile
this passage with the rest of Scripture?
The answer is found in 1 John 3:17-18.
If
anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on
him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children,
let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.
Let's break it down: If
anyone has material possessions (U.S. Christians spend $100 billion a year
exchanging Christmas gifts13) and
sees his brother in need (30,000 children die every day from preventable
poverty-related causes), but has no pity
on him (we don't take action to save them), how can the love of God be in him (how can the love of God be in
him)?
Can a person be saved and not have the
love of God in him? Feeding the hungry doesn't save us, but if we are
saved we will feed the hungry.
James says the same thing:
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have
faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose
a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If
one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well
fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied
by action, is dead.
James 2:14-17 (emphasis mine)
Can dead faith
save? Apparently not. Even Jesus accepted Zacchaeus' desire to give
to the poor as evidence of his salvation.
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look,
Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have
cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus
said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is
a son of Abraham.”
Luke 19:8-9
The book of Jeremiah also touches on the
link between faith and service.
“He defended the cause of the poor
and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?"
declares the LORD.
Jeremiah
22:16
John 17:3 says, “Now
this is eternal life: that they may know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Eternal life and defending the cause of the
needy emanate from the same source -- knowing God.
Jesus, Jeremiah, John, and James
all use the same description of faith in action -- serving the needs of the
poor.
True Religion
Religion that God our
Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows
in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James
1:27
Do you want your worship to be accepted by
God as pure and faultless? Then you must
help widows and orphans in their distress. There are currently 143 million orphans worldwide, 20
million in India
alone.
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward
slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs
the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not
repay each person according to what he has done?
Proverbs
24:11-12
Millions are staggering
toward death and we can't claim ignorance as an excuse for not rescuing
them. God is watching our actions and
will repay us accordingly.
“What should we do then?” the crowd
asked. John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has
none, and the one who has food should do the same.”
Luke 3:10-11
Most believers in the U.S. have not only
two tunics (a loose fitting shirt) but the equivalent of thousands and
sometimes tens of thousands of tunics.
If a t-shirt costs $10 and a person has $100,000 in stocks and bank
accounts, that equals 10,000 tunics. We need
to pray about how many to give to those who have none.
The Sin of Sodom
Now this was the sin
of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed
and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
Ezekiel
16:49
We usually attribute the fate of Sodom to their flagrant
sexual immorality. But Ezekiel also presents their arrogance, over-eating and
lack of concern for the poor as reasons why God destroyed the city.
Could Ezekiel level the same accusations
against us? Sixty-four percent of adults in the U.S. are overweight, thirty
percent are considered obese, and these numbers are rising fast.14 American Christians spend billions of dollars
overeating, another $13 billion a year on diet programs,15 and $30
billion more on health care needs created by being overweight.16 With the billions we waste on excess food,
dieting, and related health care costs, we could feed every starving person,
provide safe drinking water for everyone in the world, and educate every child
currently not in school. What does God want us to do?
The Poor Will Always Be With
You
People often refer to Jesus’ comment, “the
poor will always be with you,” as if He were downplaying the importance of
giving to the needy. To understand what
Jesus was saying, we must study the passage He was
quoting from Deuteronomy 15. The passage
begins with a statement of God’s desire in verse 4, “There should be no poor
among you,” and ends with a command to give generously in verse 11.
The main point of Jesus'
statement was “you will not always have me.”
The choice for Mary was to anoint Jesus for burial or to give to the
poor. Since Jesus no longer needs to be
prepared for burial, the choice we face is whether to give to the poor or spend
on ourselves. Those who use this quote as an excuse for inaction regarding the
poor should remember that Jesus also said,
Depart from me… into
the eternal fire…For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat...
Matthew 25:41-42
That doesn’t sound like someone who is
half-hearted about feeding the hungry.
Notice that this passage from Matthew 25 is not a parable but a
description of what is going to
happen when the Son of Man comes.
Answered
Prayer
If a man shuts his ears to the
cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.
Proverbs
21:13
Do we want to
be answered when we cry out? Then we
must listen to the cry of the poor.
While this verse could be referring to
something other than prayer, other passages are more direct.
"When I called,
they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,” says the LORD Almighty.
Zechariah 7:13 (emphasis mine)
Have we been listening to God’s
call to serve the needy? Considering the
condition of the world, maybe we “have ears but do not hear.” This may explain our lack of power in prayer.
Hoarding Wealth
Now listen, you rich people, weep
and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted,
and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their
corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days...
You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened
yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men,
who were not opposing you.
James
5:1-6
Have we “hoarded wealth in the last days?”
Christians in America
have over $1 trillion in IRAs.17 That's 1,000 billion dollars, enough to end
world poverty many times over. We need
to pray about how much we should save.
Have we “lived on the earth in
self-indulgence?” Christians in America
spend $200 billion a year on soft drinks, coffee, cable TV, vacations, eating
out, golfing and boating. We choose to partake of these things because we enjoy
them, not because they are necessary. In
other words, we indulge ourselves. According to the United Nations, this $200
billion a year would end extreme world poverty.
Have we “condemned innocent men?” Imagine a doctor passing a dying child with
medicine in his pocket that would save her.
He chooses not to give the medicine, and the girl dies. Didn’t the doctor condemn the child to death
by not giving the needed medicine? We
have plenty in our pockets to save
millions of people, if we choose to give it.
The Biblical commands to meet the needs of
the poor are numerous and strongly worded.
Will we be wise or foolish?
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and
puts them into practice is like a wise
man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose,
and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it
had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and
does not put them into practice is like a
foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams
rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great
crash.
Matthew 7:24-27
Will we deceive
ourselves?
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
James 1:22
God is watching
to see if we are “hearers only” and is ready to reward those who obey.
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he
will certainly not lose his reward.
Matthew 10:42
Read Chapter Two
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