The call to charity for those in poverty

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'
Deuteronomy 15:11

God's plan for Israel was that a responsible society would help all of its members. If find it interesting that God Himself acknowledges that in any human society the reality of some poverty would always exist. Even in Israel... even in the Promised Land. God said that while Israel existed as a nation, poverty would be a social issue.

We should help those in need. That is a given. The deep question is how. But nowhere in scriptures are we told to expect that by human effort alone the elimination of poverty is possible. Human systems and social orders are too corrupted by sin to achieve this. Instead, God wisely instructed Israel that care for the needs of the poor was a matter of personal moral conviction and action. "YOU... open wide YOUR hand... to YOUR brother... to the needy ... to the poor... in YOUR land." It is a part of good personal character to not ignore the extreme need of those in poverty.

I prefer to view this not in terms of income levels or lack of dollars, but in terms of human need for the basics... food, shelter, safety. The poor of the bronze age Middle East were victimized and often died in starvation and abuse. God would not let His people tolerate and perpetuate that kind of treatment of the neediest people made in His image. Instead, care for the poor meant employing them (read the rest of Deuteronomy 15) and feeding the poorest of them. Lives would be saved and grateful service rendered in return (Deuteronomy 15:16-18). So charity from the heart can fend off the worst parts of extreme poverty.


- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.

2 & a half tribes: selflessness & sacrifice

We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance.

Numbers 32:18

 

Two and a half tribes found the land the land east of the Jordan that had just been conquered by defeating Midian to their liking. Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh were all predominately herdsmen, and the land east of Jordan was suitable to their herds and livelihood. They wanted to settle in and start enjoying permanent possession of the land. But before the farms and towns went up, they would be men of honor and courage.

 

They also realized that they had an obligation to the nation of Israel, not just their individual tribes. Most of their countrymen had hard work to do to win full possession of all the land that God had promised. That is why they made the commitment to stay in the fight until all their brothers received the inheritance they were claiming now. They vowed to stay in the battle until then.

 

I am encouraged by a faith that fights not just for itself. My culture is so obsessed with personal pursuits that few people would make these kinds of selfless commitments. We want the American Dream first, a society somewhere distantly down the line. The mantra of most is “what’s in it for me?” But there is none of that kind of thinking in the what these Reubenites and Gadites say. It is about God being honored first, working to see their brothers blessed second, and then personal concerns coming further down the list. And they trusted God for the outcome of all this hope. That kind of refreshing commitment could certainly use a resurgence!

 

Technorati Tags: Christianity,Discipleship,Religion

Responsibility for the poor.

If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you.

Leviticus 25:35-36

God did not want Israel to be a nation of abusers. They needed to remember their own history. They were at one point in time poor dispossessed slaves in Egypt. They came from something and were given everything by the gracious hand of God. They were reminded to never turn a blind eye to poverty as a result.

The responsibilities as described in these two verses are clear. First, they were to see the poor as family. Now, it could be that this only applied to extended family members, but I think “brother” here is meant to describe Jewish identity. They could not ignore the plight of a fellow Jew. This poor man was family. Secondly, they were to offer hospitality to the poor and not allow them to become totally homeless. That is what the phrase “support him as though he were a stranger and sojourner” means. It is Middle Eastern culture. It was unthinkable to turn a traveler away. The same was to be true of the poor. Of course, without that knowledge, we might be tempted to be OK with ignoring the needy, since American culture believes more strongly in stranger danger than in opportunity to care for them (and for good reason).

Thirdly, the hospitality was meant to be a personal investment. Relatives were to open their homes to the poor. If there was no family left, the responsibility fell to neighbors to take in the poor and support them. Fourthly, nobody was to profit from someone else’s poverty. There was to be no outlandish rent charged to them. There was to be no taking of interest in a load or exorbitant profit in a transaction. All financial concerns with the poor were meant to get them back on their feet.

The final observation here is that all this was done out of fear of God. There was a spiritual dimension to caring for the needs of the poor. It was not done to get attention to good works. It was not done because the eradication of poverty was the responsibility of government. It was done out of love and respect for God and His law. God made it clear that He expected obedience in this area as a marker of the sincerity of relationship with Him. He went to great lengths to instruct His people to care for the poorest among them out of relationship with Him.

Technorati Tags: Leviticus,Poverty,Social Justice

Why Social Justice is a Christian Issue.

You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

Exodus 22:21-24

God’s heart for the poorest and least powerful is intense. He has strong words for Israel as He reminds them that they must do no wrong to the weakest members of their society: the fatherless and the widowed. This is not some liberal pablum for the disenfranchised. This is divine justice concerned for all people made in the image of God. God does not bless one group of people at the expense of another. His design is that the blessed group help those in need, so that the blessed people might grow closer to God in character, and the blessed people might rejoice in grace.

I believe that is why God has such harsh words for Israel for the mistreatment of widows and orphans. To do so was to forget their own history where they suffered under the mistreatment of the Egyptian system for so long. They had been the lowest of the poor. They had been dispossessed of land and property. They had been at the mercy of the government system that exploited them. But God heard their cries and rescued them. He does the same for those in suffering today, and He wants to use His people for the work.

Yesterday I toured the Urban Scholastic Center in Kansas City, Kansas. There, literally in the community I grew up in, I saw how the church is making a difference in the urban core among the neediest people. The inner-city culture is dying. Families are a novelty (at least in the sense of husband/wife/children) and education is being abandoned as an option. It is hardly being offered in the public schools. Spiritual death is all around with drugs, gangs, murder, abortion, and crime being all too common in the lives of most people.

But God has raised up a group of people who will not be deaf to the cry for help. And I think I just became one of them. I hope to help by offering counseling training, discipleship training, educational assistance, all as a volunteer. I want to see Christ take back the urban core. I want to see the gospel make a huge impact in the lives of these people. I do not idealize the situation. I grew up in the inner city and I know firsthand the life that has to be lived there. But God can change people and redeem the culture through the gospel. If I first really hear the cries. And I do.

Technorati Tags: Exodus,Social Justice,The Poor