What Are Our Obligations to the Poor? Part 9
June 8, 2010
Dear Friends,
As we continue to look at the Old Testament as a guide for assisting the poor, there are some aspects of this study which are almost too distant from our current perspective to fully appreciate them. Our next principle is one of those areas. The next principle for helping the poor is:
4. People Should Work.
The modern concept of work is very familiar to us. In most developed countries today, you work fives days a week and get off two. Depending on where you live, you may receive anywhere from a couple of weeks a year to a couple of months a year to enjoy vacation. After you work for 30 or 40 years, you retire and receive a pension to live on. All of the above ideas are fairly new and unique in the history of the world and particular to workers in developed countries.
In Biblical days, you worked six days a week and rested one. The Sabbath day was not a day of recreation as our modern weekends are, but a day of rest and worship. Every seventh year you were commanded to take the whole year off. Every fiftieth year you were able to take off two consecutive years. The idea of vacation is a modern idea. You never hear of anyone in the Bible taking off for a few days to go to the beach. There is no mention of “And ye, Abram and Sarai were at the beach for a holiday when God said to Abram..” Bible days were much different than they are now. First, it was a constant fight for survival. Finding suitable water, food and shelter was an all-consuming task. Second, travel was extremely hazardous. You took your life in your hand when you traveled and danger was ever-present in the form of brigands or wild animals. Third, outside of the life of kings and participation in the sacred festivals and wedding feasts for the common man, there doesn’t seem to be much mention leisure activities.
Finally, there is no mention of retirement in the Bible. In fact, the opposite is true. God told Adam he would work his entire life.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Gen. 3:17-19)
Similarly, Moses seems to command work when he gives the people the commandment for the Sabbath. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that the command to work was any less selective than the command to keep the Sabbath. In other words, it seems that everyone had to work as their ability allowed.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. (Ex. 20:8-10)
The idea of a pension or Social Security, though second nature to us today, was absolutely foreign to not only Biblical characters but to almost every culture in the history of the world. Many of our retired seniors today actually do have some concept of the Biblical paradigm, however, as they are providing daycare for their grandchildren or working in other ways like within the church or for charitable organizations. Just because people no longer receive a paycheck doesn’t mean they are not working.
My point here is not to say that there is anything wrong with vacations, retirement or the way that we do things now. This is simply a long way of saying that we may have a hard time wrapping our minds around the Biblical solution to poverty because of our cultural paradigm. Many people in developing countries can more closely relate to the Biblical model because the simple struggle for survival is much closer to Biblical times for the wealthy.
In Biblical times, you worked — whether rich or poor. There was no state welfare system. There was no unemployment. The Biblical unemployment system was called gleaning. Here is how it worked.
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 23:22 NIV)
A man would go and harvest his field. If the harvesters dropped something, they were not supposed to pick it up. In a square field, the harvesters were not supposed to harvest in the corners. This was for the poor. The key here, though, is that the poor had to pick it up for themselves.
We remember the story of Ruth where she gleaned the fields. We can glean from this story (pun intended!) that this was something that the poor took advantage of and that it could be a little rough and tumble as Boaz has to protect Ruth and make sure she gets her share. This was not “easy money.” You worked hard and didn’t get much for it. It also seems to be a little dangerous. It provided an incentive to find other work as soon as possible. If you could help it, you didn’t want to make a career out of gleaning, but as a stopgap measure it was highly effective.
I think that both the Bible and science teach us that it is important for people to work. They derive self-worth from working. People seem more well-adjusted when working. As anecdotal evidence of this fact, consider how many senior citizens feel a sense of worthlessness because they are no longer allowed to work dues to forced retirements. I used to work for a company that it was legend that almost all of the retirees died within six months of leaving work. I think there comes a time when people by reason of age or infirmity need to work less and less until they can work no more, but it seems to me that we do a disservice to them and to us when we speed up that process. We are underutilizing some of our most valuable, best trained and wisest assets – our senior citizens. By so doing, it hurts us and hurts them.
The poor need to work. The problem for most of the poor is that they can’t find work. When we say “people should work” it not only means that the poor should make an effort to do an honest day’s labor but this also means that people who have money should provide work for those who aren’t working. Why don’t they work when they want to? There are lots of answers. This could be because of the economic situation where they live. It could be because of governmental problems or war. It could be because they lack capital or access to markets. Most of the time, it is a far better solution to help the poor to find meaningful work to support themselves than it is to give them a handout. In fact, we may do more harm than good when we give them something when they didn’t earn it.
South Africa, like most of the continent of Africa, is plagued with high unemployment. The brethren there have sought to help poorer brethren by helping them start cottage industries. One endeavor is the Afrikhono Greeting Cards project where the brethren create and sell greeting cards. Brethren in places like the US, England and Australia act as agents for them selling the cards.
The Apostle Paul is very clear about how people need to work in 2 Thess. 3. The following is a fairly long quote. However, it is important because it clearly outlines how important work is and how wrong idleness is.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. (v. 6-12)
Every now and again you come across people who choose not to work when they are able to work. It is seldom a pretty sight. They are typically engaged in all sorts of vices. They are typically not healthy. They are, almost without exception, not spiritually healthy.
For a short time period in the history of the United States, the government created strong incentives for the poor not to work. If you worked, you made too much money to receive benefits and therefore lost those benefits. This policy virtually wiped out entire segments of the population by incenting fraud, laziness and vices that came from giving people too much time with nothing to do. There were literally incentives built into the system for women to have more and more children out of wedlock with no means to support them. And guess what? They did. In so doing, they created a cycle of poverty which we are still paying for today in gang violence and other social ills. Such are the consequences when we stray from God’s principles.
As an important note, we want to make the distinction between acute situations and chronic situations. If someone is literally dying in front of you from starvation, it is unrealistic and perhaps a bit sadistic to expect them to contribute to their sustenance. The Apostle would gladly have fed the poor that needed a meal. Yet, at the same time, from what we read in the above quote, he wouldn’t have allowed them to eat forever without making some sort of contribution assuming they were able.
People need to suffer consequences for their actions. I am not saying heap consequences on people that are poor to add insult to injury. What I mean, for example, is that if someone decides not to work, there should be consequences. I put “decides” in bold to emphasize that this is a conscious decision. Not eating is a pretty big downside and therefore an incentive to work. Was Paul trying to be a mean guy when he told the Thessalonians this? I don’t think so. He was trying to make people whole. Work is one component of that.
Have a great week,
Comments»
No comments yet.