What Are Our Obligations to the Poor? – Part 17
August 2, 2010
Dear Friends,
6. When Jesus interacted with the poor was he setting an example for us to follow or was his mission dissimilar to our own?
As with most things, people tend toward extremes. There is a view that Jesus had a social ministry. He was a good man — a healer, a feeder, a force for social justice. This view tends to dismiss spiritual implications of Jesus. Others tend to gloss over the actions of Jesus as see him as a teacher. They look at his works as symbolic actions that teach us spiritual insights and are less inclined to look at his works as a template for us to follow. One group focuses too much at what Jesus did and the other group looks too much at what Jesus said and spiritualizes what he did. We feel that both of these extremes will lead people astray of true discipleship. Jesus is our model for thought, behavior and doctrine. Any teaching that detracts from this truth is seriously off base.
7. Is it a good thing to help the poor without also sharing the Gospel message?
Helping anyone at any time is always a good thing. At the same time, I think it is important to understand what our mission is. If you asked me to distill what I believe the life’s mission of a disciple of Christ is, I would put it in these simple terms: The mission of the disciple of Christ is to get as many people as possible into the Kingdom of God. This involves a lot of things – preaching the Gospel, helping the poor, recovering lost sheep, shining forth the light and love of Jesus Christ in our life, praying, living a moral life, etc.
I think we can, as was alluded to in the first question, tend toward an extreme that puts too much emphasis on doing good works while ignoring some of these other vital aspects like preaching. James counsels in his epistle not to be simply a speaker of good things, but also a doer. He says,
And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?(Jas 2:16)
It stands to reason that if we reverse the logic a bit and simply tend to people’s physical needs without tending to their spiritual needs, we are not providing the best solution either.
8. If we are not careful, can we actually hurt the poor when we are trying to help them? Does the “right way” to help the poor vary depending on the situation?
Hopefully we have answered this question well enough already. Yes, if we do not help the poor in the right way, we can hurt them. We must be holistic in our approach to helping the poor.
Have a great week,
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