5. How do we balance the commandments to “take heed that ye do not your alms before men” with the admonition to “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works?”

This question hit me several years ago when I was trying to put together an outreach project. A local brother had a plot of land in a rough, intercity neighborhood that he didn’t want any more. The lot was a trash-covered, blight and he was stuck paying the property taxes. He said he would give it to anyone that wanted it. I came up with the idea of taking this overgrown vacant lot and turning it into a playground for the local children. We would put in some playground equipment, maybe a basketball court and some park benches. We could put up a sign in the park saying something like “This park was donated by the Christadelphians.” We could have a grand opening and possible get some local media to cover it. The benefit to this poor community was that a local eyesore would be turned into something useful. The benefit to us would be that we could get some name recognition in our city. The benefit to God would be that His love would be shown and His name magnified in this poor community.

The project never happened. The problem was that some people felt that this was self promoting and thus violated Matthew 6:1-4 which reads:

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

It seemed to me at the time (and still does) that this was not the lesson of these verses. These people were doing things so that they would be glorified rather than God while the playground project was solely to glorify God and help poor people. It seemed to me that the verse that best described this project was another verse in Matthew.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Mt 5:16)

The difference between these two verses as I see it is to whom goes the glory. If I do it so that men will praise me, Matthew 6 is applicable. If I do it so that God is glorified, then Matthew 5 is applicable.

Now, if we aren’t sure what the motives of everyone is, I think we need to step back and ask ourselves the question “should the work cease because everyone’s motives aren’t 100% pure?” Neither of these verses condemns the doers of the good deed. What these verses say is that one gets their reward now and one gets their reward in the coming Kingdom. Both motives are rewarded. I think we have taken this Matthew 6 verses as being condemnatory of self-promotion. Sure, the better objective is to glorify God, but it shouldn’t have stopped our project.

I hope this helps us move forward and takes one more excuse for inactivity out of the way.

Have a great week,

4. What is the right balance between preaching, helping the poor, doing right by your own family and your ecclesia?

This is one of those questions which, when asked, sounds logical. We all struggle trying to find balance in our lives. The problem comes as we see things through our filters (life experiences, how we were taught, etc.)

Christianity is, in its purest form, an extremely radical religion. Think about some of the radical things Jesus said.

• He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. (Mt 10:37-38)
• Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. (Luke 18:22)
• And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (Matt. 5:29)

I am not sure that balance is all what it is cracked up to be! Maybe what we need is a little less balance and a little more radical discipleship.

My friends, Kim and Cam Beeler, lived a comfortable life in Fayetteville, Arkansas with their young three kids and lovely, middle-class home. Cam was a manager at Wal-Mart’s headquarters there. They had a nice life and a local ecclesia. Deep down inside, though, Cam felt a burning desire to live more fully for Christ than his 9 to 5 job allowed. Cam applied for White Fields funding from WCF and now lives with his family in a small apartment above the Durban, South Africa ecclesial hall. He preaches full time in the model of Touch and Teach that the brethren there have developed based on the preaching style of Jesus.

Now you have to step back and ask yourself, is this balanced? Did he do right by his family? I would say that his family is getting a wonderful experience. Is he helping the poor? You bet he is each and every day. Is he doing right by his ecclesia? Well, he is no longer a member of the Fayetteville ecclesia, but I would hope that the example that Cam and Kim give is an inspiration for all of us to strive to put more effort into our discipleship.

I wrote to Cam to ask his permission to use him as an example and this is an excerpt from his reply which I thought I would share with you.

We are so utterly blessed, and have received so much more in our spiritual lives than we gave up in our daily lives, it is hard to compare. As Paul says, it’s not worth comparing…(while this is a bit out of context, it is still valid) It is odd for me, and truly humbling to be at the grace of my brothers and sisters having the opportunity to serve in a full time capacity. It’s hard to describe or adequately express my gratitude for the opportunity.

One thing I’ve learned, and keep learning about our preaching effort is that God wants us to commit our lives to Him and the way we do it is to commit ourselves to a participation in His Body. What this means is that we show His Compassion, Grace, Patience, Kindness, Forgiveness and Love to all of those around us.

This realization and growth in understanding is experienced by me, Kim and the kids, each at their own level, and has helped us all to experience a life being transformed by Living in God’s Way. As an example, Kim and the kids were helping at the Lamontville Creche (preschool) the other day. Shiloh saw some of the boys playing with homemade cars made of hanger wire, and he commented how they have so much less, but appreciates so much everything they have. He then went on to say that having so much less here has been a blessing and he enjoys his things more here than all of the stuff he had when we were back in the States. My 10 year old is ‘getting it’, and it’s more what he’s observing, being part of our mission work than it is what his Mom and I are teaching him. Isn’t this Amazing??

I used to believe that I Had to “Give up” the fun in this life so that I could live “The Right (no fun) Way of God”. Boy was I wrong. I find more peace, Joy, Love and pure Fun in God’s Way than I’ve ever experienced living in the “Old Man”. Experiencing this intensely in the mission field just helps to recognize it so much more clearly. I haven’t given up anything really. I’ve gained in every way.

The point is that we seem to worry about overdoing the “discipleship thing.” The prevailing problem, however, seems to be underdoing the “discipleship thing.” Look, there is nothing wrong with holding a job, raising a family and having a comfortable lifestyle. These are blessings God gives us to enjoy. At the same time we need to make sure our easy lifestyle doesn’t translate into lazy, passionless discipleship. Most of us need to push ourselves a little more. We need to get out of our comfort zones. The vast majority need to preach a little more, shine our light a little brighter and try to be a little more generous and stop using “balance” as our excuse.

Have a great week,

The new Thought for the Week book entitled My Meditation is available for purchase at amazon.com.

3. What is the definition of the poor?

The materially poor appear to be defined (but not necessarily limited to) in the Bible as those who do not have food or clothing.

He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.(Deut. 10:18)

And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.(1Tim. 6:8)

As we have said, our definition of the poor can extend beyond just the materially poor. We are all poor in some aspects of our life. In a spiritual sense, we can have all the money in the world and still are spiritual paupers (and, if the Bible is to be believed, are more likely to be so). The Bible alludes to this definition also in the Revelation where the Laodiceans are told:

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. (Rev. 3:17-18)

Society tends to define poverty in relative, monetary terms. The dictionary gives this definition: “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.” Given this definition, we, as missionaries, might mistake the great commission as bringing western standards of living to indigenous cultures. Our mission is not to bring DVDs and cell phones to people, but wholeness of being including an understanding of the Gospel. By the way, this wholeness of being is lacking in many people that have DVDs and cell phones. This mission work should include poverty alleviation where applicable and not only our well wishes. James says this in his epistle:

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 NIV)

Does the definition of the poor change from country to country?

Yes, a materially poor person in one country might be a wealthy person in another. This has to be taken into account. In the US, the annual income in 2009 for the poverty line is $10,830. This is interesting because the average income in 126 out of 194 countries in the world is less than this figure. In fact, in 84 of those countries, the average income is less than half the amount of the US poverty line. In other words, the middle class of many countries would be the impoverished in the US.

How do we manage our limited resources in a godly way in a world that has so many needs?

This is a key question.

In 2 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes to the wealthy brethren at Corinth on their giving. He compares them to the relatively poor but more generous Macedonians. What he writes would probably get written off today as a “guilt trip” and maybe it is. The Corinthians were being stingy compared to their poorer brethren in Macedonia. Paul is trying to compel them to see their obligation to the poverty of others. He writes,

And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.(2 Cor. 8:1-4 NIV)

Paul tells them he is testing them. His argument then goes to a comparison to Jesus.

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (v. 8-9)

Was Jesus materially rich? I think he probably was. We know he was literally poor, so it seems inconsistent to then spiritualize the “rich” piece of this verse as it refers to Jesus. Is it right to call Jesus spiritually poor? I wouldn’t think so. We are not told expressly, but the evidence points to a scenario where Jesus would have inherited his father’s construction business. Knowing what we know about Jesus – his integrity, his intellectual ability, the quality of his work, his tireless work ethic – we would suspect that he was probably quite successful. If this is true, he would have had to have given this all up in order to preach full time. I suspect that he could, with a straight face, tell the rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor because that is exactly what he had done himself. It then becomes a compelling argument for the rich to be generous. The logic goes like this. Jesus was rich, but he became poor for you. You are rich, so following Jesus’ example, become poorer for the sake of your poor brethren.

So here is where it can get uncomfortable for us. Can we rightly call ourselves disciples (followers/learners) of Jesus if we are not generous? Is it possible to store up treasure on earth when at the same time there are brethren living in refugee camps, who don’t have enough to eat or are dying from easily treatable diseases? We need to start seeing how we spend our money as a moral choice just like how and where we spend our time. Our resources are God’s resources. What we do with those resources is a moral choice.

The other day our ten year old analog TV broke down. I told my daughter that I wanted to replace it with a new digital flat screen TV. She called me on it. She wanted to know if that was the way we should be spending our money or helping people less fortunate. She’s right. For us, the right decision is to not purchase a new TV. If we can afford to drop $1,000 or more on a new TV, we can afford to donate $1,000 to brethren who are not getting enough to eat. It is as simple as asking “What would Jesus do?” I’m thinking our Lord wouldn’t have to ponder over this one too long.

Now, before I get a slew of irate mail telling me that I am being legalistic it is believed I said that buying a flat screen TV is immoral, let me clarify. I think how we spend our money is a moral issue. I think each one of us needs to look openly and honestly in what we do with our money. As the Bible alludes, where we are putting our money and time is where our heart is. In other words, we can tell pretty easily where our priorities are by examining our checkbook and our daily schedule. For me and my family, buying a flat screen TV was not the right call.

Let’s end this week’s thought with the words of Paul:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Tim. 6:17-19 NIV)

Have a great week,

We started with some questions. Let’s see if we can’t answer them now.

1. Is helping the poor a) a commandment, b) a nice, but optional thing to do or c) not necessary?

This is a misleading question. We have an obligation to help everyone. Everyone, including ourselves, has some poverty if we do not limit poverty to material poverty. We are to represent Jesus Christ to mankind. We are to exhibit love, morality, kindness, faithfulness, truth and mercy to a world that is seriously lacking in all of these qualities. We are to help where we can.

At the same time, helping the material poor is so interwoven into discipleship in the Bible that it is inextricable. Yes, we do need to help the poor. It is a command. It is “pure religion.” It is what Jesus did.

If we have a negative knee-jerk reaction to helping the poor, it is probably for one of three reasons. 1. Perhaps we wrongly associate helping the poor with all too often misguided or inefficient worldly poverty alleviation programs. 2. It is also possible that we simply assume that people in poverty are there because of some sort of moral failing or laziness. This may true, but with our new definition for poverty, we see that if that is the case, we simply need to help in a different way. 3. We may wrongly assess that the role of the believer is not to help people materially, but spiritually. We may think that the obligation is only to the household of faith (a flawed understanding of Galatians 6:10). We fail to see that Jesus attended to the physical and the spiritual needs of mankind and we are to mimic him in that service.

The bottom-line is that we are individuals need to assist the poor and needy. We also should do so as a group. We should make every attempt to help in a Biblical manner. If we don’t help the poor in a Biblical manner, we may end up doing more harm than good.

2. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the religious leaders (the priest and the Levite) walked on by the man in need. When we, as believers in Jesus, see things like the earthquake in Haiti or the victims of the tsunami, and do nothing, are we equally guilty of “walking on by” or is that only for local situations? What is the right thing to do when you see the man at the intersection holding the sign that says “Will work for food?”

There are three issues in this question. 1. Religion isn’t really “pure religion” if it ignores the poor. 2. Sometimes the right answer is not to give money but to help in other ways. 3. There are three kinds of help – relief, rehabilitation and development. How we help is determined by the need. We’ve already addressed #1, so we’ll move on to #2.

Sometimes the right thing to do is not to give the money. We have to have a holistic approach to poverty alleviation. How do we really know we are helping if we give money to the guy holding the sign “Will work for food?”

Our church has a policy that works like this. We are in a downtown area and are blessed with a member who is an expert in homelessness (he works with the indigent as his profession). When someone shows up asking for money, we give them $10 in McDonald’s coupons and this brother’s business card. We tell them that we won’t give them anything else until they have met with this brother. He is in a position to evaluate them holistically. If they are drug addicts or are alcoholics, he can refer them to a program. If they have other needs, he can refer them back to the ecclesia or to the appropriate organization. In this way, we don’t add to the problem, but take a step back and say “how do we help these people come closer to God.”

This same brother suggests that we should not give money to the people begging on the streets. He suggests that for the vast majority of them, we really aren’t helping them. He also suggested that many of these types of beggars aren’t really homeless, but simply do this to make money. If you really want to help them, stop what you are doing and take them out for a meal. Get to know them a little and see what the real needs are. I would urge caution in doing this. You will find that the three major reasons for homelessness are substance abuse, mental illness and inability to get a job because of a prior felony conviction. You probably want to ease into this by educating yourself on poverty in your area and joining an organized group that helps the poor before venturing into your own solo efforts and getting yourself into trouble.

The last thing we need to do is to be able to quickly assess the difference relief, rehabilitation and development which are outlined in the book When Helping Hurts. They suggest that relief is the urgent provision of emergency aid to reduce suffering resulting from a natural and/or man-made crisis. Relief is by its very nature, immediate and temporary. It is prolonged only when self-reliance is impossible. The basic dynamic is provider and receiver. Sometimes the situation is so critical (like the earthquake in Haiti) that we don’t have time to evaluate all of the options, get “buy-in” from the locals. If someone is drowning, you don’t say “stop thrashing and tell me a little about yourself.” You treat critical situations in a manner in keeping with their criticality.

Rehabilitation, on the other hand, is the restoration of people and their communities to their pre-crisis state and minimization of future vulnerabilities. We are looking to move from doing for and looking for opportunities for doing with. We have to avoid paternalism in this stage and so involve the local population.

The final stage we move to development which is the process of on-going change that is moving people closer to being in right relationship with God, with themselves, with others and with nature. Development isn’t done to people or for people but with people. The key dynamic is promoting an empowering process. This will typically be done around or result in some product or projects.

So let’s take a practical example. You find a homeless family with small children on the street on a bitterly cold night. In a relief effort, you help them find shelter that night. This could be in many forms. It might be renting a hotel room for them, taking them to a shelter or taking them into your own home. The next day, you move into rehabilitation mode. You meet with them to find out more about them. How did they become homeless? What is the cause of their material poverty and how do you help them fix it? It is a case of just needing a job? Is it a case of simply needing to find affordable housing? Once you work with them to find a solution to this immediate need, you move into development mode. Working with them, how do they get into better relationships with God, with self, with other and with creation so as to move forward positively in life? Do they need to learn a job skill? Do they have an understanding of the Gospel message? Do they have reasonable people skills?

The beauty of this process is that if you avoid developing a paternalistic approach, you will find that they will be helping you as much as you are helping them. A touching story of this kind of relationship is chronicled in the book Same Kind of Different as Me. I would strongly recommend this book to demonstrate this principle.

Have a great week,

The next relationship I would like to address is the relationship with man and God’s creation.

I typically go running about four or five days a week. I run through our neighborhood and then onto a country road. The portion of the road I run on most of the time has nothing on it except one country church. The rest of the road is woods. It is pretty and not heavily travelled. One thing you notice though if you are not in a car is that the ditch has a fair amount of garbage in it. Mostly, the trash is beer bottles or beer cans. This is not the ecological disaster of the century, but this micro example can serve to prepare us for the huge problem the world has environmentally. This one example can also serve to show us how interconnected the relationships of God, self, others and God’s creation can be.

The state I live in (Virginia) has an “open container” law. You are not allowed to drive with an open container of alcohol in the car. So, if you are driving and drinking alcohol, it makes sense to discard the “evidence” once consumed in case you are pulled by the police. Now, the ditch also contains other trash such as soda bottles and coffee cups, but the vast majority of it is discarded alcohol containers of some sort.

To generalize, the chain of events is something like this. People have a problem in their relation to God, self and to others in that they have a drinking problem. Now, I know that not everyone that drinks while driving is an alcoholic or has a major problem. However, for our purposes, let’s assume that if someone (a lot of people actually from the looks of the ditches) cannot refrain from drinking alcohol while driving a multi-ton vehicle at high speeds when it is both illegal and potentially hinders their ability to protect themselves and others, they aren’t making the strongest case for wholeness of being. Because people do stupid things, the state feels compelled to enact laws to protect us from these people. In so doing, these alcohol-consuming drivers see the need to litter our highways and byways with their post-consumption debris thus decorating God’s creation with Bud Lite cans. The state used to give people a nickel to return the cans so people would go along the roads and pick the cans and bottles up. Not many states do that anymore so we are dependent on good Samaritans to adopt a highway and pick up the trash. Since apparently good Samaritans are far less plentiful than drinking-driving-littering imbeciles, we have a small ecological problem on the country road on which I run.

Like I said, of the world’s problems, my country road is not that serious. There is not a lot of suffering going on because of the beer cans in the ditch. In contrast, the really big environmental problems are, as a byproduct, thrusting millions in to abject poverty. Take any major ecological catastrophe – the destruction of the rain forests, the salinization of large water bodies and land masses, the pollution of our water – and you can follow a similar path where sin and broken relationships are at the root.

Environmentalism and Christianity have a tentative relationship. People who follow Christ should be the most environmentally conscience people on the planet. Sadly, Christians tend to be among the worst offenders with our over-consumption of the world’s resources and market-driven (rather than Biblically-driven) philosophies. We do all of this despite the fact that God made man a steward of this creation.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen. 1:28)

Yet, despite the Biblical imperative, men – many of whom would consider themselves followers of the principles of Scripture – have destroyed whole areas of the planet.

Does God care if we ruin His planet? God made it “very good” and we seem determined to render it incapable of sustaining life. Imagine if you will God creating a painting of breathtaking beauty and inestimable value and giving it to us as a gift. He says “I am giving you control over this beautiful painting.” Instead of exercising great care over this painting, we leave it out in the rain. We use it as a drop cloth in our garage. We snip pieces off of it and burn them. We cover it in oil, poisonous chemicals and heaps of refuse. Would God be pleased with this behavior? How much more valuable is this world that He created than a painting?

If you do a study of the Old Testament God gives a lot of commands concerning plant and animal life. For example, Proverbs says “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” (12:10 NIV)

Now one of the great side effects of our abuse of the planet is poverty. People find themselves one year living in a lush, tropical rain forest and the next year they find themselves living in a barren, stump-filled wasteland. God’s plan, on the other hand, is for a greater synergy with and sustainability in nature. God commanded the land of lie fallow every seven years. God wouldn’t allow His people to clear cut the land of the enemies of fruit trees. God demanded that people help even their enemy if their livestock was in harm’s way. God wants us to live in harmony with His creation, not abuse and destroy it.

To summarize then, when our relationship with God’s creation is broken because we fail to recognize the stewardship God has given us, it creates many problems including poverty for those people who live in or depend on that part of creation to survive. We need to recognize this as a factor when determining how to make people whole.

Have a great week,

If we may make a generalization about helping the poor, it is that we often lead with our pocketbooks rather than our hearts or heads. Sometimes it is easiest to “write the check” than to “check if we are doing right.” In other words, it is easy to give someone money and make ourselves feel better even if that money may not help the person.

Making sure that the money is spent wisely is difficult, so we often leave that up to organizations whose mission is to collect money and put it to use in the manner in which we intended it to be used. This makes it important that the organization to whom we give our money is using it as stated and has operating principles in line with our own principles.

Almost every week now we read something in the news about the pirates in Somalia. As you may be aware, Somalia is a failed state. They have no real government to stop the pirates or to do much else for that matter. Do you know how they got like this? Well, in a book called The Road to Hell, author Michael Maren makes the case that it was US tax dollars and relief donations made to organizations like Save the Children that destroyed Somalia. How did that work? Basically, during the famine relief efforts, western countries poured tons of money and other assets into Somalia in such a haphazard and inappropriate manner than most of it was siphoned off to the “bad guys.” The more we tried to help, the more we hurt. The more money we poured in, the richer the bandits became until they overran the government. The author concluded “My experience there made me see that aid could be worse than incompetent and inadvertently destructive. It could be positively evil.” Remember that the next time a story about Somali pirates comes on the news. We need to check if we are doing right, not just writing a check. The organizations we support financially need to endorse and live these principles too.

We can think of this on the micro level too. How many times are we approached by someone asking for money on the street who we are pretty sure is going to use that money for drugs or alcohol? Are we helping that person by giving them the money? If we give because we feel guilty or it makes us feel good, we are making it about us. We have our reward. It is easy to give the money; it is hard to change that person’s life by giving them what they need. Yet, the love of Christ constrains us to open more than our purses – we need to open our hearts and our eyes.

So, the idea is that we need to give, but we need to give wisely. Is there a precedent for giving direct aid to someone – not an interest-free loan or a job with pay? There is.

There was a provision in the Old Testament for helping non-relatives.

At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town. The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do. (Deut. 14:28-29 NIV)

This brings us to our last principle,

6. It is a basic tenant of discipleship to give to the poor.

Now, I want you to notice a couple of things. First, this only occurred every three years. This was not a continuous social program that allowed people not to work. Second, notice that this was for Levites, foreigners, orphans and widows living in the town. In the average town in Israel during this time, you would know everyone. You would know if someone was really an “illegal alien”, a widow or an orphan. There is a level of intimacy with these people as opposed to blindly giving. Third, this tithe was for people who earned it (Levites), who had no basic assets or inheritance to provide for themselves (foreigners) and for those who circumstances were severe through unusual circumstances (orphans and widows). Lastly, I want you to notice that this was not voluntary. If you wanted the Lord’s blessing, you needed to do this.

As we have pointed out several times already, giving to the poor is just assumed in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul writes a great deal about it to the relatively wealthy Corinthians. This primarily Gentile church didn’t seem to understand the Jewish custom very well and needs a bit of coercing by the apostle to live up to their Christian duty. Paul says,

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” (2 Cor. 9:6-9 NIV)

This appears to be asking a lot. God commands us to give. Then, on top of that, we are told we are not compelled to give because He wants us to be happy about it. We see this a lot in Scripture. For example, God commands everyone to repent, but then doesn’t make us repent and wants us to want to do so. I think this is God’s love in action. He tells us what is best for us. He doesn’t make us do it though because He wants us to “get it.” If we do something with a bad motive, we are missing the point. What is the point about giving to the poor? Well, if we go back to our early comments that everything we have is God’s, this starts to make a little more sense. God has given us everything and wants us to give to others so as to spread His love. He wants us to experience the same joy He has in giving to us by giving to others. God gives us good gifts and wants us to give good gifts to others as well.

God’s system works. It is hard to notice things that are absent, but did you ever notice that there aren’t too many mentions of beggars in the Old Testament? There are a few mentions of them in a conceptual sense. There is also a negative connotation about them such as “I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25 RSV) In the New Testament we have a few beggars mentioned but they all have physical disabilities. It is always dicey to argue from something not said, but let me suggest to you that this lack of mentions is evidence that the Old Testament methodology worked. No doubt the children of Israel, like all of their other endeavors to serve the Lord, didn’t conduct these matters perfectly. Yet, despite this fact there is little evidence that begging was a problem in these times. The evidence points to the fact that the system worked. In fact, it seemed to work a lot more efficiently and effectively than our system today which seems to consume an awful lot of resources with very little results.

What we can take away from the Old Testament is not the laws themselves, but the principles behind them. These all revolved around the broken relationships between men and their poor neighbors. Let’s review the principles.

1. Prohibition against Permanent Transfer of Basic Assets: We should make sure people have the basic assets needed to help themselves. We should stand up to systems which deprive the poor of their basic assets.
2. Families First: The Old and New Testaments teach that the family unit, God’s primary organization for salvation, is the first place people should look for help to resolve adverse financial situations.
3. Don’t Get Into Debt. If You Are In Debt – Get Out of Debt. Help People Get Out of It If You Can: We should help the poor get out of debt and teach them how to avoid getting into debt again.
4. People Should Work: It is a Divine mandate for people to work who can work. If our helping allows people to avoid work, we may be doing more harm than good.
5. Don’t Manipulate or Abuse the Poor: As believers, we should never participate in anything that hurts the poor. Where appropriate, we should try to address those who do hurt the poor in a Christ-like fashion.
6. It is a basic tenant of discipleship to give to the poor: We need to give money to the poor, but we need to give wisely and willingly. Sometimes we can do more harm than good if we give without thinking or to an organization that doesn’t fully understand these principles.

Have a great week,

The prophet Amos came to Israel with a straightforward message — God had suffered enough of their evil ways and was going to destroy them. The prophet emphasizes again and again their sin:

I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals-those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted.(Amos 2:6-7 ESV)

You would think that this next principle as taught under the Law of Moses and by the prophets such as Amos would not even need to be mentioned, yet sadly, human nature being what it is, it can’t be mentioned enough.

5. Don’t manipulate or abuse the poor.

What kind of a sick world do we live in where people manipulate and abuse the poor? The problem is a pandemic though. Why? Because it is so easy to do. It is like taking candy from a baby. The poor tend to be less educated, are often desperate for money and may come from rough areas where the value placed on human life is lower. This being the case, they are ripe for ripping off or abusing. Do you want to recruit a young woman for prostitution? Where are you more likely to recruit from a rich area or a poor one? Do you want to hire someone to run drugs for you? Where are you going to find some desperate enough to do that? Who is easier to swindle – the third grade dropout or the person with the college degree?

Amos describes the sad state of Israel and one cannot help but draw parallels to our modern culture. He describes a wealthy class of people that have made their money off of the backs of the poor.

You trample on the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them, you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. (Amos 5:11 ESV)

Today, it is common practice to employ people in poor countries for scandalous wages. For example, Chinese workers for Nike are paid $1.75 per day. Compare that to the CEO of Nike who made $3.95 million in 2009 and $9.3 million in 2008. This is an average of over $18,000 per day compared to $1.75 per day (or 10,371 times as much!). This would be defended as “good business” but it sounds to my ears like what Amos describes above.

Let’s not fool ourselves, though. It’s not just the underworld or corporate bigwigs that manipulate the poor; a lot of times it is the so-called good guys. State governments in the US started lotteries (legalized gambling) a few years ago to raise monies for things like schools. Who buys a substantial amount of these tickets? The poor. Studies have shown that the purchase of lottery tickets rises substantially the weeks that poor families receive their government welfare checks. Now you may argue that you can’t protect people from their own stupidity which is true, but do we really need to raise funds in this manner in the first place? Can’t state governments raise money without doing it in such reprehensible fashion promoting gambling and making the lives of poor children harder?

If you do a study, you will find that many things are stacked against the poor. Rich people fair much better in the legal system than the poor. Leviticus 19:15 says that this is wrong.

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

Similarly, Amos comments about this wickedness in his indictment of Israel.

For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins-you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate.(Amos 5:12 NIV)

We could site example after example of how things are stacked against the poor. The bail bond industry is a government endorsed rip off of everyone but especially the poor. Uninsured poor people who do not otherwise qualify for Medicare or Medicaid pay the highest rates in the US of any group for healthcare. Check cashing businesses spring up in poor neighborhoods where high fees are charged just to cash a check. Poor children often attend schools that their rich peers would not tolerate.

God really cares for the poor as evidenced by His attempts to get to us act correctly toward them. The Law of Moses in principle covered these inequities many times over with commands like the following:

Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. (Deut. 24:14-15 NIV)

In the New Testament, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for their preying on the poor. He describes them as devouring widows’ houses. We miss a major point of the story of the widow’s mite if we see it as simply a lesson in self-sacrifice. It is more than that. In that day, widows had no standing in Jewish society so a religious leader would be assigned to manager her affairs for her. The widow’s mite is the story of a woman who has been abused by her appointed “helper” to the point of having only two small coins (her entire net worth) by a religious system which preys on the poor. When I read this parable, I am reminded of a large, popular TV ministry run by a fellow Virginian and former Republican presidential candidate. This program begs for money day after day. Each year the list of the 150 wealthiest Virginians are published and you know who is always on that list? You guessed it. Estimates of his net worth vary between $150 million and $1 billion dollars. Why does he need $20 from an old woman who can’t pay for her heat bill when he has so much money?

The problem with writing about this principle – don’t manipulate or abuse the poor – is that there are too many examples and easy targets to write about. However, let’s make no mistake about it; the house of God should be a refuge for this kind of activity. We should seek to right these wrongs as much as we can as strangers and sojourners in this world, not perpetuate them.

Have a great week,

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,

If there ever was a slice of our modern culture that was as far from God’s principles as could be, it is our society’s approach to debt. The Old Testament establishes principles for debt which can be summarized as follows:

3. Don’t Get Into Debt. If You Are In Debt – Get Out of Debt. Help People Get Out of It If You Can.

Ours is a debt culture. People spend more than they make. Countries spend more than they bring in. The nation of Greece almost single-handedly brought down the EU recently because of their gross financial mismanagement. Yet, when Greece enforced the proper spending controls, people rioted in the streets. People simply don’t understand that out of control spending and ever increasing debt feels good until you have to pay that money back. What is worse is that lax credit policies might feel good for the lenders too as they reap their financial rewards until they lend so much that the borrower defaults or, even worse, the whole system collapses.

In a striking contrast to God’s system in the Old Testament, consider the following statistics. In the US, the average credit card debt per household with credit card debt is a startling $15,788. The average rate of interest on credit card with a balance on it is slightly over 14%. The default rate on credit cards in the US is over 13%. Similarly, the US government at the time of this writing owes over $13 trillion and adds to it at the rate of $2.5 billion each day. Everyone knows it is a problem, but there is no willingness in either the government or the populace to do anything about it.

The Bible does not forbid debt. It does counsel against it. Why? As we are told in Proverbs, it puts us in a bad situation of being beholden to someone else. “The borrower is a slave to the lender.” (Prov. 22:7) If that is true, the United States is a nation of slaves. I sometimes jokingly say that we don’t have to worry about China ever bombing the US because they now own it.

The poor don’t always have the option of avoiding debt. While some can exercise discretion about going into debt to buy a bigger house, a new car or that new dress, the poor may have to go into debt to pay for medical expenses, basic housing or even food. This seems to be one of the reasons that God allowed debt. He understood that sometimes people will borrow just to survive. This is why He prohibits interest charges to the poor. God lays down the following rules concerning interest and taking advantage of the poor:

If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender;charge him no interest. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.(Ex 22:25-27 NIV)

God did not prohibit charging interest. God just prohibited charging interest to poor people. It was acceptable to charge interest to those who borrowed out of business interests, not in the interest of basic survival. (See Prov. 28:8, Matt. 25:27)

Again, contrast this modern practice of not only charging interest to the poor, but charging unusually high interest to the poor. One factor in credit is that the more money you have in the bank, the higher your credit score. The higher your credit score, the lower your rate of interest. Therefore, it stands to reason, that it is a built into the system that poor people will pay higher interest rates than the rich in our culture. Not only that, but there are also predatory lending practices today aimed especially at ripping off the poor. In the US, there is a practice called payday loans. These are loans that are secured by the next paycheck of the working poor. Interest rates and fees for these loans may be 500% per year or more. A poor person who borrows $200 for 2 weeks may pay $38 in interest and fees. In comparison, with a rate of interest of 12% for a person with a decent credit score, they would pay about 92 cents on that same loan amount. Our system is geared toward creating debt, not helping people settle debt.

This brings us to the Old Testament rules for settling debts. Settling debts is a moral issue. We are told “The wicked borrow and do not repay.” (Ps. 37:21) Again, this is talking about those who have the ability to repay, but do not. For those who can pay but simply do not, this is nothing less than stealing. People justify these actions by saying that the people or organizations to which they owe this money have plenty of cash and therefore don’t need their meager payments. If we steal from Wal-Mart is it any more justifiable than if we steal from a local mom and pop store?

If a person in Israel had sold their lands and was still destitute, they could sell their final asset — themselves. This tells us how far people were expected to go to repay their debt.

If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God. (Lev. 25:39-43 NIV)

This leads us back to the beginning. If it is possible, don’t go into debt and if you are in debt, get out of it. This involves work! This involves – in this case nearly literally – self-sacrifice. This concept comes over to the New Testament. Paul says,

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. (Rom. 13:8 NIV)

Let me suggest to you that the main lesson of debt is personal responsibility. We need to take personal responsibility to not live beyond our means which involves both lust and covetousness. It is not just the money that is at issue in the concept of debt. In fact, the money may be the least concern in all of this. We need to make people whole – especially the poor. Sometimes this may require us to forgive debts entirely. Other times, it may mean that we have to give the poor a helping hand with an interest free loan. At other times, we may require them to work their way out of debt. We’ll discuss those determinations at another time, but for now, suffice it to say, we need to help the poor by not only helping them get out of debt, but helping them to exercise personal financial responsibility. Many times it is in the best interest of the poor to help pay their own way to provide them with a holistic solution to their needs.

The first place we can start is by exercising personal financial responsibility ourselves and thus setting a good example of prudent financial stewardship over the assets God has given us. It is our privilege to give to the poor from our abundance. If we are spending every last dime we take in on our own entertainment and “stuff-n-things” while ignoring the needs of the poor, we have our reward.

Have a great week,

Last week we spoke about the Jubilee. When people fell on hard times in ancient Israel, they could lease their lands to someone else until the next Jubilee (maximum of 50 years) when all lands returned to their original owner. The principle of the Jubilee prevented any powerful family from accumulating massive wealth to the exclusion of others. This process in ancient Israel prevented the creation of the great gaps in wealth that are so prevalent in our society today.

There was another principle involved in the Jubilee process where property could revert back to its rightful stewards before the Jubilee period and it involved redemption. This leads us to our next point.

2. Families First

Even in the case of someone leasing their lands in cases of poverty, the next social safety net kicked in - family.

If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold.(Lev. 25:25 NIV)

Families were not supposed to let their relatives suffer in poverty, but were to redeem them. This principle carries over into the New Testament as well. Paul tells Timothy,

If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Tim. 5:8 NIV)

Notice the strong language used by the Apostle for brethren who failed in this regard. They were “worse than an unbeliever.” This is very serious first principle of discipleship not to be lightly dismissed.

WCF, on whose board I am privileged to serve, is often approached by individuals that have fallen on difficult times. We realize that asking for help is a very humbling and difficult thing to do. At the same time, in order to be good stewards of God’s funds that have been graciously donated for our caretaking, we have to follow Biblical protocols. One of the first questions we will inevitably ask in these situations is have they approached their families for help. Family is the first place that people should seek help.

This is the right thing to do for several reasons. First, God ordained families as the primary vehicle for salvation. The story of the Bible is the story of families – primarily God’s family as seen in the descendents (physically and spiritually) of Abraham. When the family unit is working as it should, God comes first and foremost (Matt. 10:37) but this love for God extends an even greater love to the rest of the family. The self-sacrificing love that God teaches us in the Bible must be demonstrated in the family. When this self-sacrificing love breaks down, these relationships we are discussing break down and create further dysfunction. Therefore, we do a disservice to that God-ordained unit of salvation when we deprive the family of the opportunity to help their own.

God doesn’t want us to see this as something we have to do, but as an honor. To bring this point home, God gave the kinsman-redeemer an “out” which is fairly unusual in things under the Law. They could refuse the role, but must also accept that this was shameful. In cases of raising up children to a dead relative – another case of redemption — the person who refused to do so was publicly humiliated.

Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, so shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.(De 25:9)