Social Gospel or True Gospel
(1) Social Gospel or True Gospel
Some preachers actually say, “Helping the poor is just a social Gospel; what’s important is getting them born again. If they starve to death at least they will go to heaven.” But if you do not meet their material needs, you are only proclaiming part of the Gospel. God is not just concerned about our spiritual needs; he is greatly concerned about every area of our lives. In much of the world, it will take a miracle to meet the needs of the masses, because there are few jobs or the wages are insufficient to provide the necessities of life. So if the Church does not help them, including poor Christians, who will do it?
God can and does prosper us over an extended period of time, but he will usually not cause food to appear in your kitchen when he has commanded the Church to feed you. I am sure it has happened on rare occasions, but typically God expects Christians to be the hands and arms of God reaching out to do his work. God is not going to send angels to do what he has commanded us to do.
Some people say that humanitarian work is not missions work, and that charitable acts should not be confused with preaching the Gospel. This assumption has already been proven false in this book; but is also proven false in practical ministry. Take for example the Angel Tree program. Angel Tree is a program of Prison Fellowship Ministries that provides Christmas gifts for the children of inmates. A fund-raising letter for Prison Fellowship tells the story of a man who was saved in prison; but his wife was not interested in Christianity. “Every time she would come to visit me,” Jose says, “I would give her a stack of tracts and leaflets — anything I could get my hands on that was Christian. But what God used to touch her heart was Angel Tree” (1996). Books could be filled with examples of how charity work opened people to accept the Gospel. Only people who have eyes but cannot see, would say otherwise.
God cares about the poor but he is not going to send down angels to feed and clothe them or mend their wounds, so he recruited an army of do-gooders who would supply the needs by giving up all accumulation of wealth; and in exchange, God promised to raise this servant army from the dead so they could live forever. But now Christians want the eternal reward God promised, but they don’t want to give up their material goods or help people as God requires.
The emphasis on giving money for most of the Church today is giving to the local church and staff, rather than giving to the poor, especially the “prosperity” teachers. We are told that the poor should give what little money they have and they will then have their needs met by God. Did Jesus take offerings, telling the people they will be blessed, or even become wealthy by giving to him? No, he never did. In fact, he did just the opposite! Two verses indicate that Jesus and the apostles made regular contributions of money to the poor:
“This perfume could have been sold for a large amount and the money given to the poor!” (Matthew 26:9) (GNB)
Judas had the moneybag. So some thought that Jesus was telling him to buy what they needed for the festival or to give something to the poor. (John 13:29) (GW)
Yes, Jesus gave money directly to those in need, as well as supplying them with food. When Jesus spoke about selling your possessions, it was not so you could give to the Church or to him personally, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Luke 12:33) (NIV). It is very strange that 99 percent of present-day Christianity does not teach this; rather, they are teaching that people should give their money to preachers and churches, so they can build multi-million dollar church buildings and so the preacher can have a huge salary. And in return, God is supposed to bless you and meet your needs, even make you prosperous while the poor continue to suffer.
As explained previously, helping the poor is part of the true and complete Gospel which we have been commanded to give to all nations. This is of such great importance that Jesus actually makes helping the poor a condition for being admitted into the Kingdom Age during the Millennium. To those who help the poor, Jesus will say, “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance,… For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty… ‘” (Matthew 25:34-35) (NIV). But to those who do not help the poor, Jesus will say, “‘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…” (Matthew 25:40-42) (NIV). This does not fit into the smooth doctrines being preached in pulpits today, but it is a fact that you cannot escape. You will not get the inheritance you think you will get if you do not help the poor! Ronald Sider in Rich Christians In an Age of Hunger says:
The meaning is clear and unambiguous. Jesus intends that his disciples imitate his own special concern for the poor and needy. Those who disobey will experience eternal damnation…. The text clearly says that if we fail to aid the needy, we do not have God’s love– no matter what we may say. It is deeds that count, not pious phrases and saintly speeches. Regardless of what we do or say at 11:00 A.M. Sunday morning, affluent people who neglect the poor are not the people of God. (p. 82)
Jesus did not say that all persons who do not feed and cloth the poor will go into eternal fire except those who believe in him! This is a mistaken belief, that once you get born-again you are certain to live with Christ in his eternal Kingdom, even if you allow people to starve to death because of your greed. “How can you be unborn?” is a frequent statement by those who preach Eternal Security. Lucifer and one-third of the angels were originally in heaven but were cast out! You too can and will be disinherited if you disobey God’s commands. The Holy Spirit will depart from you and you will be eternally condemned.
Christians who object to teaching on good works like to emphasize that salvation is a free gift:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9) (ESV)
As a result of Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2, to guard against the possibility that people might try to earn their salvation with good works, “Thou shalt not make an effort to do good work” has inappropriately become the 11th commandment. Derek Prince said, “We are so afraid of a Gospel of works, we have a Gospel that does not work.” Most Christians can quote the above verse in Ephesians, but how many know what the next verse says? Part of the blame lies with the King James Version, but other translations make it clear, such as this one:
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (NIV)
The Good News Version says, “he has created us for a life of good works.” The Living Bible says:
It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others. (Living Bible)
Wow! We were created to do good works! That is a very powerful statement which is being totally ignored by the Church today. God wants to help people, and he has given us, his sons and daughters, the job of doing his work of helping the needy! We are the hands and arms of God.
Salvation is not earned with good works, but we are all called to a life of good works, just as a missionary is called to give his life in a jungle. The New Jerusalem version says, “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus for the good works which God has already designated to make up our way of life.”
Those who are blinded by false doctrine read the above verses and say they refer to doing the work of ministry, like teaching a Sunday school class, working in visitation, driving a church bus, and so forth. This is also part of the work, but it is not the main thought here. When Paul speaks of good works; he is talking about helping people who are in need!
To hear preaching today, you would think that Ephesians 2 ends with verse 9, but it does not. So in summary of this passage in Ephesians, we are saved by faith as a gift from God, not because of doing good works, and in return for eternal life God expects us to spend our lives doing good works.
When the apostles agreed that Paul should preach to the Gentiles, “All they asked was that we should remember the needy in their group, which is the very thing I have been eager to do.” (Galatians 2:10) (GNB). What? The man who was homeless and hungry remembered the poor?!
To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. (1 Corinthians 4:11) (NKJ)
Paul, the man who supposedly taught the doctrine of seed time and harvest related to money, must not have planted any money seed himself! The NIV says, “To this very hour” which means at the exact time that he was writing 1 Corinthians, Paul was hungry, homeless, and wearing rags. A homeless apostle in America today would not be looked upon as an apostle, but as a bum. He would be called an apostle want-a-be, and especially as a loser who must not be submitted properly to some other preacher and must be doing something wrong or he would be blessed financially. Who today would even allow a homeless apostle to preach in their church? But if he arrives driving a Jaguar or BMW we roll out the red carpet and pay him a huge sum for speaking.
Occasionally Paul worked to support himself rather than take money from the people he ministered to. I am not saying that preachers should not receive an income from preaching, of course they should; but how big of an income? Did Paul collect money from those who were financially able so he could travel from city to city in a coach pulled by six white horses? No, but he did collect money to help Christians in financial need.
(2) Having Too Little or Too Much
Paul taught Christians who had enough, gave to those who did not have enough:
I am not trying to relieve others by putting a burden on you; but since you have plenty at this time, it is only fair that you should help those who are in need. Then, when you are in need and they have plenty, they will help you. In this way both are treated equally. As the scripture says, “The man who gathered much did not have too much; and the man who gathered little did not have too little.” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15) (NIV)
This passage teaches economic equality among Christians. Those who have more than they need are supposed to share their excess with those who do not have enough. Yes, God will supply our needs, but according to the above verses, his intended way of doing so is through our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. The above verses also say that Christians can have “too much.” How can Christians have too much? That is BLASPHEMY to many Christians today. You can have too much by having much more than you need, while others are suffering want.
Who in the Church today teaches that you can have too much? “God is sure blessing brother so-and-so, have you seen his new Cadillac?” According to the above verses, everyone who lives on a multi-million dollar estate has too much! Anyone who spends money on diamonds and other jewels has too much. Anyone who has more than they need to live a reasonable, non-materialistic life has too much.
These are strong words but they are not my words, it is the Word of God that is not being taught. I’m sorry if you don’t like it or if you don’t want to believe it, but it is clearly stated in the verses you just read. Paul was actually referring back to the Old Testament. The NIV Study Bible comments about the above passage in 2 Corinthians:
The reference is to the gathering by the Israelites of the manna in the desert. Though in the daily gathering the aged and weak might collect less than the prescribed amount and the young and vigorous might collect more, there was an equal distribution, so that the excess of some ministered to the deficiency of others. (NIVSB)
While the children of Israel were in the desert, God fed them with manna, but they could only gather enough for one day. If they gathered more than they could eat, it ruined overnight except when they gathered enough for the Sabbath. God was teaching them that they should not store up wealth, but should depend on God for their daily needs. He was also teaching them to share with others. After everyone gathered the manna, they measured it out and each person received an equal share of manna (about four quarts). This is the first instance of large-scale communal sharing in the Bible. And it is the example that Paul referred to and that Jesus also knew about and must have referred to when said, “give us today our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11) in the Lord’s Prayer.
This is a very important lesson for us today, but prosperous Americans are too greedy to share their wealth. They want to keep it all for themselves. They have bought into the idea that people should not be given “hand-outs” and if they are homeless it is because they will not work. It’s Capitalist economics, not Biblical economics.
So Paul was using Deuteronomy as a proof text for requesting money from prosperous Christians to assistant poor Christians, and rightly so. The first Christians in Acts also shared what they had with each other, but they were not the only ones. The Early Church Fathers reveal that wealth sharing was still occurring in the second century. Here is a quote from Early Church writings:
For this has been your custom from the beginning, to do good to all the brethren in various ways, and to send resources to many churches which are in every city, thus refreshing the poverty of the needy, and granting subsidies to the brethren who are in the mines. Through the resources which ye have sent from the beginning, ye Romans, keep up the custom of the Romans handed down by the fathers, which your blessed Bishop Sorer has not only preserved, but added to, sending a splendid gift to the saints, and exhorting with blessed words those brethren who go up to Rome, as an affectionate father to his children. (Letter to the Roman Church by Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, 170 A.D., translated by Rev. B. P. Pratten)
The church in the port city of Ostica, Italy, devoted as much space to storing goods to be redistributed to the needy as they did space for their worship services. (Embezzlement: The Corporate Sin of Contemporary Christianity? by Ray Mayhew. Reference, Etruscan and Roman Architecture, by Axel Boethius and J.B. Ward-Perkins; Harmondsworth: Middix, 1970, page 152-154)
What is truly amazing is that this passage in Corinthians is used as an example of false “seed faith” giving. What Paul said in this passage is the opposite of seed-faith giving because he said that in the future the church which is now helping the poor church will itself need help and will be helped by the church which is now receiving help. So if seed-faith giving were true, Paul would have said, “If you give to help this poor church, then you will not need help in the future because God will prosper you.”
Jesus told a story about a beggar named Lazarus who sat outside the gate of a rich man who, “was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day” (Luke 16:19) (NIV). Dogs came to lick the sores that covered Lazarus’ body. Lazarus longed “to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” When Lazarus died the angels carried him to Abraham’s “bosom” (KJV). When the rich man died he was buried and woke up in Hell, begging for a drop of water to cool his tongue.
What exactly was the rich man’s sin? Jesus never mentioned any particular sin. The rich man was living in luxury while Lazarus suffered, that was the rich man’s sin! He had too much and Lazarus had too little. The Gospel attempts to correct that disproportion. Notice also that God did not send angels or anyone else to feed Lazarus because God expected the rich man to feed him or God would not have held the rich man guilty for not feeding him.
Living in a global community as we do today, a rich man has ample ability to know about and meet the needs of Christians in any nation on Earth, but he should start with his own city. There are people who need basic transportation; others need medical treatment or a better place to live. It is not their fault they don’t have the skills and abilities to become an engineer or business manager. Some people will never be able to type 50 words per minute regardless of the amount of effort they put into it. So they are excluded from the many demanding jobs in Capitalism. Even if they could do the job as well as someone else, many people will never be the best applicant so will never be hired for a job that pays a living wage.
What good is a job that does not pay enough to pay the rent, buy food, clothing, and so forth? Without those things one cannot even hold a job. Employers are very demanding and unforgiving. If your clothes aren’t neatly pressed and color coordinated, you don’t get hired. Do people who can’t compete in the job market deserve to sleep under a bridge? Never!
What about the verses that seem to say that God is the one who will supply our needs, and not just our needs, but far beyond our needs?
And God is able to give you more than you need, so that you will always have all you need for yourselves and more than enough for every good cause. As the Scripture says, “He gives generously to the poor, His kindness lasts for ever.” (2 Cor. 9:8-9) (GNB)
The “He” is God. God cares about the poor and gives generously to them. But what this verse says is that God gives to the poor through us by giving us more than we need so that we can give to good causes, like helping the poor. It is not promoting wealth-getting, and cannot rightly be used to increase the size of church offerings like it so frequently is. It is talking about helping the poor! God will give us more than we need so we can give generously to the poor, not so we can build a multimillion-dollar church complex. It goes right along with the story of Lazarus and the rich man, God wanted Lazarus to have his needs meet, but the rich man kept money for himself that should have gone to Lazarus. Christians in America are keeping for themselves money that is supposed to help other Christians in India, Africa, or China.
The question is how much is more than enough? When is there extra money? In our materialistic society we never seem to have anything left over. Our lifestyle reflects our income. If your income increases, that is just more money to buy a bigger house or a motor home; the desire for stuff never ends. Paul did not say that after you have everything you need to satisfy your fleshly desires, then if there is any left over you can help your brother pay his electric bill.
In truth, everyone living in North America gets caught up in the consumer mindset to some degree, and it is hard to break the power of this lie. (Joel Vestal, Dangerous Faith, page 77)
The problem with American Christians is they have been brought up to seek after the American Dream. They are climbing the ladder of success through ever increasing income, and view it as reward for hard work. It just might be that the only reason your income has increased is so the additional amount can be given to help the poor; “more than you need.”
The ever more affluent standard of living is the god of twentieth-century North America and the ad man is its prophet. (Rich Christians, p. 46)
Most well-off Christians are guilty of robbery because they have kept so much for themselves. Some will give offerings and even pay tithes, but that is not what Paul and God are talking about in 2 Corinthians, they are talking about giving a huge portion of your paycheck to the poor and needy because you earn more than you need. Read the next verse carefully:
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48) (NIV)
Much is being demanded of American Christians because they have enough to share with their poor brothers and sisters. But sadly, most Christians in America have bought into the lie that Christians should be extremely prosperous, which is preached from the pulpits of many churches as a Biblical doctrine, but wrongly so:
Yes, God will give you much so that you can give away much, and when we take your gifts to those who need them they will break out into thanksgiving and praise to God for your help. (2 Corinthians 9:11) (Living Bible)
Here Paul is taking up an offering for poor Christians in need, he is not saying that if they just give an offering to him that God will met their needs. Paul is actively meeting the needs of poor Christians. He is not praying that God will perform a miracle to feed them. If God supplies the needs of the poor through miracles, then it will not be necessary for God to supply you with more than you need in order to help others! The above verse says that God will supply us with much so you can give to those who do not have enough. It does not refer to giving to a TV preacher so he/she can live in luxury.
Many Christians are not able to earn enough money to supply their own needs, especially those with injuries which prevent them from working at many demanding jobs. Some people end up homeless because they cannot get government disability. It is very difficult to get disability. But even with those payments it’s extremely difficult to survive because the payments are so small. Some Christians are not able to get hired for good jobs because they do not have great references.
In some ways it is more difficult to survive poor in America than in third world countries. In other countries the poor can build shacks to live in, but American laws do not allow shacks to be constructed or lived in, so the people are forced to literally sleep on the sidewalk.
It is true that God does make some people rich, but very few. Few people in America have nice things that are truly gifts from God; most people acquire them out of selfishness or greed. “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13) (NIV).
We must give, if only for our spiritual well-being. Giving to the poor prevents greed and creates a generous heart, which we learn about in the book of Luke where Jesus condemns the Pharisees for cleaning the outside of the cups as a religious ritual while neglecting what is important:
40 You fools! Didn’t the one who made the outside make the inside too? 41 Give what is inside as a gift to the poor, and then everything will be clean for you. 42 “How horrible it will be for you Pharisees! You give God one-tenth of your mint, spices, and every garden herb. But you have ignored justice and the love of God. You should have done these things without ignoring the others. (Luke 11:40 – 42) (GW)
Although we may appear to be outwardly righteous, we develop greed and selfishness on the inside when we do not give to the poor. This passage does not apply to giving to the preacher, but to people in poverty. Giving to the needy is like spiritual warfare upon greed. The best cure for greed is giving to the poor. Jesus condemned the Pharisees again in Matthew chapter 15 for giving money to the temple that rightly should have been used to support elderly parents. They thought they could buy their way into heaven with money that rightly belonged to the poor, but it is actually the opposite. You gain God’s favor when you give to the poor:
“But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6‘then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.” (Matthew 15:5-6) (NKJ)
There are elderly and disabled people living in housing that is in such bad condition that it looks like it should be torn down, literally, because that is all they can afford. But of course today many elderly in America are often better off than those still working ,because Social Security benefits added to retirement benefits have many elderly earning high incomes. Often times they earn more than they earned when they were working! All the while, millions of families struggle to provide clothes for their kids. This means there are a lot of families out there that can be helped by many retired people, if they would only part with some of that cash, but they would rather gamble it away at a casino. Some people have the motto, “You can have my cash when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.”
To retire wealthy is a major goal of many Americans, and many are achieving that goal. Luxury motor buses are traveling down every highway in America. Wealthy retired people live in them as they travel across the country to play golf and visit tourist attractions. Wouldn’t their time and money be better spent finding people in need and helping them? There are many people who must take the bus because they cannot afford a car. Have you ever tried to look for a job on a bus? It takes hours to get places that only take a few minutes in a car.
Although hundreds of millions of dollars are donated by Christians every year, rather than it going for the poor or even to the spread of the Gospel, most of it is spent on the comfort and pleasure of those who gave it. It is spent on Christian amusement parks, golf courses, recreation halls, swimming pools, gyms, and church buildings and offices. American Christians have the best of everything money can buy, while the world starves for lack of physical and spiritual food. This is proof that the materialism of Babylon the Great Whore has infiltrated the Church. Many millions of dollars have been diverted from the work of the Gospel to build monuments to self-indulgence.
Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, with more than 17,000 attendees, has a 56,000 square foot — fitness center! The center has 4 basketball courts, 2 racquetball courts, 21 pieces of cardio equipment (treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, arc trainers, and more), 25 Cybex® weight machines, 20 spinner bikes, 2 group exercise rooms (various classes offered throughout the day), free-weight area, child care, men’s and women’s locker rooms, and more. How many millions of dollars did it cost? How many thousands of children in India could have been feed and educated with that money?
According to Mission Frontiers magazine, of all church spending, 95% is on domestic projects; 4.5% is spent for regular missions, and .5% on frontier missions (going where no missionary has gone before). There are many people who trained and ready to go to villages in India today if people would give enough money for basic support, but Christians prefer to give millions to big-name preachers on TV. The missionaries who are on the field often live in primitive conditions, while the teachers and preachers here in the U.S. have huge incomes, some are millionaires:
The city’s rulers govern for bribes, the priests interpret the Law for pay, the prophets give their revelations for money–and they all claim that the LORD is with them. “No harm will come to us,” they say. “The LORD is with us.” (Micah 3:11) (GNB)
Rather than a simple statement of fact, could this verse be a prophecy about the state of Christianity today? Even in Paul’s day, there were many ministers who traveled around preaching only because it was an easy way to make a good living. They were just doing it for profit. Read two translations of 2 Cor. 2:17:
Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. (2 Cor. 2:17) (NIV)
For we are not like the great number who make use of the word of God for profit: (BBE)
Wealth can be a blessing when properly used, but because of the likelihood of becoming spiritually poor like the Laodiceans in the book of Revelation, wealth can actually be a curse from Satan. The wealthy American Church is spiritually poor, blind, and naked. They are blind to the truth because of their excessive material goods, both the liberals and conservatives. I have seen preachers driving BMWs, Jaguars, and every other kind of luxury car. Rick Joyner said:
We esteem highly those who overcome during times of persecution, darkness and evil, as we should, but the greatest overcomers of all may be those who have overcome the lukewarmness generated by prosperity and comfort. (The Harvest, p. 82)
(3) Acts of Righteousness
In the passage mentioned previously, where it said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,” it goes on to say; “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 25:45-46) (NIV). So the righteous are those who feed the hungry!
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them . . . 2 Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you . . .” (Matthew 6:1-2) (ESV)
These passages tell us that giving to the needy is an act of righteousness that Jesus expects us to do. Those who do not give to the poor, are not righteous. Therefore, it is sin. Since we must help the needy, the best possible way to help them is to present the Gospel along with the physical help. But giving to the needy includes giving to those who are already Christians, such as our poor brothers and sisters in Africa, Asia, and down the street.
Since we know that Jesus referred to good works as acts of righteousness, it gives new meaning to what Jesus said in Matthew 5:
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:20) (ESV)
Another translation of this verse says:
“I can guarantee that unless you live a life that has God’s approval and do it more faithfully than the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20) (GW)
The Pharisees were diligent in keeping the ritual portions of the Law, but they were going to hell because they were not helping the poor. We must help the poor or we are not righteous!
(4) The Poor in America
Most Americans cannot relate to the extreme suffering of the poor in America, or the suffering which people in other countries go through. But in the last few decades some Americans have gotten a taste of hardship because of floods, hurricanes, tornados, and fires. Those who suffer through these realize how important it is to help our neighbors. But most of them go back to their isolationism after the disaster.
The average American cannot even image the difficulty of being poor. Just try going to and from the grocery store in a big city on a bus. I DARE YOU! Or better still, walk! If you have to walk everywhere you go, you will find that many motorists will run you over, or think you are a prostitute, or give you a sarcastic smirk like, “What a stupid-idiot bum. He has to walk, ha, ha.” As far as they are concerned, you are nothing more than a dog with shoes. Even those who take the bus have to do a lot of walking to get anywhere.
If you can get to a job by bus on weekdays, you may not be able get to that same job on weekends because of different weekend bus schedules. This means people without a car are greatly limited in their employment options. The “haves” really don’t know what it’s like to be a “have not.”
Christians should be the first to extend help to all who need it: the widow, the orphan, the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, the homeless man, the homeless teen-ager, and even those without transportation to the grocery store. When I was living in Houston, Texas my old car developed trouble so I had to ride the city bus for an hour and walk two miles to get to the large church I was attending. I telephoned the church office and asked if they ran any buses. A terse “no” was the answer. I asked if they would call a member who could pick me up on their way to church? Their reply was, “If God wants you to attend this church, he will provide you with a way to get here!” This was also their response to the needy, “God will provide.” God is not going to send angels down to do what he has commanded you to do. God expects us to help each other.
In the first century A.D. there were no social programs like welfare or food stamps. If you could not work, you became a beggar. It was the same way in America until programs like Social Security were started to keep the elderly from starving. During those former times it was the Church who took care of the needy, but since these government programs have started we have developed a mistaken belief that the government should be responsible for helping the poor. When it is left up to the government it results in a welfare system no one wants, and produces no eternal rewards.
Any government program will not meet all the needs, but will leave large gaps. Fifty percent of the children who age-out of the foster care system end up homeless or in prison. Foster care will only pay a family to keep children until they turn 18, then they are turned out on the street. This is a great need that is being ignored by Christians in America! Can you name one Christian charity that targets this group? I am not referring to homeless shelters, I am talking about putting a finger in the dike to stop a flood. Once a person is in a homeless shelter the flood has already occurred and you are assisting in recovery. We need to prevent the flood before it happens by providing transitional living. They need a place to live while looking for a job or working at a low paying job until they can support themselves.
But we seem to have developed the mindset of leaving it up to the government to do our good works for us:
On any measure, the good works accomplished by government have far eclipsed those of churches and other charities. And this makes sense, because the resources of these private institutions are very limited compared to the resources wielded by government. So while my local soup kitchen feeds dozens of people a week, it is the federal food stamp program that is primarily responsible for greatly reducing hunger among the thousands of poor in our community. On the surface, it seems that charities may spend large amounts on helping the needy in our society – after all, Americans give about $240 billion to philanthropic organizations annually. But this figure is misleading. Most of the money raised by charities and non-profit organizations does not in fact go to those in need. Most of it goes to programs and facilities– like the YMCA, art museums, colleges, medical research, public television stations, churches, etc.– that primarily serve the middle and upper class people who donate the money. Only about 10% or $24 billion goes to fund human service programs for the needy. And only half of that amount– about $12 billion– goes to services for low-income families.
In contrast, the federal government alone spends over $200 billion a year on programs aimed at poor and low-income families, including welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and housing subsidies. Moreover, government also funds much of the anti-poverty and anti-hunger work done by charitable groups and non-profit human service organizations. Catholic Charities USA, which provides emergency food and shelter to the poor, gets 65% of its budget from the government. So it is clearly the government that is carrying the bulk of the load in caring for the neediest people in our society. Private charities and non-profits simply do not have the means to deal adequately with poverty, homelessness, hunger or virtually any of the serious problems that are causing suffering in our society.
So while most of us do not think of it this way, government is actually one of the main ways that we act as good people in the world. Our contributions to government in the form of taxes go to fund a wide variety of programs and services that have eliminated enormous amounts of suffering and vastly improved millions of people’s lives. Democratic government is in part a manifestation of our desire to be responsible moral people, and it is the primary institutional mechanism that we use to make the world a better place. (Professor Douglas J. Amy, Doing Good through Government, 3-13-2008; www.rockridgeinstitute.org)
Even though the government appears to be taking the place of organized Christianity, we must step up and do as much as we can because not only is it our responsibility, when Christians do good works it shows our love and God’s love in ways that will never be seen when help comes from the government. Not only that, but there may come a time in the future when national governments have collapsed and are no longer able to help anyone. At that point we must be ready to do even more, but if we sit back and expect the government to do it all now, we will be unable to step in and replace government aid. We must already be organized and experienced with the processes and strategies needed to get the job done.
The best form of help is employment. If people have jobs that pay a living wage then they will not go without basic necessities, but that’s a major problem even here in America. If a person cannot get hired for a job or cannot earn enough to support himself or a family, the church should be the place to go for assistance, but this is far from the reality with the present-day church. Not even a Christian gets this kind of help from Christianity today.
There are very few churches where the homeless and needy are welcome. The homeless will rarely enter a church with dirty clothes, dirty hair, and needing a bath. The Christians would look at them and think, “What are you doing here? Do you want a hand out, to cause trouble, or rob someone?” Many homeless have asked churches for help, but were turned away. As a result, these people become virtually unreachable with the Gospel. The reason the homeless are not welcome is because the Christians don’t want to give up any of their luxury goods to help them!
You may think a homeless person can go to a shelter, but most homeless shelters do very little in the way of practical help. Most shelters only allow people to stay for a few nights a month unless they work for the shelter full-time. A person is lucky to get a decent meal and a bed from most shelters. Some shelters don’t even have beds, but only very thin mats. And some places only provide one meal a day. It is practically a full time job for a homeless person to find enough food, clothing, and shelter. They rarely have access to showers and laundry; no wonder they can’t get a job.
All shelters should be operated by born-again Christians, but as it is, most are spiritually dead; don’t help people get employment; don’t serve good food; don’t provide secure areas to prevent theft of what few items the homeless do have; don’t allow people who do have a job to stay until they can find a place to live; don’t allow them to stay indoors during the day even when it is or pouring rain or freezing cold. But they often do have filthy restrooms and homosexuals in management positions who give favors to patrons in exchange for sex.
These so-called shelters suffer from many more problems too great to deal with here, but it makes one wonder why they are in business in the first place if they are not really going to help people on a long-term bases. (Homeless families or women with children usually have services available that are better than for single males or single women.)
Many people will take in a stray dog, feed it and treat it like a member of the family, but they shake their heads “tisk, tisk” as they drive passed the homeless in their expensive cars on their way to church. Reverend Derek Rigby, the pastor of Trinity Methodist Church in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales, tested his congregation by dressing up as a bum, complete with fake tattoos. He then laid at the entrance to his church on Sunday morning. All the congregates either ignored him or made nasty remarks, “None of them spoke to me, apart from a few who told me off and told me to get away from their cars, which they kept checking” (9 July 2008, Flock shocked by ‘tramp’ minister, http://news.bbc.co.uk/).
There are over three million homeless in the U.S. and many more throughout the world. Some homeless in the U.S. are Christians, and many homeless throughout the world are Christians. During a greatly promoted, greatly attended, Christian rally in Washington D.C. in 1988, homeless people wondered through the crowd completely ignored. A preplanned token gesture was made with a collection of food, but it was given to the local agencies rather than directly to the hungry. A homeless man was offered a Gospel tract but said, “I’m already a Christian,” then slunked away in despair; with no hope of, or offers of, genuine help. Some preachers will want to point a finger at the homeless Christian for not having water-walking faith to get himself out of that situation. But when you have been beaten down long enough, you loose hope of ever getting your head above water. That is one reason why God has commanded us to give a helping hand to those who cannot help themselves.
In many of the cultures I have visited, people’s hopes and dreams have been crushed because of economic or other forms of injustice…. God must look down on events in the world today and be saddened that His church is not doing all we can. (Joel Vestal, Dangerous Faith, page 147)
The idea that most homeless people have drug or alcohol problems does not reflect real life. Some workers refuse to lie to customers or cheat them, so they get fired, others refuse to be paid under the table, and others may refuse to have sex with the boss. As a result, they are given bad job references so other employers will not hire them.
Many people are disabled and cannot work, and can’t get government disability payments. The government says if you are capable of earning $500 per month, you don’t qualify for disability. This means there are a lot of disabled people who can’t earn enough to make a living and end-up homeless. There are even people in wheel chairs that are homeless; that fact is a shame and a disgrace upon every church in America!
It does not matter who you are a lawyer, writer, or bus driver, if you were to suddenly become homeless you could not get a decent job of any kind, simply because you are homeless. Employers rarely hire homeless people, especially single males, unless it is a job that no one else wants. But even if a homeless person could get a job, what will they eat, and how will they afford bus fare or gasoline for two or sometimes three weeks before they get their first paycheck? How will they have clean, ironed, clothes? Employers are not understanding. You will meet their demands or “tough-luck.”
If greedy business owners don’t want to hire you, they don’t have to. If they don’t like your looks, they will not hire you. If you are not “happy” enough, they will fire you. If you are tall and the personnel manager is short, you are not likely to get hired. If you are thin and attractive but the person who interviews you is fat and unattractive, you will probably not get hired; and the list goes on and on. This shows that a person’s life is no longer in his own hands; he is at the mercy of other people, but he is blamed for being unemployed.
This means you have only three ways to go: You can be one of the fortunate and be accepted into the work world, or be rejected for being imperfect or having an imperfect work history. If you are rejected, you are forced to allow yourself to be trampled on and accept the fact that you will spend the rest of your life homeless, or you will fight back by becoming a criminal. There are a lot of people in prison who would not be there if they could get the help they needed to get on their feet and get started with a normal life.
Many of us are fortunate enough to have family members who can help us. They help us go to college, help us get a car, help us get an apartment, etc. but many people have no one to help them and end up on the street or in prison.
(5) Wealthy in The Kingdom?
Finally, how can we read passages like this one and still believe it is OK for a Christian to have wealth?
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to get into the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were startled by these words, but Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in their wealth to get into the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23-24) (ISV)
Of course part of the blame lies with the very poor King James Version translation of this verse: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” And most modern translations have removed the last part, and make say simply, “how hard it is to enter the kingdom.” We need to really think about that statement and give it the importance it deserves: “Those who thus eagerly seek the wealth of the world, will never rightly prize Christ and his grace” (Matthew Henry Commentary).
Have you ever wondered why Jesus said that? It should be obvious at this point in the book. God requires the rich to give up their wealth to help the poor, but most rich people are not willing to do so. There is a very similar passage in Matthew 19 where a rich ruler comes to Jesus and asks him what “good” he must do to inherit eternal life. The KJV and many others insert the word “thing” after “good,” but it is not in the original Greek, and it means “good deed” which is why some translations word it that way:
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16) (ESV)
Because he was already keeping the other commandments, the only other thing that he needed to do was share his wealth. Jesus told him that if he wanted to be perfect he should sell all his luxury goods and give the money to the poor. Though he was otherwise a righteous man, he was not willing to give up his wealth:
23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:23-24) (ESV)
With so many rich Christians in the America today, they read that passage and do not believe that it means what it says. It is very difficult for rich people to let go of their wealth. You don’t get wealth, wealth gets you. The Matthew Henry Commentary states:
Christ’s words show that it is hard for a rich man to be a good Christian, and to be saved. The way to heaven is a narrow way to all, and the gate that leads into it, a strait gate; particularly so to rich people. More duties are expected from them than from others, and more sins easily beset them. It is hard not to be charmed with a smiling world. Rich people have a great account to make up for their opportunities above others. It is utterly impossible for a man that sets his heart upon his riches, to get to heaven. Christ used an expression, denoting a difficulty altogether unconquerable by the power of man. Nothing less than the almighty grace of God will enable a rich man to get over this difficulty.
About the camel statement, Adam Clarke Commentary said, “It was also a mode of expression common among the Jews, and signified a thing impossible.” (More information on this passage can be found in the next chapter.)
What should be the relationship between the Church and the poor? The overall teachings of the Bible, especially the New Testament, show that helping the poor is one of the signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God, and is therefore the responsibility of the Church. And who has the most responsibility? The wealthy!