Gospel News — Jun-Aug 2012

are poor because of their own fault or laziness, or who are asking for support when they don't actually need it. A person who comes to you claiming need is "the poor". Thus Israel were not to farm their land in the seventh year, "that the poor of your people may eat" (Ex. 23:11). This immediately raised the issue that all manner of people could eat the fruit which grew naturally on the land that year- but there was no legislation to try to limit who had access to it. Those who had food in their barns might eat what grew- but there was no mechanism within the law which controlled that. The point is, in our spiritual poverty we are just the same. We are in that position partly because of our human situation and other factors over which we have no control; but also partly and largely because we choose to be in it. We cry to God for the riches of His forgiveness- and we waste it, by doing the same sin over and again. Our hold on spiritual things is weak, we don't respond with the grace and appreciation we ought to. We're spiritually lazy. We're no better than those who are materially poor through nothing but their own fault. Our generosity to them is a reflection of our recognition of this. If we stop our ears at the cry of the poor, then our cry to God will go unheard (Prov. 21:13); their cry to us and our cry to God are parallel. Even if a family blow their monthly pay cheque in two days and are totally without food for the rest of the month- they are "the poor". They are in need. And to argue that "I will not assist them because it's their own fault" is to have no compassion upon the poor. In spiritual terms, you do exactly the same. Every sin is your fault. It was avoidable. But you keep on and on sinning. You were the wounded man, saved by the Samaritan's grace. Those in need are "the poor"; the issue of the degree to which they are at fault for that need doesn't change their need, their poverty, and our required response.

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Poverty in Deuteronomy

Dt. 15:7 foresaw that when confronted by the poor, there would be a tendency to "harden your heart and close your hand to your poor brother"; there was no mechanism suggested for determining his genuineness, but rather a command to respond. Indeed Israel were warned not to have "a thought in your wicked heart" and devise how not to be generous to the poor (Dt. 15:9); they were to "open your hand wide" to the poor who approached them (Dt. 15:11- applied to us in 1 Jn. 3:17). In Hebrew thought, "the hand" referred to power and ability. No matter how materially poor, we each have a "hand"- even if it's not a financial one. And we are to "open" it- the Hebrew word carrying the idea of unloosing, as in untying a sack. It's as if we're all tied and twisted up inside ourselves, and it's this which stops us responding.

The same word is used of how God opens unto us His hand, opens up "His good treasure, the heaven to give rain..." (Dt. 28:12). The cycles of the natural world aren't running on mindless clockwork; God sends His rain, and so many blessings. He is in this sense "open" and not selfish; His eyes are "open" in responding to our requests in prayer (1 Kings 8:58). He loves being generous - and we too are to love showing mercy (Mic. 6:8). He delights in forgiveness- and the poorest person has people who need their forgiveness too. God not only loves being generous, but He also identifies Himself with the poor. Therefore "He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord" (Prov. 19:17); "He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker, but he who is gracious to the needy honours Him" (Prov. 14:31). The Lord taught the same: "To the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me" (Mt. 25:46). Considering that the poor are often poor