Deuteronomy 15:7-11
There Will Be Poor in the Land
7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
Mark 14:7
Jesus Says the Poor We Will Always Have
7 The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.
Poverty seems to be a constant...A passage in the Old Testament which pre-dates Jesus and mentions that "there will always be poor people in the land."...Jesus, completely knowing Jewish scripture, might be echoing this idea to the generation of His time...And poverty continues to happen even today two thousand years later...But why?...
Jesus' statement backs the truth of how poverty has lasted for thousands of years...This interpretation views Jesus' statement as a realistic observation, because we still have the poor and poverty two thousand years after He ascended into heaven... Poverty has existed throughout human history, and various factors like social structures, economic systems, and natural disasters contribute to it...Jesus simply, when He was on earth, acknowledges this reality of being poor...
But Jesus was One who focused on generosity and helping the poor...He was a Man of action...Some see being poor and poverty as a challenge to the Disciples and future followers of Jesus...Jesus isn't saying it's okay to accept poverty, but rather urging them to show compassion and generosity to those in need and living in poverty and being poor...
Some believe Jesus wasn't referring to all forms of poverty, but rather to a specific kind, like material scarcity...It doesn't negate the possibility of working towards reducing poverty in all its forms...Jesus is One who focuses on spiritual wealth, while trying to help those in need...So Jesus does emphasize a Spiritual Dimension in His helping the poor...True wealth lies in one's relationship with God, and this is attainable regardless of one's material possessions...
Brian Fikkert is an author and associate professor at Covenant College...In his book "Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn't the American Dream," he says this about poverty and the poor...“We believe these disturbing trends reveal a tragic irony in our poverty alleviation efforts...On one hand, many of us can sense that there is something wrong with both Western civilization and the Western church...We can tell they aren’t working, and we don’t like who we’ve become...On the other hand, the unstated assumption behind most of our poverty alleviation efforts is that the goal is to make poor people just like us...We implicitly believe that we have exactly what the poor need, so we try to turn Uganda into the United States and America’s inner cities into its affluent suburbs...Thus, we design our poverty alleviation initiatives—our interventions, operations, staffing, funding, marketing, metrics, messages, and goals—to help poor people pursue the American Dream...But why would we want to do that?...We are not okay...You can feel it, and we can feel it...And as we shall see later, as poor people become more like us, they can feel it too.”...
Fikkert adds this about poverty and the poor: “The American Dream is the wrong story, for both poor people and ourselves.”...“We were poor on the outside, but also on the inside, because poverty starts in the heart—CELESTIN, A VERY POOR MAN IN RWANDA, 2014.”...“You see, the story of poverty alleviation shouldn’t be to turn Uganda into the United States or the inner cities into the suburbs, for all these places are fundamentally broken...Rather, the right story calls for all these places to become more like the New Jerusalem...That’s God’s Story...It’s the only story that is actually true, the only story in which we can actually play the roles for which we’ve been created...It’s the only story that actually works.”...“The goal is not to turn Zimbabwe into the United States or to turn decaying neighborhoods into wealthy suburbs...Nor is the goal to reshape the world into the image of Western Christianity...We are not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...Rather, the goal is to seek to be as much like the New Jerusalem as possible...And to achieve that goal, we need a different story of change, one that is centered on the gospel, the good news that most of us don’t really understand.”...
Jesus' Ministry prioritized helping the poor, sick, and marginalized...His teachings emphasize compassion and care for those in need...He ends His statement about the poor by teaching us we can help them and should help them at anytime -by being generous to them and loving them...While Jesus acknowledges the reality of poverty, it doesn't seem He is giving poverty an endorsement of its inevitability...His Core Message of loving God and loving neighbor, teaches us to be focused on helping those less fortunate neighbors will help us lead everyone together in harmony and into the New Jerusalem....New Jerusalem, The Perfect Place filled with God's Presence, for those who have been faithful to the Father and His Son...