Mark
14:7 For
you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for
them.
A simple word study of
“poor” in the Scriptures will bring us a large number of uses. If you study
them you will find four groupings in God’s Word. Our responsibility to each
will be determined by God’s response to each group.
The first group consists of
people who are lazy, irresponsible. They refuse to work or look to others to
provide for them rather than work for themselves. God’s response to this group
of people is one of harshness, judgment and rebuke. These people need to repent
of their sinful choice to be irresponsible. Our response is to be one of
admonition or warning. The Apostle Paul took a strong approach to them saying:
“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
People tend to get in their
minds that people are poor because they are lazy. This oversimplifies the
problem and leaves those who say this “off the hook” for their own
responsibility to the poor. Yet, people are poor because of calamity, disease,
accidents or other uncontrollable life circumstances. As Christians, it is our
responsibility to respond to this category of the poor. Our compassion is to
motivate us to give assistance to those who suffer through no fault of their
own.
Another group is comprised
of those who are exploited or tyrannized by those in power. The victims of
corrupt governments and the effects of warring nations fall into this group.
Justice is due these people and God pours out his indignation upon such leaders
and powers in the world that use their own subjects for their personal gain. For
this group of the poor we should be advocates and defenders as Job said he was:
“I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know. I broke the fangs of the
unrighteous.” (Job 29:16, 17)
The final group of
the poor we find in Scripture are those who voluntarily choose to be poor. They
are poor for “righteousness sake”, willingly sacrificing their worldly
possessions in order to give to those less fortunate due to natural disaster or
injustice. It is this group that we should support as well.
