My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
Daily Life/The Challenge
Questions:
Do you see the Kingdom of God as physically or spiritually present, or both?
When do you minister to the poor? Under what settings?
Reading:
“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9 Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”
–Titus 2:2-10
You might be wondering what this verse has to do with poverty, well, quite a bit actually. Here Paul is describing daily behavior in the church – being sober minded, homemaking, good works, speech, and service – and he states “that the word of God may not be reviled.” It is the everyday life of the believer, his everyday actions, and his everyday interactions with others that “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” In the Law, ministering to the poor is described as something that is done in the everyday life of a righteous man. It is not this separate grand act committed, but a natural outgrowth of the life of the righteous. Ministering to the poor is an everyday life thing because, “the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You will freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.’” This understanding is evident in Job, when he cries out,
“If I have withheld anything that the poor desired,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail,
or have eaten my morsel alone,
and the fatherless has not eaten of it
(for from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with a father,
and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow),
if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing,
or the needy without covering,
if his body has not blessed me,
and if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep,
if I have raised my hand against the fatherless,
because I saw my help in the gate,
then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder,
and let my arm be broken from its socket.
For I was in terror of calamity from God,
and I could not have faced his majesty.
Job was not talking about grand ministries to the poor or social agendas, but an everyday caring for people that God placed in his life. The scripture states, “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your poor brother . . . .” The Christian is to be aware of the needs around him, and in the ability that God has given him, he is to reach out to meet those needs.
This brings a lot of comfort to me. Why? Ministry to the poor does not have to be this grand overwhelming all consuming ministry in my life. I can minister to the poor as I go about my every day, and sometimes boring life. All I have to do is keep my eyes open and take the opportunities that God places in my life to love on people. So this message is not for those who have given every aspect of their lives to the poor (and thank God for those people, we need them in the body of Christ). This message is for me and for all of us in the body of Christ, no matter what the circumstances may be.
The Gospel is pervasive and engages the whole of who we are. In Christ, the Kingdom of God has broken through into this world and our everyday lives. And how we live our everyday lives demonstrates what type of Kingdom this is. When Christ came to earth, He not only preached the gospel, but demonstrated what the Kingdom of God was like by meeting fleshly physical needs. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He even saved men from a storm. Christians are not mystics, who see that the only things that matter are the spiritual. The Kingdom of God is not this mysterious mystical aspect of our lives. The Kingdom of God is not a fantasy, but very real and very real in the way it is manifested in our lives. The Kingdom of God acts on this world. This Kingdom does not look on poverty and injustice and ignore it or walk away, but instead acts like a Kingdom that is meant to rule and engages injustice and brokenness. Early in the church, this aspect of the physical manifestation of Kingdom of God is evident in the fact that a Church office was dedicated to this fact – the deacon.
How that plays out in mine and your life, is my asking God to keep me from hardening my heart or turning a blind eye to the needs of others and asking God to teach me to live with my hands opened wide to those God places in front of me in this world. I am still learning, but that too is the Gospel as God sanctifies me and helps me to grow.
God has ordained poverty, and He has ordained that we love the poor. And so we know there will be opportunities to minister to the poor in our lives. We can’t get away from that fact. And as we understand this truth, we will also understand that God enables what he commands in our lives. This is not an overwhelming burden God has placed on us, but an overwhelming joy that God delights to bring us into. God wants us to experience His heart and His excitement and delight as we minister to the poor. This is a blessing that God brings us into.
Scripture reading:
Read these verses and discuss what they mean to you and in regards to ministering to the poor.
Micah 6:6-8
“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Psalm 72:1
Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!
Luke 3:11
And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Luke 10:9
Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
Luke 9:11
When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.
Questions:
Under what conditions in our lives are we to minister to the poor?
God starts off angry at Israel, even though they claim to seek Him daily.
“Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight to draw near to God. . . .
And then God calls them to a true fast that is worked out in their daily life.
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
What do these verses in Isaiah 48 mean to you?
What does the Kingdom of God look like in our world? Does it have physical ramifications?
Who has all authority and power and rule? How is this displayed?
Jesus didn’t just preach he met physical needs as well, why?
How might this concept look in your life?
Who are some people in your daily life that you can minister too?
Are there ministries that you can support?
What does the scripture mean when it says to not harden your heart and to have your hands open to the poor?
Jonathan Edwards wrote,
Your money and your goods are not your own. They are only committed to you as stewards, to be used for him who committed them to you. 1 Pet. 4:9, 10, “Use hospitality one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” A steward has no business with his master’s goods, to use them any otherwise than for the benefit of his master and his family, or according to his master’s direction. He hath no business to use them, as if he were the proprietor of them. He hath nothing to do with them, only as he is to use them for his master. He is to give everyone of his master’s family their portion of meat in due season.
But if instead of that, he hoards up his master’s goods for himself, and withholds them from those of the household, so that some of the family are pinched for want of food and clothing. He is therein guilty of robbing his master and embezzling his substance. And would any householder endure such a steward? If he discovered him in such a practice, would he not take his goods out of his hands, and commit them to the care of some other steward, who should give everyone of his family his portion of meat in due season? Remember that all of us must give account of our stewardship, and how we have disposed of those goods which our Master has put into our hands. And if when our Master comes to reckon with us, it be found that we have denied some of his family their proper provision, while we have hoarded up for ourselves, as if we had been the proprietors of our Master’s goods, what account shall we give of this?
What do you think about what he said?
Jonathan Edwards wrote,
Many persons are ready to look upon what is bestowed for charitable uses as lost. But we ought not to look upon it as lost, because it benefits those whom we ought to love as ourselves. And not only so, but it is not lost to us, if we give any credit to the Scriptures. See the advice that Solomon gives in Ecc. 11:1, “Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” By casting our bread upon the waters, Solomon means giving it to the poor, as appears by the next words, “Give a portion to seven, and also to eight.” Waters are sometimes put for people and multitudes.What strange advice would this seem to many, to cast their bread upon the waters, which would seem to them like throwing it away! What more direct method to lose our bread, than to go and throw it into the sea? But the wise man tells us, No, it is not lost; you shall find it again after many days. It is not sunk, but you commit it to Providence. You commit it to the winds and waves. However it will come about to you, and you shall find it again after many days. Though it should be many days first, yet you shall find it at last, at a time when you most need it. He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord. And God is not one of those who will not pay again what is lent to him. If you lend anything to God, you commit it into faithful hands. Pro. 19:17, “He that hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again.” God will not only pay you again, but he will pay you with great increase. Luke 6:38, “Give, and it shall be given you,” that is, in “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.”
What do you think about what he said?
