Introduction
In this all
too brief treatment of poverty and the people of God, I would like to address
the question of poverty through the lens of what it means to be a Christian
community. I am not here interested in institutional agents of change;
nor am I interested in operational programs for poverty alleviation. My
concern is more narrowly that of being the Christian community and what that
means for issues of wealth and poverty.
While my ultimate emphasis will be on certain passages in the Old and New Testaments, I want to begin with various observations from other fields of study about poverty. Thus, I begin with some thoughts about the nature of poverty before applying this to the Scriptures.
Understanding Poverty
John Iliffe, in his book Poverty in Africa, follows others in distinguishing structural
poverty from conjunctural poverty. Structural
poverty is systemic and has to do with the long term poverty of individuals due
to their personal or social circumstances.
Conjunctural poverty has to do with ‘the temporary poverty into which
ordinarily self-sufficient people may be thrown by crisis.’[1] I
would suggest that some further distinction between (1) personal, circumstantial
poverty, (2) societal conjunctural poverty, and (3) systemic, political poverty
will help in understanding and addressing poverty.
Access
to Labour and Access to Resources
Illife further notes that the reasons for structural
poverty are different depending on whether there are rich resources or few
resources. When there are ample
resources and yet structural poverty, the problem is a problem of access to labour. In agrarian societies that are land rich,
poverty arises due to labour problems such as the age of the population (too
young or old), incapacitation, and the breakdown of family units (e.g., the
abandonment of a woman with children by the chief bread winner). Where there are land resources (and therefore
no overpopulation), a better standard of living may come by having a larger
family that can work the land.
Following Iliffe’s analysis further, when Europe was
still land rich—until the 12th century—the structurally poor were
mainly the weak, such as widows, orphans, captives, and the infirm. Most of the poor in the early Middle Ages,
e.g., were poor and blind. As the
population increased in the 12th and 13th centuries, the
structurally poor were increasingly those who could not sell their labour. War and the Black Plague reduced Europe’s
numbers by as many as 1/3rd of the population in the 14th
century, but, by the end of the 16th and in the 17th
century, Europe again had problems of structural poverty due to an enlarged
population unable to sell their labour at adequate prices. In the 18th century, most of
France’s beggars were children.[2]
When there are few resources, structural
poverty is the result of difficulty with regard to access to
resources. The lack of access to
resources may be caused by too large a work force or wages that are too low to
meet minimum needs. The problem of
poverty when there is a lack of access to resources will be exacerbated by
having larger families, and this may be a significant issue for urban families.
Types of Poverty
In Nehemiah 5, we find a story that describes several
causes of poverty: overpopulation (v. 2); famine (v. 3); taxes (v. 4); loss of
houses, fields, olive orchards, and vineyards (vv. 5, 11); charging interest
(v. 7); and charging high prices for food to labourers (v. 15). In this last case, people find themselves
falling into debt to their employers rather than actually earning wages. One result of being reduced to poverty was
enslavement (v. 5).
In a more contemporary vein, a helpful travelogue by Paul Theroux, Dark
Safari, documents various challenges to economic stability and
development in Africa, and the examples of different sorts of poverty he gives are
helpful for exploring types of poverty in Africa at the present time.[3] The following list and organization of the
categories is my own attempt to classify the examples Theroux gives as well as some
additional examples.
A. Personal Circumstantial Poverty:
1.
Inadequate,
personal education or training for the job market
2.
Disease
3.
Disability
4.
Lack
of a work ethic
5.
Lack
of a stewardship ethic
6. Theft and vandalism
B.
Conjunctural
Poverty:
1.
Disease
(such as AIDS and the related social problems that it causes—widows, orphans,
unproductive work force, and then the further social problems that arise for
people in poverty)
2.
Increase
in population when there are shortages of resources (especially in cities; also
when there is drought, shortage of land)
3.
Loss
of expertise through emigration of the educated (brain drain)
4.
War
5.
Displacement
of people
6.
Natural
catastrophes (e.g., floods, drought)
7.
Cultural
factors: e.g., extended family responsibilities eat up the profits of a
businessman and keep his family from upward mobility
8.
Urbanisation
9.
Lack
of volunteerism
10. Lack of a social safety net for persons facing financial struggles (access to loans, persons without families, temporary loss of work)
C. Systemic or Structural Poverty:
1.
Lack
of assets, such as land
2.
Inadequate
educational system or training for the job market (business, agriculture, etc.)
3.
Social
Engineering, such as Africanisation: e.g., Black Africans taking over Indian
shops (Uganda in the era of Idi Amin) or white farms (Zimbabwe in the era of
Mugabe) or ‘reverse discrimination’ (South Africa at the present time)—putting
persons without qualifications into key jobs without those replacing them being
trained, interested, or otherwise capable
4.
The
politics of foreign aid:
a.
Desirable
Dependency: Some politicians in developing countries need the country to remain
in poverty in order to keep aid flowing that somehow (whether legally or
corruptly) benefits them financially and/or politically;
b.
Enablement:
Bad systems, incompetent administrators, and corrupt officials may be supported
and enabled by foreign aid;
c.
Fund-raising:
Donors, knowing about incompetence or corruption or able to raise funds for
specific projects and not others, determine where aid money must be spent to
keep the aid flowing rather than where the need is;
d.
Enrichment:
A small proportion of funds raised for a need actually reach those who need it,
while those involved in the project enrich themselves;[4]
e. Incompetence:
Development may be ill-conceived, either lacking awareness of the context and
people or being inappropriate in some way.[5]
f.
Aid
agency culture: established but unhelpful patterns of relationships (how they
relate to 'projects' and 'people') and dependency attitudes of those receiving
ongoing aid.
5.
Lack
of planning for the future
6.
Under-funding
of key jobs for social development (e.g., teachers)
7.
Too
weak of a middle class allowing for financial mobility
8.
Corruption
9. Social
stigmatization (classicism, racism) and Institutional oppression (slavery,
caste system)
10.
Lack
of debt release
11.
Excessive
taxation
God promised prosperity
to Israel if they obeyed his commandments:
Deuteronomy 28:11 And the LORD will make you abound
in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and
in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your
fathers to give you (New Revised Standard Version, here and throughout)
Alternatively, if Israel
did not obey God’s commandments, she would experience infertility, pestilence,
disease, drought, warfare, disabilities, theft, enslavement, subjugation,
captivity, loss of position to immigrants (Deuteronomy 28:15-44).
Addressing Systemic
Poverty in an Agrarian Society
Private Property
The Old Testament assumes
an agrarian society. It also assumes
property ownership and assets, such that two of the Ten Commandments, the 8th
and 10th, address this:
Exodus 20:15 "You shall not steal.
Exodus 20:17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's
house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his
female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your
neighbor's."
In Deuteronomy, the 10th Commandment against coveting includes the neighbour’s field (Deuteronomy 5:21). Private ownership of land means an asset to keep one from poverty. The nation of Israel prospered under Solomon, with each person dwelling under his vine and fig tree (1 Kings 4:25; cf. 2 Kings 18:31). This way of stating prosperity in terms of private ownership was also a vision for a good time in the future (Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10). The promise of each family, clan, and tribe owning their own property in Israel might be contrasted with other tribes and nations in the Ancient Near East, where the model was more that of the king owning the land and most of the people reduced to slavery. Ownership of private property was a way to avoid slavery and oppression. Scripture sees land wealth by an aristocracy as a possible injustice where this involves subjugating others and locking them into poverty. Amos attacks rich landowners and royal officials of Northern Kingdom who exploit and subject the poor (5.10‑12; 8.4‑8).
Systemic Poverty and the Exploitation of the
Poor by the Rich
Property exploitation is
the injustice that occurs when home improvement, that is, luxurious living,
disadvantages the poor. As Isaiah warns:
Isaiah 5:8 Woe
to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no
more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.
Another injustice is the writing of unfair laws,
designed to favour the rich over the poor:
Isaiah 10:1-2 Woe
to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing
oppression, 2 to turn aside
the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that
widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
One
of the major warnings we find in the Old Testament is delivered to the rich who
exploit the poor. This may happen
through taxes that hurt the poor (Amos 5:11), bribery (Amos 5.12), and
marketplace dishonesty:
Amos 8:4-6 Hear this, you who trample on the
needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, "When will the new moon be over, that we may
sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make
the ephah small and the shekel1 great and deal deceitfully with false
balances, 6 that we may buy
the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of
the wheat?"
Exploitation of the poor
also happens in agrarian societies when people become rich in land while others
struggle on the land as peasant farmers.
The issue is not about large, productive farming that could be a benefit
to society but the powerful enforcing their desires on the lowly and they having no assets in the land themselves. For example, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel have
Naboth killed simply because they want his land (1 Kings 21). Isaiah and Micah warn the rich against
seizing the land of the poor (Isaiah 5:8; Micah 2:2).
Systemic
Poverty and Debt Release: The Jubilee
Year
of release (Dt. 15.1ff, 12ff; Jer. 34.8ff) and of Jubilee (Lev. 25‑‑Yahweh owns
the land; Israelites are tenants).
Remission of debt, freeing of slaves, redistribution [return] of land.
This distinction between
structural and conjunctural poverty can help us understand one of the key
Biblical texts for addressing how policies establishing structures may address conjunctural
poverty. In Deuteronomy 15, we find a
description of debt release that can help the able-bodied poor to start again—a
system to keep conjunctural poverty from becoming systemic. The Jubilee Year was a year of remission of
debts. No interest is given to how one
might have become conjuncturally poor; the interest is in breaking the cycle.
First, the text expresses
the fact that God plays a role in keeping people out of structural poverty by blessing
his people in the land (v. 4). Thus, we
hear in v. 4 that there will be ‘no one in need among you.’ Second, because God has freely blessed his
people in the land such that they have become prosperous, the people are to
lend to any in need without interest and, in the seventh year, to forgive the
debt entirely. Such a practice allowed
the newly poor to recover from conjunctural poverty as they again had access to
resources—the land.
This system allowed for
the use of land to access money—a mortgage of an asset to secure a loan—and a
sure way to regain access to the asset so as not to become structurally
poor. It also allowed for the use of
labour to pay off debts—an indenture or enslavement to work off the debt
without becoming perpetually enslaved (except by choice). One never incurred a permanent loss of access
to the resource of land or the resource of one’s own labour. There are no free handouts in this system,
but there is, ultimately, debt forgiveness through the return of land or the
freeing of a slave. The Jubilee Year was
fixed and came around every seven years, and so one could climb out of poverty
in the period between when one became poor and the appointed 7th
year.
The alternative was that
people lost their land to wealthier persons, who then had more capital to
purchase other lands and get even richer.
Historically, this became a major problem in Israel in the Hellenistic
period. After Herod the Great, in Jesus’
time, the problem became acute as wealthy persons accumulated large estates
that they let out to tenant farmers, who were then expected to make the wealthy
owners sizeable profits. This situation
is reflected in Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants (Matthew 21.33-44). In the parable, injustice falls to the tenants in their refusal to deliver the produce to the landowner and in their murder of the heir rather than to the wealthy landowner. Yet Jesus' point had to do with persons with religious responsibility to produce righteousness for God. The land issue itself, however, grew increasingly dire during
Herod the Great’s rule as he killed various nobility and took over their
estates (Josephus, Jewish War, 17.305-7).
With the Jubilee, there should be no structurally poor in Israel. However, conjuncturally, there would be those slipping into poverty. People will always fall into poverty, no matter what the social structure is (Deuteronomy 15.11; Matthew 26.11). This could be due, as we have seen, to any variety of causes, such as drought, pestilence, warfare, injury, sickness, lack of labour, and so forth.
Safety Net for Those Who Fall Outside the
System
In
Old Testament times, several groups fell outside the system. Given the agrarian engine for the economy
during the years of the monarchy, those without land rights or who could not
work the land were vulnerable and needed special consideration. Given the economic system, certain measures
were needed to be put in place to keep people from falling into systemic
poverty. Widows and orphans fall into
this group, as do many of the foreigners in the land. Another landless group were the Levites, who
were not given any possession of property along with the other tribes of Israel
in the land.
1.
General Call to Act Righteously to the Systemically Poor
Job
offers a description of poverty in his day.
The poor are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, they struggle in a
life of hardship for lack of basic resources, and they work in other people’s
employment while lacking the same things that they provide for others through
their work:
Job 24:3-11 They drive away the donkey of the
fatherless; they take the widow's ox for a pledge. 4 They thrust the poor off the
road; the poor of the earth all hide themselves. 5 Behold, like wild donkeys in the
desert the poor go out to their toil, seeking game; the wasteland
yields food for their children. 6
They gather their fodder in the field, and they glean the vineyard
of the wicked man. 7 They lie
all night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the rain of
the mountains and cling to the rock for lack of shelter. 9 (There are those who snatch the
fatherless child from the breast, and they take a pledge against the
poor.) 10 They go about
naked, without clothing; hungry, they carry the sheaves; 11 among the olive rows of the
wicked they make oil; they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.
For
these groups, there is a general call to act righteously towards them, to help
them and not exploit them. One reason
given for this ethic lies in the character of God himself:
Psalm 10:14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that
you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have
been the helper of the fatherless.
Psalm 68:5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God
in his holy habitation.
Psalm 146:9 The LORD watches over the
sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked
he brings to ruin.
Another
reason for this ethic is that Israel itself was once in slavery in Egypt; it
should, therefore, have empathy for those in need in its own society. Israel's narrative helped to define its virtues regarding the poor and powerless.
The
poor are not only poor; they are also vulnerable to the powerful. This is stated with respect to trying to gain
widows’ properties—but God helps the lowly:
Proverbs 15:25 The LORD tears down the house of the proud but maintains
the widow's boundaries.
Job describes
evil and righteousness with respect to treatment of the poor. Righteousness involves not taking pledges
from the poor. It also entails giving to those in need of basics (drink, food). Those who are evil have resources and power
but do nothing to help the needy widows and orphans. The righteous do help the needy and the
disabled (blind and lame), and they seek justice on their behalf against those
who would exploit and abuse them.
Job 22:5-9 Is not your evil abundant? There
is no end to your iniquities. 6
For you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing and stripped the
naked of their clothing. 7
You have given no water to the weary to drink, and you have withheld bread from
the hungry. 8 The man with
power possessed the land, and the favored man lived in it. 9 You have sent widows away empty,
and the arms of the fatherless were crushed.
Job 29:12-17 I delivered the poor who cried
for help, and the fatherless who had none to help him. 13 The blessing of him who was
about to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for
joy. 14 I put on
righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. 15 I was eyes to the blind and
feet to the lame. 16 I was a
father to the needy, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not
know. 17 I broke the fangs of
the unrighteous and made him drop his prey from his teeth.
Job 31:16-22 "If I have withheld anything
that the poor desired, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, 17 or have eaten my morsel alone,
and the fatherless has not eaten of it 18
(for from my youth the fatherless grew up with me as with a father, and from my
mother's womb I guided the widow), 19
if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing, or the needy without
covering, 20 if his body has
not blessed me, and if he was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep, 21 if I have raised my hand against
the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate, 22 then let my shoulder blade fall
from my shoulder, and let my arm be broken from its socket.
2.
Further Particular Care for the Foreigners, Widows,
Orphans, Day Labourers, and Poor
God’s concern for and care for the poor calls for
his people to share that concern and care.
Failure to do so will incur punishment.
They are vulnerable, needy, and living hand to mouth. Those who exploit these people will be
punished by God.
Exodus 23:9 "You shall not oppress a
sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the
land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19 He executes justice for the
fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and
clothing. 19 Love the
sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 27:19 "'Cursed be anyone who
perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.' And
all the people shall say, 'Amen.'
Psalm 146:9 The LORD watches over the
sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked
he brings to ruin.
Proverbs 23:10-11 Do not move an ancient landmark
or enter the fields of the fatherless, 11
for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.
Isaiah 1:17 learn to do good; seek justice,
correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.
Isaiah 1:23 Your princes are rebels and
companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not
bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow's cause does not come to them.
Jeremiah 5:28 They know no bounds in deeds of
evil; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it
prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
Jeremiah 7:6-7 if you do not oppress the
sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place,
and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in
this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.
Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the LORD: Do justice
and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been
robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and
the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
Ezekiel 22:7 Father and mother are treated
with contempt in you; the sojourner suffers extortion in your midst; the
fatherless and the widow are wronged in you.
Zechariah 7:10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the
sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your
heart."
Malachi 3:5 "Then I will draw near to
you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the
adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the
hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who
thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
Building,
no doubt, on this strong precedent, John the Baptist preaches a message of
economic justice to the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers:
Luke 3:10-14 And the crowds asked him,
"What then should we do?" 11
In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone
who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." 12 Even tax collectors came to be
baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" 13 He said to them, "Collect
no more than the amount prescribed for you." 14 Soldiers also asked him,
"And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort
money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your
wages."
James
gives a warning to those who are rich on the backs of others, who have gained
wealth through defrauding others, and who have indulged themselves in luxury
when others are in need:[6]
James 5:1-6 Come now, you rich, weep and howl
for the miseries that are coming upon you.
2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are
moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and
silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will
eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the
laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out
against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord
of hosts. 5 You have lived on
the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a
day of slaughter. 6 You have
condemned; you have murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
3.
Communal Resources and a Tithe for the Poor
In
the Old Testament, communal resources for the poor came from a tri-annual
tithe.
Deuteronomy 14:27-29 And you shall not neglect the
Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with
you. 28 "At the end of
every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same
year and lay it up within your towns. 29
And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the
sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come
and eat and be filled, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of
your hands that you do. (Cf. Deuteronomy
26:12-13).
This
principle may explain, or is at least similar to, the Jerusalem
Church’s collection of voluntary resources, such as from the sale of a
property, and sharing with the whole Christian community so that no one was in
need:
Acts 2:45 And they were selling their
possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had
need.
Second century Christian
authors also collected money for the poor.
Justin Martyr
writes,
…we
who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now
bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need… (First Apology XIV[7]).
Also, Clement of Alexandria
says:
That
expression, therefore, “I possess, and possess in abundance: why then should I
not enjoy?” is suitable neither to the man, nor to society. But more worthy of
love is that: “I have: why should I not give to those who need?” For such an
one—one who fulfils the command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”—is
perfect. For this is the true luxury—the treasured wealth. But that which is
squandered on foolish lusts is to be reckoned waste, not expenditure. For God
has given to us, I know well, the liberty of use, but only so far as necessary;
and He has determined that the use should be common. And it is monstrous for
one to live in luxury, while many are in want. How much more glorious is it to
do good to many, than to live sumptuously! How much wiser to spend money on
human being, than on jewels and gold! How much more useful to acquire
decorous friends, than lifeless ornaments! (The Instructor 2.13).
Tertullian, straddling
the 2nd and 3rd centuries, tells how church collections
are used. He says that they
…are
not spent on banquets, drinking parties, or dining clubs; but for feeding and
burying the poor, for boys and girls destitute of property and parents; and
further for old people confined to the house, and victims of shipwreck; and any
who are in the mines, who are exiled to an island, or who are in prison merely
on account of God’s church—these become the wards of their confession. So great a work of love burns a brand upon us
in regard to some. ‘See,’ they say, ‘how
they love one another’…. They are furious that we call ourselves brothers, I
think, for no other reason than that among them every name of kinship is a
feigning of affection…. But possibly we
are thought less than real brothers because no tragedy cries aloud about our
brotherhood, or because we are brothers in the family possessions, which with
regard to you are the very things that dissolve brotherhood. So we who are united in mind and soul have no
hesitation about sharing property. All
things are common among us except our women (Apology XXXIX.5-11).
4.
A Work-for-Food Programme
The
Old Testament protects the poor by requiring of producers—the farmers—that they
participate in a food-for-work programme.
Ruth illustrates this, as she, a widow and caring for her mother-in-law,
also a widow, gleans from the edge of Boaz’s field (Ruth 2:1-9). This is, actually, a law in the land:
Leviticus 19:9-10 "When you reap the harvest
of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall
you gather the gleanings after your harvest.
10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall
you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the
poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God. (Cf. Lev. 23:22.)
A Sabbath Year is also a feeding programme, not only
for the poor but for animals. The
Sabbath each week is also meant to help the poor not have to work constantly.
Exodus 23:10-12 "For six years you shall
sow your land and gather in its yield, 11
but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of
your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You
shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. 12 "Six days you shall do
your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey
may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be
refreshed.
5.
Almsgiving, Lending to, and Feeding the Poor; Not Taking Pledges
Assistance
for the poor in the form of outright giving and of lending is mentioned in
Scripture. This is not stated as a programme regulated by laws; it is a
religious requirement that, if ignored, may incur sin.
Deuteronomy 15:7-11 "If among you, one of your
brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the
LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand
against your poor brother, 8
but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need,
whatever it may be. 9 Take
care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, 'The seventh
year, the year of release is near,' and your eye look grudgingly on
your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against
you, and you be guilty of sin. 10
You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you
give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work
and in all that you undertake. 11
For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you,
'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor,
in your land.'
Lending to the poor at interest and feeding the poor
for gain are forbidden. A debtor working
off the debt, in ‘debt slavery’, should not be treated as a slave but as an employee on
a limited contract (until the Jubilee). A better translation for such a person in the Old Testament, then, would be bond-servant than slave. This
helps conjunctural poverty avoid becoming systemic.
Exodus 22:21-27 You shall not wrong a sojourner
or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not mistreat any
widow or fatherless child. 23
If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their
cry, 24 and my wrath will
burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows
and your children fatherless. 25
"If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not
be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. 26 If ever you take your
neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes
down, 27 for that is his only
covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if
he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
Leviticus 25:35-42 "If your brother becomes
poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he
were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36 Take no interest from him or
profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37 You shall not lend him your
money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be
your God. 39 "If your
brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make
him serve as a slave: 40 he
shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with
you until the year of the jubilee. 41
Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his
own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are my servants,1
whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as
slaves.
Pledges are not to be taken from the poor where they
create hardship:
Job 22:6 For
you have exacted pledges of your brothers for nothing and stripped the naked of
their clothing.
These
measures are given to avoid systemic poverty.
Circumstantial,
Personal Poverty
Apart
from structural and conjunctive poverty, there is also a permanent poverty that
some face due to their circumstances.
Perhaps when we think of Jesus
healing the poor or casting out demons, we think primarily or only
individualistically: how wonderful it is that that person was delivered from
that situation. Yet more is certainly
going on in the 1st century context: a healthy and whole person is
being restored to a family and village.
This may well mean that a ‘provider’ has returned to help meet the
family’s needs, especially if the person is a male. Healing a leper, a blind man, delivering a
man from demons—the joy of restoration was not only over a miracle and personal
health. It also meant the possibility of an end to circumstantial poverty for the person and his or her family.
One might think of the blind man
from birth who was healed by Jesus in Jerusalem (John 9). He would become a productive man eventually,
perhaps in time to take care of his parents in their old age. For some who have become accustomed to and
dependent upon a social programme to help them, the question might arise
whether they really want to return to being productive citizens and family
members. Thus, Jesus asks the man who
had been disabled for thirty-eight years at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5)
whether he wanted to be healed (v. 6).
When Jesus raises the widow’s son from the dead, he is not just giving
life back to the man but also providing for the needs of the widow if her son
does what is expected of him: to care for his mother (Luke 7.11-15). Jesus’ miracles not only show his power and
the coming of the Kingdom of God. They
are not only stories of personal restoration.
They are also a familial and economic blessing to others.
The House Church
We encounter a church
dynamic in the early Church that was of economic significance: the house
church. Jesus had removed ministry from
the synagogues and the Temple, saying worship was to be in ‘Spirit and truth’
(John 4:24). Whenever the early
believers were ostracized from the synagogues, they naturally
found themselves turning to homes as places of worship.
However, the home was
much more for the church than a place of worship. The church was a constructed family around
the home of an actual family, with its parents, children, and slaves. It was an economic unit. It was a place of hospitality. It was a home filled with loving and caring
relationships. With the custom of
masters receiving business partners in the home and large homes having guest
quarters, the house was an ideal physical place and nexus for spreading the
Gospel. It cut across social, gender,
and age distinctions. It afforded a
communal and loving atmosphere where people were welcomed and family fellowship
and care were expressed. It was a place
that ‘welcomed’ others, both intimate relations and visitors. The home setting required persons to come to
terms with ‘table fellowship’—what could be eaten and drunk (Rom. 14.1ff), who
would sit with whom (Jews with Gentiles, e.g.), and whether social distinctions
would be kept or not (1 Cor. 11:17ff).
It was a place where those in need found persons who cared and could
help, just as it was a place where some might exploit the graces of those
willing. And, with masters and slaves—often foreigners and perhaps from
barbaric tribes, such as the Scythians—in the same house and worshiping
together around a common table, it created challenges to the social
distinctions of Greek and Roman society.
In all this, the house church created aspects of what it meant to be
‘church’ that a society, synagogue, or Temple would not necessarily create.
As Martin Hengel says,
Paul did not ‘require complete abolition of differences in means, but looked
for active and effective brotherly love’ (2 Cor. 8:13ff).[8] Thi, as Hengel further notes, made it possible for a community to have within it the virtues of
generosity and hospitality (Rom. 12.13; 2 Cor. 9.6-7). Vices of avarice and greed (Rom. 1.29; 1 Cor.
5.10f; 6.10; 2 Co. 9.5f; Col. 3.5) are also possible and so must be avoided. Some Christians were persons of means: e.g.,
those with homes that could provide a place for the church to assemble (e.g.,
Stephanus, 1 Cor. 1:16; 16:15-17; Prisca and Aquila, Acts 18:2; 18:26; Rom.
16.3; Nympha, Phlm. 2; Col. 4.15; Aristobulus, Rom. 16.10; Narcissus, Rom. 16.11,
Mnason, Acts 21.16). All selling of property and giving to others and any desire for equal distribution in the Jerusalem Church was voluntary. It was also not typical of other churches. Wealth might
also be observed in cases where Christians
owned slaves (e.g., Philemon) or had status, such as in the case of Erastus', the city treasurer of Corinth (Rom. 16.23). It would also be the result of good business practice, such as the Philippian woman,
Lydia (Acts 16.14). Other Christians had notable jobs, such as a lawyer by the name of Zenas (Titus
3.13). The majority of believers, as might be
expected, were from a poorer class (1 Cor. 1.26-27; 2 Cor. 8.2).
One difficulty that the early
church encountered was persons taking advantage of its social ethic. Some abused the system. On the one hand, there were those who fed,
literally, off the church without contributing anything. In 1 Thessalonians (4.12-13), Paul admonishes the
Thessalonian believers to work with their own hands and not be dependent on
anyone. Later in this letter, he exhorts
the church to offer a variety of assistance that one expects from a household,
while also warning against those who would be idle:
1
Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge
you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted,[9] help
the weak, be patient with them all.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 Now we command you, beloved, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living
in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received
from us. 7 For you yourselves
know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, 8 and we did not eat anyone's
bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day,
so that we might not burden any of you. 9
This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an
example to imitate. 10 For
even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work
should not eat. 11 For we
hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any
work. 12 Now such persons we
command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to
earn their own living.
At some point in his ministry, Paul realized the need to set an example for the church, as this passage indicates. He worked as a tentmaker (Acts 18:3), avoided dependency on others (1 Cor. 9), and accepted assistance only from a church to which he was not presently ministering (Philippians 1:5; 2:25, 30; 4:10, 15-17).
The Jubilee, the Kingdom of God, the Church,
and the Family
What we saw above in
reference to the Jubilee in Dt. 15 was the notion that Israel as a community
should function in such a way that readjustments might be made in the economy to avoid systemic povert. Whatever the causes of poverty, lending and
the Jubilee Year of debt remission were meant as ways to avoid impoverishment
beyond seven years. Because society was
so structured to deal with systemic poverty, one might say that Israel itself was
a social ethic rather than had a social ethic.
To explore such an idea, I propose to turn to two Christian ethicists,
Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder.
We might then extend the statement about Israel to the Church as God’s
people.
John Howard Yoder
popularized the idea that Jesus’ Kingdom ethics was based in large part on
enforcing the Jubilee Year. The Lord’s
Prayer, for example, emphasizes the remission of spiritual debts in a possibly Jubilee mentality when disciples pray,
‘Forgive us our sins’ or ‘transgressions’ or, ‘debts.’[10] Jesus, moreover, applies forgiveness to other
areas of life: to the one who strikes a person on the cheek, to the one who
sues one for his or her cloak, to the one who is conscripted to carry something
(Mt. 5.38-41). He, like Dt. 15, calls on
disciples to lend to those who ask (Mt. 5.42).
Yoder called such practices by the community of disciples the ‘politics of Jesus.’ Thus, he says, ‘the primary social structure through which the gospel works to change other structures is that of the Christian community.’[11] Building on Yoder’s approach to Christian communal ethics, Stanley Hauerwas emphasised an ethic that was worked out within the community first, that defined the community, and that only then could be extended or applied to the larger society. He summarized his view as follows:[12]
I
am challenging the very idea that the primary goal of Christian social ethics
should be an attempt to make the world more peaceable or just. Rather, the first social ethical task of
the church is to be the church—the servant community. Such a claim may well sound self-serving
until we remember that what makes the church the church is its faithful
manifestation of the peaceable kingdom in the world. As such, the church does not have a social
ethic; the church is a social ethic.
Indeed, the family does
not have a social ethic, the family is a social ethic.
The
Church as a Social Ethic
How might we understand
the point that Yoder and Hauerwas wish to make?
Perhaps two examples will suffice, one from South America and one from
Africa.
First, Doug Petersen,
writing about Pentecostal churches in Latin America, says that,[13]
Contrary
to the traditional critique that Pentecostals do not adequately demonstrate a
social conscience, typically congregations provide social welfare services to
needy families, the sick, the abused and the aged…. Planning, projection of programmes,
decision-making, allocation of resources, i.e., many roles appropriate to
associational life, are part of the members’ participation in a Pentecostal
community.
Peterson continues,[14]
…Pentecostals
have formed themselves into voluntary associations that produce the following
strategic features of a social organization.
They enjoy the immediate benefits of a surrogate extended family or
community, including acceptance and a proprietary interest in a legally constituted,
property-owning collectivity. Moreover,
the congregation enhances the further development of the initiates by
encouraging and validating an intense subjective experience and morally
reinforcing their values, beliefs and conduct.
In a society where status and networks could be largely ascribed, the
adherent is presented with the opportunity for personal growth, peer
recognition and extended influence, as well as the acquisition of skills that
have broad application outside the church community.
Second, Julius Oladipo
offers a list of strategic advantages of the Church in poverty alleviation in
Africa.[15] In this list, one can see that the Church
goes beyond simply having programs to help the poor because the Church is
itself community, a community woven into the fabric of the larger community and
yet distinct from it. Here are some of
the Church’s strategic advantages in poverty alleviation, according to Oladipo:[16]
1. The
Church is everywhere: in the city, in the country, in areas of conflict, in all
segments of the population. Thus, it
knows the situation well, and it can respond to need quickly and effectively.
2. ‘The
Church is nonpartisan,’ serving the whole community, and it is not interested
in political power.
3. ‘The
Church is a stable institution,’ unlike many governments, and it has a regular
and predictable procedure by which it operates.
It ‘has an existing structure and mechanisms for initiating new
activities.’
4. ‘The
Church conforms to a moral order,’ including a strong concern for the poor and
marginalized.
5. ‘The
Church is part of a wider global institutional structure.’
The Early Church’s
Approach to Poverty (New Testament)
We may now be in a
position to appreciate the early Church’s approach to poverty. Three texts deserve particular mention.
First, the early Church
in Jerusalem practiced voluntary communitarianism. We read in Acts 4.32 that ‘no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but
everything they owned was held in common.’
The result was that
there was not a needy person among them, for as many as
owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35 They laid it at the apostles'
feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need’ (Acts 4.34-35).
Something like the Jubilee Year principle seems to
have been behind this practice, whereby structural and conjunctural poverty was
averted. The Jubilee rectified
inequality arising from the vicissitudes of life by allowing people to start
afresh every seven years. To accomplish
this, debts had to be forgiven and slaves had to be freed in the seventh year,
but lending without interest needed to operate in the intervening years. The Jerusalem church took this to a new
level. Instead of lending, they held all
things in common such that nobody was in need.
Something of the Jubilee principle can be seen in
Paul’s letter to the Galatians. First,
Paul affirms the Jerusalem church’s concern for the poor. In Gal. 2.10 we read, ‘they asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which
was actually what I was eager to do.’
Second, Paul concludes his epistle with an appeal to care for the
poor. How he does so is informative as
it once again shows the communitarian ethic that Yoder and Hauerwas
identified. Paul says, ‘so then, whenever
we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for
those of the family of faith’ (Gal. 6.10).
While
we are here venturing into a vast subject, I wish only to emphasise that Paul
sees wealth as at best a way to contribute to the needs of the community. In 1 Timothy 6 he says,
As for those who in the present age are rich, command
them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but
rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich
in good works, generous, and ready to share,
19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good
foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really
is life’ (1 Tim. 6.17-19).
Paul
commends the example of a wealthy household, that of Stephanas: it is devoted
to the service of the saints (1 Cor. 16.15).
The danger of wealth was stated a few verses earlier:
those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are
trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and
destruction. 10 For the love
of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains’
(6.9-10).
Paul
instructs Timothy, as a man of God, to shun the pursuit of wealth in favour of
virtue (v. 11).
While
much more might be said on this matter, we might sum up a few points. The poor are to be remembered; wealth is to
be shunned but, if one is wealthy, it is an opportunity for someone to do good
by being rich in good works, generous, and ready to share. Otherwise, it is a grave spiritual danger
that can lead to pride, placing confidence in riches rather than in God. Indeed, the love of money is the root of all
kinds of evil such that it can actually lead one to wander from the faith.
Conclusion
I began by trying to get
some understanding of poverty that might help us understand Scripture and
current challenges. I then turned to
ways in which Scripture addresses various problems of poverty. These considerations increasingly came to
focus on how the people of God address concern for the poor in light of the
character of their community.
Christians, as Stanley Hauerwas has been fond of saying, do not have a
social ethic because the church is a social ethic. This is a replacement of value ethics with
communitarian ethics. It is also a
replacement of programmes and projects with ecclesiology.
The Gospel has social
implications, as Israel, the Jerusalem church, and Paul well recognised. Structurally, the people of God should have
in place ways to save the poor from long term poverty. This may look different from one community to
another, but the bottom line needs to be that there is no needy person among
us. When a church begins to explore how
this will look, it will begin to ask questions of community that will shape it
into the people of God, not a collection of individual believers who contribute
now and then to benevolence funds and programs.
Imagine, with Yoder and Hauerwas, if the Church began to live out
Kingdom community in such a way that the world began to take notice of us once
again, such that they were to say, ‘Behold, how they love one another’ (as
Tertullian noted; Apology XXXIX).
[1] John
Iliffe, The African Poor: A History, African
Studies (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), p. 4.
[2] John Illiffe, The African Poor, pp. 4-5.
[3] Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (New York:
Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
[4] See Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and
Corruption of the International Aid Business (Atlantic Monthly, 1994);
Dambiso Moya, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not
Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa (Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 2010).
[5] See Bryant Myers, Walking with the Poor: Principles and
Practices of Transformational Development, rev. ed. (New York: Orbis,
2011). See my review:
https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/search?q=myers.
[6] The intertestamental literature of
Judaism also shows a concern about the exploitation of the poor: Sir. 11.10; 34.20‑22; Ecclus. 31.5; 13.3f, 19ff; Eth. Enoch 94.6‑10, cf. 96.4ff; 97.8‑10,
cf. 100.6; 102.9ff, 63.10; 103.9.
[7]
See online:
(http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html).
[8] Hengel, p. 39.
[9] Perhaps ‘discouraged’ would be a
better translation—or even more generally ‘those struggling’. The Greek is ‘oligogopsychos’—‘little soul’.
Martin Hengel sees several reasons for this admonition to work: (1) not
to cause offense to outsiders; (2) to avoid any lack of what one needs; (3) and
an ‘enthusiastic expectation of parousia’—Christ’s return (Poverty and Riches, p. 35).
This third reason has been a common one in scholarship, but it is not
spelled out this way by Paul. The basis
for it is that both 1 and 2 Thessalonians address the issue of the Lord’s
return, and the 2nd epistle is a response to those who have been
misled to believe that the Lord had already returned. Yet I find this fact unrelated to idleness in
the church. Paul does not draw the
connection, and the nature of the early Christian community, growing out of the
household, seems a far more likely reason for idleness to develop. If meals and other things are held in common
with a lot of good will in community, it is only natural that some will need to
be admonished more than others to do their share rather than just relax in what
the community offers.
[10] Luke is particularly close to the
idea of canceling debts with his use of ‘aphiemi,’
which can be translated as ‘forgive’ or ‘cancel,’ and with his use of the
word ‘opheilō,’ or ‘owe,’ in
‘Forgive/cancel our sins, for we also cancel [the debts] to everyone who owes
[something] to us’ (Lk. 11.4).
[11] John Howard
Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Carlisle, UK:
Paternoster, 1994), p. 154.
[12]
Stanley Hauerwas, ‘The Servant Community: Christian Social Ethics,’ in The
Hauerwas Reader: Stanley Hauerwas, eds. John Berkman and Michael Cartwright
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 374. Originally published 1983. See also Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian
Ethics (Notre Dame, IL: Univ. of Notre Dame, 1991), p. 99.
[13] Petersen, Douglas. Not By Might Nor By Power: A Pentecostal Theology of Social Concern in Latin America. Oxford: Regnum, 1996, p. 120.
[14] Petersen, p. 145.
[15]
Julius Oladipo, ‘The Role of the Church in Poverty Alleviation in Africa.’ Faith
in Development: Patrnership between the World Bank and the Churches of Africa. Ed. Deryke Belshaw, Robert Calderisi, Chris
Sugden. Oxford: Regnum, 2001. In Pp. 219-236.
[16] Oladipo, pp. 220-222.
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