Half of the world currently lives on less than $2 a day, defined as poverty.
1% of the most rich have the same amount of money as 57% of the most poor.
The inequality is astounding and the gap between the rich and poor only continues to grow.
My question is...
What is the Christian response to poverty?
We spend roughly 2 hours talking about this in class the other day. Our assigned reading was from 3 different Christian philosphers and their take on our calling as Christians in response to this. The first author could probably be summed up as, Helping others should not get in the way of delight. Another argued that christians should give up everything they have and give it to the poor emphasizing our responsibility to others.
A passage in acts talks about christian communities that gave up their belongings to give to the poor, but later on we find that some still had houses. It´s pretty safe to say we need to help, but to what extent. Can we justify buying a brand new car when a used car works just fine? can I buy new clothes when so many children have none, if so how expensive? Where do we draw the line? These are the type of questions we tackle every day in class.
Churches in America have been silenced on these issues because whenever they attempt, hundreds upon hundreds of complaints are made I wanna hear a sermon about this that angers a bunch of rich people.
Please comment below, i'd love to hear what you think.
2 comments:
TRENT! It's Matt Volenec. You're in Honduras! I'm loving the blog, it sounds like you're having a crazy great time. I think it's awesome that you're chewing on this... "I wanna hear a sermon about this that angers a bunch of rich people" too.
What we know from scripture is that we're supposed to tithe from our income and give alms and freewill offerings on top of that. Jesus, in his ministry, tells one man to sell everything he has and give his riches to the poor and yet tells others not to worry about extravagance because the poor will always be with them.
Here's what I think: everything is God's, and we need to live that way. The rich young ruler and the widow with two coins illustrate this, no matter if we have much or little we're supposed to submit it all back to God. My goal is to one day be living a lifestyle where 100% of my time, talents, and treasures are invested in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I'm not there yet, but I know, for me, the way I will get there is not as much by setting metric goals as just getting to know the King and what's on His heart and becoming a person who lives in a Kingdom mindset. As I grow in that giving will become less of an obligation and way more just a fun and exciting way to partner with God and invade the earth for his glory.
Blessings and love!
Matt
P.S. Ask me to tell you the story about my murse (man purse :D) sometime... it's pretty cool.
I couldn't agree more. It's disgusting how much we have here. Sometimes it feels like a vicious cycle we can't get out of! So much value is put on monetary things by our culture that we feel stuck. Why is the suicide and depression rate so high in the U.S. yet so low in countries where things are in America's eyes,"worse off"? We have so much, but it's never enough. We always want more and we never feel satisfied. I pray we can break it.
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