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The Poor: A Biblical Remedy
Posted by Rob Ayers in Bible & Theology, Church & Missions
“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord‘s release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release. But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess— if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. For the Lord your God will bless you, as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you.
“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, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 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. 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. 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.’” – Deuteronomy 15:1-11 ESV
There has been some discussion from my posts in recent days about the viability to share with others who are in need. I believe it was David Rogers who suggested Deuteronomy 15 as a possible source of remedy. It is a matter of fact that I looked at Deuteronomy 15 as a scriptural resource for my D.Min. project. Let us look at it a little bit and see what it does say, and what it does not say.
“If there is a poor man with you….you shall not harden your heart or close your hand to your poor brother” (verse 7). While a general amnesty of debt forgiveness and grace is commanded during the Jubilee year (“the year of remission” in verse 1 and repeated in verse 9), a ministry to the destitute is commanded for each day in the Jewish community. God’s blessings are promised to those who minister to the destitute and otherwise take their good fortune and give it away to someone who is less fortunate (verse 10). The command is repeated in verse 11: “You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and poor in your land.” “Freely” that is not under compulsion, or servitude. The giving to the poor was of a voluntary nature, full of God’s promises for those who faithfully and cheerfully gave for the betterment of the poor in their communities. Paul reiterated this principle in his epistle to the Corinthian church from 2 Corinthians 9:6,7: “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
The context of Deuteronomy 15 is the “year of remission” or the “year of jubilee” (verse 1) and found in relation to the forgiving of debts and loans among the people in the land. What is notable here is that forgiveness of debts and loans are not granted to foreigners, only to those who are of the house of Israel, or a “brother” (verse 3).
Moses expressed an ideal found in Deuteronomy 15:4 which lays the foundation for the command found in verse 7 and following: “However, there shall be no poor among you since the Lord will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess.” Moses envisioned a time when the people, who being in love with God and cherishing all that He had provided, would be in obedience to everything that God said. Moses ideally promised no poverty in the land. This result could be either of these two reasonable interpretations:
1. No poor would be in the land because God would bless the people for obeying Him.
2. The prosperous would require no commandment to reach out and help the less fortunate.
The Jewish community was commanded to help and support the poor. These were people who were economically depressed and in need of being maintained and carried. God’s people were commanded to be the hands of God by helping their own people, and thereby be blessed for their righteous act. A New Testament counterpart of this particular Scripture could very well be the admonition contained in James 2:14-17, “faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”
The true action of the righteous is affirmed in verse 9 when a person is tempted to refuse a brother help when the seventh year approaches, knowing that the debt will be forgiven without repayment. The kingdom of God’s true reflection in an individual is not the blessings they keep, but the treasures they are willing to give away to bless others. Stinginess is not one of those attributes found in God’s righteous people. When it is in the power of people to do works of righteousness, no matter the personal sacrifice or loss of treasure, they are to do it. The attitude of the stingy person is reflected in that he knows the debt will not be repaid and thus withholds help. What the believer can take away from this is that those suffering in the brotherhood of Yahweh have a deliverer. Those who are suffering will cry out and be heard. Those who refuse to help will be found in sin.
The verses found in Deuteronomy 15:7-11 strongly command the believer of God to be a deliverer and redeemer to those who are going through a period of need and crisis. They are to do so not out of compulsion, but in the idea of mercy and redemption. The distressed of God’s people cry up to God for His help. God’s people who are not in distress are the hand of God for deliverance. It is now up to the righteous faithful to be obedient by following and doing the will of God.
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John in his first epistle says, ”Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his bowels toward him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him/”
We are to love in both word and deed.
Brother Rob,
Excellent article! Thank you brother….It got me thinking about a principle that God would have us claim as laid forth by Paul to the Romans in chapter 14.
When you said:
“The context of Deuteronomy 15 is the “year of remission” or the “year of jubilee” (verse 1) and found in relation to the forgiving of debts and loans among the people in the land. What is notable here is that forgiveness of debts and loans are not granted to foreigners, only to those who are of the house of Israel, or a “brother” (verse 3).”
The context of Deuteronomy 15 echoes the same reality that Paul is instructing the church at Rome to maintain…..as he encourages:
Romans 14:13-21 Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this–not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. (14) I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. (15) For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. (16) Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; (17) for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (18) For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. (19) So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. (20) Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. (21) It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.
We serve our brothers and sisters that are adopted into the family of God. We belong to God and ultimately He is our master and judge. At the very least we should forgive debts, and not put any stumbling block in a brother’s way. Our commonality in God is an astounding motivation to help our brothers and sisters in time of need.
Good stuff,
Blessings,
Chris
I preached on poverty prior to the election and did a word study on “the poor.” What I found is that this word most often referred to those who were incapable of helping themselves or were being oppressed or kept down by some authority or power. It rarely is ever used of someone who is healthy and able to work who simply does not make a certain amount of income.
For fear of preaching a social gospel many conservatives have neglected preaching about such issues but should not neglect what the Bible emphasizes. At the same time we should have balance. We should help those who cannot help themselves and demand that those who can help themselves do so.
Rob:
I think there are two ways to financially help those in need. One is to loan them money and one is to give them tangible things.
One of the mechanisms of help suggested in Deutronomy is loaning money to people and then later forgiving the debt. I guess a modern day equivalent of this would be banks writing down mortgage balances to avoid foreclosure.
Personally, I believe a better way to help “poor” people is giving them money (or usually something tangible they can use) rather than loaning them money. I don’t think you are doing most people any “help” by loaning them money that they have no realistic chance to repay.
Examples of programs which I think are helping the poor:
(1) Large scale: Bill Gates giving millions to help eradicate disease in Third World countries,
(2) Local scale: First Baptist Church in Washington OK which has organized a project to build a house for a women in town whose house was in a very poor state of repair. They tore down the house and built her a new one. The church speadheaded a drive to raise donations of money, labor, and materials to build this house. Last time I was down there (just before Christmas) the house was nearing completion. It just needed some interior work such as cabinets, etc. The project is the Leah Hays Extreme Home Makeover in Washington, Oklahoma.
When I was driving out the exit of a truck stop on the west side of Albuquerque, I spotted a guy sitting in the little concrete median, with the standard “Hungry, all donations gratefully accepted, God Bless” on his cardboard sign. Dug around for the bag I’d just got in the truck stop store, w/ 6 cinnamon rolls, and gave him 1 out the window as I crawled up to my spot at the red light, and said here’s what I’m having for breakfast.
You should have seen the look he gave me. He didn’t want food, he wanted $$ to go back into the store and buy beer.
Be careful what you give; you don’t want to become an enabler.
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As for those of us that still have jobs, we should look carefully at paying down our bills, and when we can, rachet up our giving (additional to the tithe) a little. An extra $10, $20, or so each payday by everybody not laid off would go a long way towards bringing each church’s budget closer to a balance.
Rob,
Thanks for answering my question on the other post. You have obviously put a lot of good thought into this.
In the end, I think I come down at the same place you do on this. But, more for the sake of my own wrestling with Scripture, and its implications, I’d like to tease this out a bit further, if you don’t mind.
I went back and read Deuteronomy 15:1-11 in all the 18 English versions on Bible Gateway. In not one of them could I find the idea of the jubilee or lending to the poor being a “free will” or “voluntary” thing. The closest you get to that idea is the word “freely,” but in context it seems to me to have more to do with the attitude of the heart than of the obligatory vs. voluntary nature. In any case, the first 6 verses seem to me to be quite clearly non-voluntary. There may be slightly more doubt about the following 5 verses.
In the NT, the assumption is that we are not under a theocratic system of government. So, there is no legal enforcement available for this type of law, unless it be by the pagan Roman government. Within the church, giving and sharing do indeed seem to be voluntary.
What I am still unsure about is how OT principles based on a government system of theocracy might transfer over to modern democracy. Is it necessarily a bad thing for secular democratic governments to collect taxes in order to help the poor, or have a government enforced debt cancellation program? If they do so, in a sense, they are only following the example set before them in the OT.
What principles from OT theocracy are valid examples for modern secular democracy, and which ones are not?
I would be interested to hear your response to this point of the argument.
Good post. I often feel torn between helping those asking for handouts and not trusting to give them money.
Currently, I have become aware of some needs in our church. We have been praying how to meet those needs.
David,
The words “you shall freely” (NASB) “wide” (KJV),(the same compound Hebrew word is found in verse 9 and verse 11) has a certainly a double meaning. At the root of the compound is the Hebrew “pathach” (Strong’s 6605) which means “freely” and “wide.” In connection with the rest of the compound, it speaks both towards the motivation of the heart and the willingness of the giver. Motivation: freely without compulsion without a moment of hesitancy. Willingness: the hand is wide, and opens again and again and again to give to those in need. The Talmud speaks and says if those in need will not take the gift because of pride, then those resources should be loaned to that person. The seventh year then would release both the recipient and the lender from paying back, or seeking payment.
While governments under a democratic frame work could enforce compulsory payments to the poor (and do) I do not believe that a one of them have truly mimicked this Biblical system. Welfare and other forms of assistance are based primarily on a socialist/marxist view of redistribution which must be noted in terms of not the desire to help the poor, but a centralized concentration of wealth and power.
What should be noted for posterity is that even Israel in it’s theocracy never enforced these particular commands as a “dictum” all the way through the the Judges, the United Kingdom, and Divided Kingdoms. We see a prophet mention that Israel was judged and sent into exile because they failed to keep the Year of Jubilee all during the times of their occupancy of the land. They surely were “voluntary” with the enforcer being God alone.
Rob
Rob,
Thanks for your thoughts. Personally, it doesn’t seem so clear to me that the Bible forbids or discourages human governments from taxing the rich in order to help the poor, or provide them opportunities to help themselves. Pragmatically, making use of human wisdom, and the lessons of experience, it may be possible to make a better argument against this. But to say that the Bible specifically teaches against it does not seem defensible to me. Also, I don’t see that all government-funded efforts to help the poor and underprivileged are necessarily the same thing as Marxism.
No David – I did not say the Bible teaches specifically against governmental intervention to help the poor. We have in Deuteronomy 15 the model that God shared with Moses. What I did say that most current governmental models are based on a form of Marxism (I did not say “communism” – Marx was the father of modern socialism and a major contributor to sociology – every social worker I know is grounded in the discipline using Marxian philosophy and techniques). Name one current modern governmental system that uses the Deuteronomy 15 model. Now name all of the current governmental systems that use the “modern sociology” model. You will have to admit that the first list is really small, while the second list is legion.
Rob