Social Justice Watch: The Church And The Poor (Pt.1)

In 1983 I was in San Antonio, Texas doing post-production work on a film, when the editor made a casual comment about his church youth group traveling overseas to help missionaries on a building project. That hit me like a ton of bricks: I'd never heard of a youth group doing such a thing. As a youngster in the 1960s, I vividly recall a family from our church leaving Canada with their kids (some of my best friends) on a "short-term" missionary assignment to Africa—they were gone FOUR YEARS. That was my frame of reference for missions work.

By 1983, airline deregulation had brought down the cost of international travel by over 25%, no small factor in the growth of such trips, I'm sure. A reviving economy under Ronald Reagan helped make such travel affordable as well. 

My niece in Kenya in 2006 

I don't recall my editor friend using the phrase "missions trip" at that time, but these days you would have to search high and low to find an American (or Canadian) church that hasn't sent their youth to some Latin American or Caribbean nation—or even further. And, of course, there are myriad domestic "missions trips" to urban areas, or to the remote Navajo and everywhere in between. I consider all this to be a great good on many levels.

But this doesn't stop Social Justice activists from branding evangelical Christians as "uncaring" if we oppose higher taxes to grow the Nanny State. Strictly speaking, of course, these missions trips aren't intended to end poverty or cure every disease. But activities like these—and others by para-church outfits like World Vision, Compassion and Samaritan's Purse—are non-trivial evidence that American Christians do indeed care for the "needy."

Before wading into the societal debate about the church's "obligation" to the poor, a Christian should first turn to scripture for guidance.

A note about my choice of english translation: the ESV. My pastor recommends it for study—concluding that the NIV has become too politically correct and unreliable. As an aside, I have a personal affinity for the NLT in readability and an increasing admiration for the new HCSB in study. So that's that with that, then.

Leaving aside the Old Testament, due to the unique, insular nature of the Jews and Israel, here follows a summary of New Testament usage of the word "poor." It appears just five times each in Matthew, Mark, and John. Only nine of those 15 instances are spoken by Jesus. Eleven of the 15 deal with just three events:

1. The Rich Young Ruler, told by Jesus to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow Christ.

2. The Poor Widow, who was giving a significant offering of her own money to the Temple.

3. Judas, complaining about the expensive perfume poured on Jesus, which Judas wanted to sell, saying he'd give the money to the poor (a half-truth at best). And then Jesus' reply: "the poor shall be with you always."

The other Matt/Mark/John instances of the word are spread among the Beatitudes ("…blessed are the poor…"), the Isaiah 61 prophecy ("…the poor have the good news preached to them…") and one reference to insufficient quality ("…poor wine…").

Next up is Luke, who uses the word eleven times: once for the Rich Young Ruler and twice for the Poor Widow, but no mention of the Judas incident at all. He twice includes the Isaiah 61 passage. The rest of Luke's "poor" usages are from the Zacchaeus story, the Parable of Lazarus and Dives, the Beatitudes, and the Banquet Parables.

The Gospels often overlap in retelling the same event, so those 26 usages of the word "poor" fall into just nine incidents: the Beatitudes, Isaiah 61, Rich Young Ruler, Judas' Complaint/Jesus' Reply, Poor Widow's Offering, Banquet Parables, Lazarus and Dives, Zacchaeus, and Judas Leaving the Last Supper.

After the Gospels we come to the Acts of the Apostles, where the word "poor" does not appear at all. I kid you not. Think about that for a minute.

Then come the Epistles—the letters of Paul, Peter, James and John (not to quibble over Hebrews). While the Gospels and Acts are mostly narrative—describing actions and events—the Epistles are mostly teaching. The lessons we may take from the retelling of an occurrence in Jesus' life are indirect, requiring both interpretation and application. But the lessons contained in teaching passages are pretty straightforward. On to the numbers.

The word "poor" appears just eleven times in the Epistles: once in Romans ("...the poor among the saints in Jerusalem..."); three times in 2 Corinthians (twice about Jesus making himself poor, once quoting Psalm 112 in collecting for the saints in Jerusalem); once in Galatians ("...remember the poor..."); four times in James (all in reference to respecting rich and poor alike); and twice in Revelation ("...not realizing you are wretched, pitiable, poor..." and "both rich and poor" taking the mark of the beast).

So there's something to mull over: simply the number and nature of New Testament mentions of the poor. There are, of course, other words that must be considered as well—"needy" comes immediately to mind. Other related words: charity, alms, naked, hungry, etc. Next up, Social Justice Watch: The Least Of These (Pt. 2) includes analysis and, as you might guess, some contrarian conclusions vis-à-vis today's Social Justice-ites.