Yesterday I wrote on how the New Testament calls believers to help minister to those afflicted by tragedy and disasters such as this week’s tornado. I gave some practical steps for churches to apply the biblical commands to meet each other’s needs in times of distress. Yet it occurred to me later that there might be some people who cringe at those commands, and who feel like the Bible does not command believers to use their resources in that way. This post is my attempt to argue that the New Testament directs Christians to use their money to meet the material needs of other believers.
The desire to help the poor is a biblical mandate. For example, when Zacchaeus repented, he gave half of his wealth to the poor (Luke 19:8). This was not a works-based form of penance, but rather an expression of compassion towards the needy. In fact, Jesus often used giving to the poor as a basic standard of righteousness (Matt 19:21, Luke 14:13), and even specifically blessed them (Luke 6:20). In the sermon on the mount, he told his listeners, “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matt 5:42). He repeated this ethic in Luke 3:11: “Whoever has two tunicsis to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” Continue Reading…
It’s a question that every Christian eventually asks. “Why did God allow the world to go the way it did?” For believers, and often unbelievers, it doesn’t take much to see that God did not have to create a human race destined to fall. He was not obligated to create that tree in the garden, nor was he obliged to allow Satan’s fall, the subsequent deception, Eve’s taking of the fruit, Adam’s sin, and subsequent billions of his image-bearers birthed in high-handed rebellion. Why did he create a world upon which he would pronounce a curse that leaves no corner of the creation, image-bearing or not, without carnage, spiritual and physical?
