Why Should I Care…? | Poverty and Inequality
About this series:
Our ‘Why Should I Care?...’ series of talks is aimed at helping both Christians and non-Christians think through a varied series of topics connected with important matters in modern culture. This series will be designed to equip the church while also being accessible to non-Christians.
Our aim is to equip people of all ages with the tools to grapple with and think through complex issues - such as mental health, AI and gender and sexuality - in a biblical way.
About this talk:
In general, people are more wealthy than a century ago. More people have more disposable income and therefore a greater ability to make life choices. However, increased wealth has clearly not been equally distributed, as it never has in the history of mankind; but perhaps to an unprecedented degree. The wealthy simply become increasingly wealthy, with the gap between rich and poor ever-widening. Modern news broadcasters regularly bring us pictures of those suffering from poverty and inequality due either to war, famine or corruption (often a combination of all three).
The Bible doesn’t seem to advocate financial equality, but it certainly does command us to care for those who are poor and to provide for one another. God’s law included provision for the poor to be fed and for a reset every seven and fifty years (designed especially to protect those in poverty). Throughout the Bible, stress is placed on ensuring that inequality does not become injustice. So Old Testament prophets regularly denounced those who rode roughshod over the poor, Jesus taught what it meant to love one another and the early church practiced a generous, sharing lifestyle in which “there was no needy person among them” (Acts 4:34).
Paul’s words to Timothy contain much guidance: “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:17-18).
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