Aldo Hutagalung (40820070001)

Ethics of Poverty

1. Issues

1.1 Confusion over Reality of Poverty

There are so many things that really make us confused when we face our daily life. For example,

why in one hand there is very wealthy and rich person and the other hand there is a terribly and miserably

poor people. In addition, does God intended people since in the beginning that one person will be destined

to be poor later on in his or her life or is it the sin of her or his father that someone will go poor?

Whatever it is, we know that God is still in control of all things. The Webster’s Student Dictionary (1999,

p. 569) defined poverty as a state of being poor; scarcity of something needed. However, in this

discussion the meaning and application of poverty goes beyond that. The writer hopes that this paper will

help us to see the true meaning of poverty and how to see poverty from God’s perspective.

1.2 Why bother?

There is always a whisper that often come to each one of us that resound a question of why bother

helping and dealing with the poor. Such question was a devastated statement that comes from the devil

that will destroy one’s sensitivity toward the oppressed and poor people. Besides that, even many

Christians nowadays raise the question of why don’t we just live by ourselves, not hurting people,

praising God, and not helping the poor. Many of them are affected by the philosophy of logic positivism.

They use reasons that make sense to us that we don’t need to help poor people. For example, they said

that the number of poor people is countless, and therefore it’s impossible for us to be able to help them,

it’s too much. Hearing this statement is so irritable and annoying, don’t we? However, in fact those are

the kinds of people that we live with in this world!

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1.3 Who are the poor in Scripture?

To fully understand the meaning of poverty, we need to truly define and understand who the poor

are. According to Frame in his book the doctrine of Christian life, there are three types of poor people:

1. First category: They are the ones who have few resources. They become poor because they often times

just try to keep living without any such enthusiasm to strive for improvement. They just live, and for them

the purpose of living is to keep you alive. They go poor because of their own choice to be lazy because

their own unwillingness to work. The Scripture does recognize laziness as a problem which could be

found in Proverbs and 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12.

2. Second category: They are the ones who are poor in Scripture not because of being lazy, nut because of

the circumstances and conditions that goes beyond their control. Most often, they are poor because of the

power of the wealthy and rich people in their area and circumstance. They tried to take advantage of the

poor and try to make them as rich as possible from that advantage.

3. Third category: This category is different and unique rather than two categories previously. One of the

examples of the persons in the Bible to be considered as a poor people was King David. You probably

will ask, why King David, the one who had plenty of financial resources was considered as poor people.

In this context, David was considered being poor not in terms of resources and wealth, but in a sense that

he realized that all of his money and wealth could not help and deliver him from his enemies who were

too powerful to be bought off. Only the Lord who could save him. That’s why David said, “Yet I am poor

and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay” (Ps.

40:17). Therefore, Frame said it’s no surprising to see the relation later on in New Testament to Jesus’

beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3).

Overall, it is true that “God is in the side of the poor”. However, we need to be carefully notice

the true definition of poor in this context. God sides with the poor when they are unjustly poor, that is

oppressed (Frame, 2008, p. 815).

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2. What the Bible says?

The Bible says clearly that it’s illogical that we could live our lives, saying that we are Christians,

praising God with our mouth, but ignoring the poor. Lord Jesus directly said in Matt 25:31-46 that the

ones who will enter the kingdom of God are the ones who clothe, visited, and gave a deink to the

brethrens. It means that all of our rituals, worship and anything that relates to spiritual matter will be

going to zero if we close our eyes to our oppressed and poor brethrens. Therefore, we should strive to

give impact and dedication to our horizontally and vertically relationship. Without it, we will be like the

Pharisees, the hypocrites, the ones that Paul called whitewashed wall (Acts 23:3).

3. Whose sin that causes someone to go poor?

The writer personally wants to answer this question because it’s also a struggle that comes upon

the writer. After all reflections, the writer with the help of the Holy Spirit found that someone went poor

because of nobody’s mistakes. Everybody has fallen into sin and loose the glory of God, therefore it’s a

reality of the fallen world that someone could go poor. Being poor from the human perspective is a

miserable thing, but from God’s perspective, it’s totally different. In the Paul letter, he described that the

weak and the poor will make the rich and powerful ashamed off, and it’s true. All the apostles besides

Paul came from very ordinary family and “sinners”, but God uses them so powerful and now Christians

are in places in this world. There is a relevance between the disabled and the poor because most of the

times the disabled are the poor people. It’s beautifully described when Lord Jesus healed the blind man,

prior to that, the disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned,this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Let’s just put that this way, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born poor?” Surely,

Lord Jesus will say, “neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God

might be displayed in his life”(John 9:3)

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3. Conclusion

Poverty will always be our friend and the poor will live always with us. Marthin Luther

commented on poverty, “Poverty I say not to be recommended, chosen, or taught; for there is enough of

that by itself, as He says (John 12:8): “The poor you always have with you,” just as you will have other

evils. But constant care should be taken that, since these evils are always in evidence, they are always

opposed (Wengert, 2004, p. 141). Poverty is a reality and we can’t avoid that. However, it is our duty as

Christians to help each other and to be fully equipped to face the future and strive to prepare and equip

the next generation so that they could feed themselves and have a better life. May each one of us

remember that God always love us although from the human perspectives, we often being considered

“poor” because of choosing Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

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Reference List

Frame, M. J. (2008). The doctrine of the Christian life: A theology of Lordship. New Jersey: P&R
Publishing Company.

Webster, M. (2002). Webster’s student dictionary (6th ed.). Illnois: Trident Press International.

Wengert, J. T. (2004). Harvesting Marthin Luther’s reflections on Theology, ethics, and the church.
Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.