The poor man is the man without a margin. His income, even when it does come in–and he has no assurance that it will not fail–barely covers the irreducible minimum of the subsistence expenditure of his family. Life for him is a straitened business, in which he has no room to move about, no sense of freedom, no power of choice–which things are the natural heritage of men, and for which, since he also is made in the image of God and after His likeness, his nature craves. He can manage, if his wife is capable, but that is all, and then only if nothing untoward happens–no unemployment, no broken time, no sickness, no confinements, no dentist’s fees, no unforeseen drain on his exiguous resources. This is the line of poverty, of precarious subsistence; beyond it yawns the threatening abyss of wretchedness and despair.
The rich man is the man with a margin. Life for him is, on the whole, a roomy business; no sense of material limitation robs him of his courage to choose freely among the avenues to enlarged experience, though, of course, these will be open to him in varying degrees. His income is ample enough to admit indulgence, to a greater or lesser extent, in those things that are not necessary to existence, the things without which a man may live, indeed, but without which he cannot enjoy life.
This is the line of comfort and comparative security; beyond it lies luxury and sumptuous living.
The ultimate motive of the movement for better wages on the one hand, and for larger profits on the other, is the ambition to secure, or extend, this margin. Incidentally, character and spirituality are often sacrificed in the pursuit. It is to be remembered, however, that in the appointment of God the desire for “a sufficiency of one’s own” (1 Tim. 6:6) is an end legitimate in itself, as it is also that a man should “provide for his own,” and keep out of debt (1 Tim. 5:8; Rom. 13:8).
Agur prayed that it might not be denied him to have so much of the necessaries of life as would preserve him from poverty, while he repudiated any desire for a superabundance lest in the gifts he should forget the Giver (Prov. 30:7-9).
The Bible has much to say concerning the poor, and, in particular, concerning the responsibility of the man with a margin towards the man without a margin. This is mainly by way of warning, or of reproof, for the delusion that “a man’s life consists…in the abundance of his possessions” is inveterate in the human mind, and persists in the Christian despite the explicit warning of the Lord.
To the latter the consequence is that his spirit is impoverished and his sense of heavenly realities obscured, and that hereafter he will not be able to enter upon possession of the “true riches” (Lk. 16:11). The immediate result of this false belief is that even Christian men readily cherish base thoughts of the poor, and harden themselves against the needy, as Moses warned Israel would be their danger (Deut. 15:7-9).The law of God provided against these tendencies, to which human nature had become subject at once the consequence and the evidence of its fallen state, by making the prosperity of His people contingent on their considerate treatment of those who were in less happy circumstances than themselves:”The stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat, and be satisfied…Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land” (Deut. 14:29; 15:10, 11). “He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse” (Prov. 28:27).
The poor also have their rights, and these God has undertaken to maintain: “I know,” says the Psalmist, “that the Lord will maintain the cause of the [needy].” “Woe unto them that…take away the right from the poor of My people” (Ps. 140:12; Isa. 10:1, 2).
To oppress the poor is to reproach the Creator of the poor; to show kindness to the needy is to honor Him (Prov.14:31). To those whose hearts were given over to covetousness, all the while maintaining a profession of godliness, Jeremiah addresses the pointed question: “Is not this (that is, consideration of the poor) to know Me? saith the Lord.” Neglect of the poor is the fruit of ignorance of God (Jer. 22:16). Therefore blessing is reserved for him “that considereth the poor,” for the man that pities the poor, and gives practical expression to his pity, makes an investment on the security of God
(Ps. 11:1; Prov. 19:17).
In the book of Proverbs, assertions that the well-to-do have a responsibility before the Lord for the poor are too numerous to quote here. This is true of the Prophets also; they testify repeatedly that the condemnation of Israel in their declension lay in this–that they had failed to care for their poor. This was palpable evidence that they had in heart turned away from God. The deterioration of the character of the people, and the consequent decline and fall of the nation, seem to have been due largely to this cause.
Other evidences of declension were not lacking, but in the burdens of the prophets this is a chief complaint, as a few passages will show. “The people of the land have…vexed the poor and needy.” “Forasmuch, therefore, as your treading is upon the poor…I know your manifold transgressions, and your mighty sins…they turn aside the poor.” “Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail…the Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.” “Thus speaketh the Lord of Hosts, saying…oppress not…the poor…But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder…they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law…therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of Hosts” (Ezek. 22:29; Amos 5:11-12; 8:4-7; Zech. 7:9-12).
In the blessing pronounced by the Psalmist on the man “that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments,” the proof and evidence of his attitude toward God culminates in this, that “he hath dispersed, he hath given to the needy; his righteousness endureth for ever.” And these words are appropriated by the Apostle to the bountiful and cheerful (hilarious is the Greek) Christian giver, whom, in a special way, God loves (Ps. 112:9; 2 Cor. 9:7).
New Testament teaching concerning the poor does not differ in principle from that of the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus had an eye for the poor because He had a heart for them. Therefore the widow’s gift attracted His attention (Lk. 21:2-3). Their interest in His message cheered Him, and provided a proof of His Messiahship (Mt. 11:5). He Himself was not only man, He was a poor man, who knew by experience the lot of the poor. What better evidence than this could be given that God holds the poor in respect, and that He would have His people imitate Him in this as in all else?
James warns us against holding men in contempt, or even in comparatively low esteem, because they are poor (Jas. 2:2-6). Paul readily acknowledged that the obligation to care for the needy imposed on the people of God in the Old Testament remains in force under the greatly altered conditions of the new dispensation (Gal. 2:10). And this, indeed, because God’s laws are never arbitrary; they are always the expression of His own unchanging character.
Hence the Lord Jesus in His attitude to the poor is the revealer of God, and would have us to confess Him, to be His witnesses in our ways with them. The needy thus afford to the Christian perpetual opportunity to imitate his Master in doing them good, and such as consider them are assured of reward at the resurrection of the just (Mk. 14:7; Lk. 14:13-14).”Ye have the poor always with you,” said the Lord, so that opportunities for pleasing God in the service which their needs demand are limited only by our will to please Him.
It is fatally easy to supply the wrong corollary here. It was not the intention of the Lord to suggest that poverty is inevitable, and that we may safely allow ourselves to become indifferent to the suffering it entails. On the contrary, it is implied that we are to wage unrelenting warfare with poverty, to do all that in us lies to alleviate its bitterness, and to arouse and to encourage its victims to shake themselves free from its shackles, that, delivered themselves, they in turn may have to give to those that are in need.
We must be vigilant against an entirely un-Christian sentiment that readily insinuates itself to the mind. If it were permitted frank expression in words, it might be summed up in a statement like this: “I am comfortable; and you ought to be content!”
Ministry to the poor, or, in quite plain English, the serving of the poor is everywhere commended by the apostles. Romans 12:8 is a case in point: “He that giveth, let him do it with [liberality].” Something is lost in the translation here. The word rendered “giveth” is, more properly, shareth, and sharing rather than giving is the Christian ideal. It is not always possible nor, if possible, would it be always wise, to share silver and gold, but a higher form of service is open to understanding sympathy, in the alleviation of disease and distress, and in a thousand ways discoverable by the exercised heart.
Against one easy fallacy we must be on guard: The Good Samaritan did not wait for a certificate of character before he came where the half-dead victim of the robbers lay. John Ruskin somewhere remarks that the question really is, not whether this particular person deserves to have a half-crown given but whether I deserve to have it to give him! Disconcerting enough to the self-complacent, but a healthy question just the same, one calculated to sanity of mind, lest we should “think of [ourselves] more highly than [we] ought to think” (Rom. 12:3).
It is true, indeed, that such knowledge as we have of love is “because He laid down His life for us”; and therefore it follows that “we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” But “whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 Jn. 3:16-17).