Poverty in the Bible

  The bible does not just talk about poverty as one issue of many. Nor does it soley give us perspesctives or commands on 'dealing with' the poor. The Bible happens within the context of poverty - that is where it's story takes place! It contains a message that speaks directly to the hearts of the disenfranchised, the weak. And rather than offering a social critique that's made simpler and easier for those already finding life too hard, it has the cheek to say that it's message is too hard for the rich and privalledged, that the wise and intelligent cannot understand it. [1] This understanding is something many of us in the Church are only just comming to realise. Although I, and many others, live lives fraught with wealth and privalege, we dare to hope that one day we will live in a kingdom where there is no rich, poor, war or debt. I'm outlining some of the reasons for this below, in the hope that more people will be inspired to start asking the questions that will change the world.

  To start with, in the Hebrew Bible, most of the Prophets were poor (e.g. Amos), and so many of its heroes were the weak and marginalised (David was a shepherd boy, Gideon was the weakest of his tribe, Abraham became a nobody, a wondering nomad [3]). The bible is a story told from the margins of history, the victims of the powers and kings that we learn about in our histroy classes today.

  Then comes Jesus. The teaching of Christianity is not from an individual of elevated position, who through kindness writes on behalf of those 'below' them. No, rather the greatest teacher of Christianity, the 'supreme interpreter' of the faith, is a carpenter's son, who leaves even that to become a homeless Rabbi, with 'no place to lay his head'[2]. In fact, the only place in the scriptures where Jesus has any money at all are where he has to borrow it (for a demonstration), or where he performs a miracle, taking a coin from a fishes mouth. His main listeners would have been the peasants and workers of his day (note that he visited mainly towns and villiages, not the centres of power). Most of his recorded parables spoke directly into the situations of the powerless. He was poor, and he was the hero of the poor.

  Out of all this comes the Church, a group of followers of this radical and unconventional leader, who they call their King! Not only do they perform simple 'acts of charity', they form what appears to be a new society (or should I say Kingdom?) among them. Although most of them are poor, they share with each other so none go hungry. Even their enemies had to admit '[the Christians] feed our poor in addition to their own' (Emporer Julian - a persecuter of the Christian movement)[4], sometimes going without themselves in order to feed their neighbour. They were the victims of poverty, spiritual and physical. They were the answer to poverty. They were the Church.

[1] Mark 10:15;24-25, Luke 1:51-53, 1 Corinthians 1:27
[2] Luke 9:58
[3] Amos 1:1, 1 Samuel 16, Judges 6:15, Genesis 12:1
[4] Eberhard Arnold, The Early Christians in their Own Words, p11 (which itself cites: Julian, Sozomen, V.17; see also Harnack ET, vol. 1, p. 162)
(note - many of the biblical references here are not singular occurences in the bible, and are repeated in other places also)