POVERTY: WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS

[1Timothy115]

Ceasar prints the money and its the "coin of the realm" so, he can do with it as he pleases. Billions to poor nations and people, what concern is that to me.

My concern must be based on what scripture teaches about spreading the gospel of Christ and how we respond to those in need after delivering the gospel.

James 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
James 2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Ref: Matthew 25:32-46

[John81]

In America it's not uncommon for a church to have members who live in poverty along with those who are very wealthy where the wealthy don't help their brothers and sisters in Christ.

How often in America do we see professing Christians that are blessed financially that build larger homes than they need, fill those homes with lots of gadgets, goodies and entertainment accessories that are not needed, toss out enough food in a week to feed a family, and who give no thought let alone actual help to those who live in poverty in their own church?

[His by Grace]

John, Amen! Sometimes it seems the most faithful the Lord doesn't bless financially. Then sometimes He does! Our Pastor was just given a car from a mother of a lady in our church. The mother was just visiting but was very adament that the Lord wanted her to do this so she handed Pastor the key's and He's been in shock. praising the Lord and serving Him- just as always - except in a lot more comfort!

[Jerry]

It just seemed that Brother Could was making it look like laziness is the root cause of poverty. But the root cause of poverty is the same as the root cause of every sin: "the love of money is the root of all evil" the Bible says. How does that work?

No, he doesn't. If you got that out of his study, you must have read it too quickly or superficially. I encourage you to read that section again. What he did do was list the verses that spoke about laziness and poverty in the book of Prioverbs (verses from God) and explained and applied them by giving examples of how this can happen today. The Bible (nor Cloud in his study) does not teach that laziness is the primary cause of poverty - but it is certainly one of the factors in many cases.

Another poster mentioned the verse about not helping (specifically feeding) those who would not work. It is not referring to those who cannot work (such as those who are limited by their age and health, like someone who is 80 years old or disabled), but to those who are unwilling to work. I have seen many get on the Welfare dole and refuse to work because they think they got a good thing going.

[Jerry]

I like reading Cloud's studies like this, but there is always a lot of passages to look up - I would encourage everyone to do so (with any kind of article or book that references the Bible). That is how we build discernment, and can see the verses in context. I am enjoying my SwordSearcher Bible program because it now has a feature where you can copy an article and paste it into a window in the program. It scans the article, and bolds any verse references - which you can then hover your mouse over to read or click on to go to. This makes it so much easier to do indepth studies like this.