Caring for the Poor: With Us Always – The Law of God and Public Policy

Caring for the Poor: With Us Always
The Law of God and Public Policy

A just society provides security of love, not wealth.

“For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’” Deuteronomy 15:11

We have seen that the goal of society and, thus, of public policy, is to pursue and maintain justice.

Justice is not defined in terms of material wealth, but of love for God and neighbors. It is not the goal of society to ensure equal material prosperity, but equal justice for all its members. In the divine economy, outlined in the Law of God, what people need above all else is the security of love, not of wealth.

This being the case, and the ideal of material equality being unattainable at any rate, every society must expect that there will be a certain amount of inequality of income and wealth among its members. This is not inherently evil, although it can be, if justice is compromised. A society can be just and still contain inequalities of wealth.

The fact that such inequalities will exist, that there will always be a presence of poor people in society, must not be allowed to be a cause for complacency, indifference, scorn, or neglect toward the problem of poverty.

We turn now, in our considerations of the ways God’s Law might speak to the public policy issues of our day, to consider the question of the poor, and of society’s responsibility toward those who struggle to sustain themselves materially.

No society can be just where inequality of justice is accepted as normal. Members of a just society, therefore, will take care to ensure that neighbor-love is extended to all members, according to their situation and need.

Justice will thus require that communities give due concern to helping to alleviate the material want of those of their members who, for various reasons, are not able to provide sufficiently for themselves.

Justice, according to the Law of God, entails certain specific obligations on the part of the rest of society toward the poor, whether they are temporarily or chronically in need.

“For you always have the poor with you,” Jesus explained, thus affirming the teaching of God’s Law (Mark 14:7). Jesus went on to insist that, as often as we have opportunities, we should address the needs of the poor. He understood that the Law of God had outlined specific approaches to this situation, and He seems to have regarded these as sufficient.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.