Recently in our country, the social safety net for food assistance was threatened to be turned off. This caused many people to experience uncertainty about how they were going to feed their families, having grown dependent upon having those food stamp benefits to supplement their income. There are many discussions about how some people may abuse the system, but this article is not the place to discuss that. The simple fact is that many people find themselves in times where they need help. While it is convenient to have public assistance, and there is no problem with Christians taking advantage of that help if they need it, Christians should never find themselves forced to lean upon that public assistance. When needy Christians are forced to go to that public assistance, the other Christians in a congregation have failed in their obligations.
God put in place help for persons in need. We have an example of this in Leviticus 19:9-10: “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”
God explicitly states that He commands landowners to leave part of a harvest as a sacrifice to the needy. Anyone could go out into what was left of that field and harvest the food they needed to survive for themselves or their family, whether it be because they have fallen upon challenging times in life, or they are journeying and have no way to earn income at that time. God wants us to take care of each other.
In the New Testament, a good example is during the formation of the church in Acts 4:32-35: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”
Many were in Jerusalem for Pentecost at that time and stayed when they joined the church after seeing it come with power in Acts 2. This created a situation of extreme need. People did not have the resources they needed to earn money and suddenly found themselves in need of help to stay and tend to this new church. The solution was in the apostles’ teachings of grace and how each should relate to their fellow man in the commandments of God. They understood that it was their obligation to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and all their mind. Jesus stated that this is the great and first commandment, but the second was like it in that they should love their neighbor as themselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) Those first Christians would have understood Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount where He tells us, “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42).
It is the work of the individual Christian to help the poor and the needy who are not of the church, and it gives the individual Christian the ability to discern what is right. Fraudulent need does exist, and we should still be good stewards of our resources, but helping others is one way we can show our love for our brothers. In the event of Christians in need, church resources are available as we see in Acts where the resources were laid at the apostles’ feet and were distributed to those who had need.
In the context of giving to those who have need and fulfilling our obligation as Christians to assist those in need, this is not an opportunity for laziness. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” Those in need have an obligation as well. We should be willing to ask and accept help from others but not depend upon it. We should work and contribute because, even when we are in need, we have the goal of being the ones offering the assistance needed by others. The conscience generates shame for us to be always in need of help from others without being the one to bless others by the same means.
God gives us the ability to better ourselves. That is the message of the gospel: to come from the depths of sin and death, and to rise to the grace of God. There is work to be done, and it is all our duty to fulfill that. No Christian should ever go hungry. No Christian should even be unhoused. No Christian should ever live in a constant state of need. No Christian should not give help to those who need it. We often hear Christians lament the “what ifs” of life, but if we did follow God’s plan, public assistance would not be needed because we would all be taken care of by one another’s individual works. But we live in a fallen world.
Lance Byers