Christian Charity
For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. Mark 14:7
My Christian neighbor had come home from her work at the local welfare office and was furiously sweeping her front porch. When I asked her if she was okay, she responded in a huff of frustration.
She had seen a line of people getting welfare benefits and several of them were “playing the system,” receiving moneys set aside for job interviews and help with employment for the second or third time. She could not refuse them.
She did not feel at all charitable toward these people, nor should she have. They were thieves.
Charity or Philanthropy
In the book, “In His Service, The Christian Calling to Charity,” R.J. Rushdoony defines Christian charity as “manifesting God’s grace because we have received His grace.”
In contrast to that, the more contemporary term, philanthropy, means literally, “love of man.”[i] Our welfare system is set up for the love of man rather than the love of God.
I am reading this book with a desire to understand “my” biblical call to charity. It is an understatement to say we live in a different world than the one illustrated in Acts 6 when the first Deacons were chosen.
The Apostles recognized the responsibility of the church to meet the needs of the poor, sick, and widows who were without aid (families were responsible to care for their own if they were available). The demand was so great it took too much time from their work of praying and preaching.
Acts 6:3-4 describes their solution to the problem of addressing the needs of the poor among the disciples; “Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
It is Personal
Christian charity is a personal exchange with those who need help. Governmental welfare is a faceless system that holds no one accountable. We Christians have allowed the government to run away with our duty to charity within the church.
Some might reason that we “give” through our taxes as the government cares for the poor – like Planned Parenthood. Defunding that organization is the tip of the iceberg.
The welfare system is not charitable. Forcefully taking money from some people to give to someone else cannot be considered charity. Besides that aspect of it, people in such a system can collect money without any encouragement to be employed or turn to the church for help – real help. In a face-to-face Christian system, people are more responsible for how they spend what they receive and it is usually given, in love, with the Gospel of Christ.
A needy person’s whole eternity could end up being better because of the generosity of Christians. That is how it was for a very long time.
What’s the Call?
Does the current welfare system frustrate you as it did my neighbor who worked in it?
What should our churches be doing? Are we even taking care of our own poor as the first deacons did?
What, for the glory of God and the advancement of His Kingdom, should you and I do today?
[i] In His Service, R.J. Rushdoony, page 131, 132
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