Needy? Or Greedy?

 

Yesterday at our church brunch a woman came to the table where I was chatting with our pastor. She started to interrupt but he stopped her and said he would talk to her later. He told me she came with a different story each week but always asking for money.

A man, often with his wife, comes into our building after the service is over and lines up for food. They bring containers and take enough for a week, hiding it until they can leave. When anyone talks to them, they claim they cannot speak English.

The leadership in our church believes in taking care of the poor, yet these behaviors make that task a bit of a puzzle. We are commanded to be gracious yet not to behave as they are behaving. So what do we do when people greedily take advantage of us?

First, the NT offers some clear commands:

For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:2–4)

From the very beginning, the church has prioritized ministering to the poor. “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (Acts 2:44–45) Notice, this is for the needy who are believers, as is the following description of Paul organizing a relief fund in Jerusalem:

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem . . . . (1 Corinthians 16:1–4)

It is the same in another situation: “So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.” (Acts 11:29–30) The church is to consider the poor among them. Nothing is said about those living in poverty outside the church. However, God has plans for some of them:

Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? (James 2:5–7)

The NT forbids Christians to be greedy. We have no excuse; God takes care of our needs and beyond that, we are to be content and help others. However, it also says this:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:17–19)

According to this, greedy, self-serving people are hard of heart, even unaware of their sin. While some who are false teachers “in their greed they will exploit you with false words” (2 Peter 2:1–3) this is not about that kind of greed. Nor is the NT written for them. This passage separates how we treat greed in the church and what we need to do (or not do) with greedy people who are not believers:

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:11–13)

PRAY: Lord, You are saying to discipline believers who fall into sin, but leave the judgment of those outside the church to You. I also read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and realize that some who are saved were once “greedy” and guilty of other sins, but are now “washed, sanctified, justified” so this woman and that man could one day be part of Your Body. Give us wisdom in how we treat them.

PONDER: Why not find out what that woman needs and take her shopping? Why not sit with that man and eat with him, thanking him for filling a plate for us? Can I be sacrificially creative concerning these poor who seem exploitive? Jesus was — He died for them.

 

 

Don’t take the Bait . . .

 

 

READ Deuteronomy 13–16

This year’s winner of the Kentucky Derby was a longshot with 80 to 1 odds against him. When he ran across the finish line, the odds makers must have felt some dismay at how wrong their predictions were.

In these days, I hear all sorts of predictions, from who will win races, elections, sports games, etc. to who will marry who and how God is going to answer prayers. But who can know the future except God? I’ve also realized that making plans with my faith in anyone else but God can easily be idolatry. This is why James says:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13–16)

While these verses are not talking about betting on horses, they do hint at relying on myself, or relying on ‘financial advisors’ that predict profits. Could this be a modern-day understanding of God’s OT warnings like this one?

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:1–5)

While I would not kill those who advise me to follow hunches, human predictions, and so on, these verses show the seriousness of listening to anyone whose advice takes me away from trusting and following the leading of the Holy Spirit. This warning applies to so-called experts, but the OT also applies it to family members:

“If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him . . . .” (Deuteronomy 13:6–11)

This passage also commands the death penalty for relatives who lure God’s people into idolatry. However, if the spiritual definition for death is considered, it implies “separation from” which is indicated in the NT by instructions to separate myself from anyone who tries to lure me away from the Gospel and from trusting Christ and His guidance.

Sometimes the enticement comes from obvious sources. The OT calls them “worthless fellows” and associates their punishment with their city. The NT calls them “false teachers” and I am to separate myself from anything that is not truth from God, not following it instead of Him. The NT version of Deuteronomy 13:12–18 is repeated in many places, such as:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1–3)

Whatever false prophets teach, they wants listeners to believe it and follow them into being exploited. Yet God condemns this and eventually will destroy them. My responsibility is to separate myself from such idolatry, putting it to death in my life so that none of what they teach keeps me from following the Lord Jesus Christ. And I need to remember that sometimes the most tempting and subtle god that lures me is not the world, the devil, and false teachers; it is doing things my own way instead of God’s way.