From Jeremiah 22: Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. “Is that not what it means to know me?” declares the LORD.

The Bible is filled with texts instructing us to care for the poor. I don’t think good works are enough to save us, but I don’t think that’s the point here.

I also had this thought as I read this Claiborne excerpt:

“Imagine what integrity that would give to the good news we preach, especially the gospel that Jesus declares is good news to the poor.”

I think what Jesus was saying in some of the references to the “poor” did not refer to fiscal ruin. What we see with Jesus’ report he sent to John the Baptist was that lepers “are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.” In other words, Jesus did not give people money or fulfill physical needs but he rescued the poor by preaching good news – essentially: your affliction and inequality does not need to last forever if you will look to Me.

So, while it is completely idiotic to build a megachurch palace without caring for the poor, I also believe Claiborne bears down on a pattern of guilt, not gospel. Jesus was at a water well scene once, too. In the end he pointed her to living water – but not by giving her water, but by giving her open criticism of her sin.

Perhaps Claiborne will find justification in Jesus’ instructions to the ruler in Matthew 19:16-22. The ruler was instructed to sell all he had and give it to the poor. But he could not do this and would not do this, because he had great possession. Jesus was not making us see that we must care for the poor in order to get to heaven; however he was showing that we must not treat money as if it were our god. Jesus was not saying “abuse the poor,” either; but using that passage is not a good justification for “damn the rich,” but “in order for rich to enter heaven they must not act as if their money were more important than I.”

To his credit, in Claiborne’s effort to take the side of the poor he desires to use financial wealth (worldly goods) to introduce spiritual health (eternal glory). Maybe we don’t read about Jesus giving away $millions because Jesus himself did not have financial wealth. However, we do see that the early church elders, though poor in many cases, recommended full disclosure of financial giving and a complete giving of church members’ income to the amount that they were willing to give, and nothing more, and nothing less.

One of your comments was more than noteworthy: “It is easy enough for us as individuals to be caught up in the things of the world and to lose sight of the eternal.” I challenge you to consider that “things of the world” also includes not only buildings, but also includes water. We owe a debt to Christ and not to the poor; and that debt is completely mortified in Christ’s death on the cross. So there is no “paying it back” on our part; that is the gospel.

The message therefore to the megachurch architect and the thirsty village member is the same but with different inflection: “Your consumption can be quenched by nothing but Me.”

Keep up the posts; while I don’t comment on all, I read all.