Today more people will die from hunger than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis put together, why? And it’s not just the poverty is it but the way it isolates, marginalises, exhausts and makes powerless.
As we explore what the Bible says about why there is poverty and inequality, we’re going to do so by asking three questions: Is God indifferent? Why does it exist? Why doesn’t God act?
1. Is God indifferent?
We have to start with that question don’t we? Poverty and inequality is a reality in our world. God is all seeing and all knowing so why doesn’t he do something about it?
Leviticus 19v9-18. Here’s God speaking to his people calling them to live life at it’s best. This is society as God envisages it, society with no poverty and inequality. (9-10)Landowners would be generous and provide for those in need to be fed. (11)There’d be no stealing, lying, or deceiving; everyone would be dealt with fairly and honestly. (13)There’d be no delaying of payment or looking for ways to wriggle out of paying people they’re wages, no need for a minimum wage or employment tribunals. (14)The disabled would be cared for. (15)There’d be access to justice in law for everyone. (16-18)And community would be marked by care, concern, forgiveness and love for one another.
If that’s the community God longs to see his people become, clearly God cares for the poor and the needy. If you glance back to v1-2 we see the motivation for Israel to live life like this. “Be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am Holy.” God wants his people to be like him.
Sometimes people say a child is just like their dad or mum. What do they mean? That they have the same characteristics or looks. What is God saying here to his people? Be like me. Love others just as I do.
God is gracious and good and cares about the poor and seeing inequality and injustice overturned. His people are to mirror God’s love for others. God isn’t indifferent to poverty and inequality and the powerlessness and suffering that comes with it. As you follow the Bible’s story you see that Israel frequently fails to be like in God in its love for others and care for the poor. And God acts, God intervenes, God sends prophets.
You know the signs you see that say beware of the dog. The dogs are there to ensure you stay off property that isn’t yours. The prophets function a bit like that; they are covenant watchdogs. They are there to ensure Israel live as God’s people, to keep them away from places they shouldn’t go and things it is unwise to do. But tragically Israel don’t listen and here’s the message God sends them. Amos 8v4-6 p.874 God charges Israel with abuse of the needy and the poor, with injustice and dishonesty that impoverishes others. He calls them to repent or he’ll turn their singing into weeping. Or Isaiah 10v1-5 where God charges Israel with making oppressive laws, perverting justice, robbing widows and orphans. And promises that a day of judgment is coming when he’ll judge their oppression of the poor. We could replicate those calls over and over again. God is passionately concerned for the poor and hates oppression and injustice. God isn’t indifferent to poverty and inequality.
That leads us to another question
Why does it exist?
Reaching conclusions just off what you can see can be dangerous can’t it. A magazine photographer was told to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene stopped him so he asked his office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go quickly to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived, a plane was warming up on the runway. He grabbed his equipment jumped in and yelled, “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The pilot swung the plane into the wind and soon they were airborne.
“Fly over the north side of the fire,” yelled the photographer, “and make three or four low level passes.”
“Why?” asked the pilot.
“Because I’m going to take pictures,” cried the photographer. “I’m a photographer and photographers take pictures!”
After a pause the pilot said, “You mean you’re not the instructor?”
There’s a similar danger if we just look at the world and from it draw conclusions about God that we will get God wrong because our assumptions are wrong. So God, graciously, gives us the Bible so we can know who he is, why the world is like it is and who we’re made to be.
The Bible starts off by explaining how the world became like it is. God created a world full of rich lavish overflowing provision. He gives it to humanity to enjoy and calls on them to steward it wisely. To care for it as he would, to love him and one another in the way they use the plentiful resources of the world he created.
And everything in the world was perfect until humanity listened to a lie and began questioning God’s love and goodness and decided we didn’t want to live according to God the creator’s instruction. Until we decided we’d be better of deciding right and wrong for themselves. The result of that one decision to de-god God, to take what he’d given but rule it our own way fractured everything. The world is dislocated as God’s good instructions are ignored, relationships fracture as man selfishly determines not to care and love others but to get what he wants. And most importantly relationship with God is lost and with it all the wisdom God gives on how to live life skilfully, at its best, in his world.
Sometimes we learn the hard way that we need to follow instructions. Just think about flat pack furniture, the person who created the furniture tells you how to build and use it. When you don’t listen to their wisdom things go wrong, as sometimes has to be pointed out to us. Flat pack is simple. Now imagine brain surgery, brains are phenomenally complex. But I’ve just read a book by a brain surgeon, does that mean you’d be happy to let me operate on you? No, why not? Because it takes phenomenal wisdom and skill to be able to perform such delicate and skilled operations. Yet we, living in an infinitely more complex world decide to go it alone and ignore our creator’s instructions on living skilfully in his world.
The Bible honestly records the consequences of that; murder, oppression, a selfish desire to assert oneself, hatred, hoarding, and as a result pain, suffering, loss, poverty and injustice. And God isn’t indifferent; in love he warns and in love he acts in judgement on the pain and suffering he sees all caused by the sin of rejecting him. But always man drifts back to sin, to living life for self, rejecting God not loving him, oppressing others not loving them.
Poverty, injustice and inequality aren’t God’s creation they’re ours. Just think about our world right now; God has given us enough, the problem is how we use it. What percentage of the world’s global income do you think it would take to eradicate poverty? It’s estimated it would take $175billion, that sounds huge. But it’s only 1% of global income. Isn’t that staggering. What stops that happening? It’s not that God hasn’t given us enough but we need to learn to love God and love others and live by his wisdom.
Or take hunger. 16,000 children will die today of hunger, 16,000 died yesterday and 16,000 will die tomorrow. Yet what’s the biggest health challenge facing the UK? Obesity. Over eating. The UK’s average calorie intake a day is 3440. We typically need 2000 for a lady and 2500 for a man. We eat 50% more calories than we need on average. Yet in the Democratic Republic of Congo the average calorific intake is only 1590, in parts it is much, much, lower. There is enough to go round it’s just that we hoard it. Why? Because of sin, because we rule by our rules we don’t listen to God’s wisdom on living life well.
Someone has said “Sometimes I’d like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice in his world. But I’m afraid he might ask me the same question.”
Sin has turned us away from God and away from others and curved us in on ourselves. That’s why no government or system has solved the problem of poverty. It’s not an organisational problem it’s a heart problem. The problem lies not with God but with us and our selfishness and greed.
But that poses the question:
Leviticus 19v9-18. Here’s God speaking to his people calling them to live life at it’s best. This is society as God envisages it, society with no poverty and inequality. (9-10)Landowners would be generous and provide for those in need to be fed. (11)There’d be no stealing, lying, or deceiving; everyone would be dealt with fairly and honestly. (13)There’d be no delaying of payment or looking for ways to wriggle out of paying people they’re wages, no need for a minimum wage or employment tribunals. (14)The disabled would be cared for. (15)There’d be access to justice in law for everyone. (16-18)And community would be marked by care, concern, forgiveness and love for one another.
If that’s the community God longs to see his people become, clearly God cares for the poor and the needy. If you glance back to v1-2 we see the motivation for Israel to live life like this. “Be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am Holy.” God wants his people to be like him.
Sometimes people say a child is just like their dad or mum. What do they mean? That they have the same characteristics or looks. What is God saying here to his people? Be like me. Love others just as I do.
God is gracious and good and cares about the poor and seeing inequality and injustice overturned. His people are to mirror God’s love for others. God isn’t indifferent to poverty and inequality and the powerlessness and suffering that comes with it. As you follow the Bible’s story you see that Israel frequently fails to be like in God in its love for others and care for the poor. And God acts, God intervenes, God sends prophets.
You know the signs you see that say beware of the dog. The dogs are there to ensure you stay off property that isn’t yours. The prophets function a bit like that; they are covenant watchdogs. They are there to ensure Israel live as God’s people, to keep them away from places they shouldn’t go and things it is unwise to do. But tragically Israel don’t listen and here’s the message God sends them. Amos 8v4-6 p.874 God charges Israel with abuse of the needy and the poor, with injustice and dishonesty that impoverishes others. He calls them to repent or he’ll turn their singing into weeping. Or Isaiah 10v1-5 where God charges Israel with making oppressive laws, perverting justice, robbing widows and orphans. And promises that a day of judgment is coming when he’ll judge their oppression of the poor. We could replicate those calls over and over again. God is passionately concerned for the poor and hates oppression and injustice. God isn’t indifferent to poverty and inequality.
That leads us to another question
Why does it exist?
Reaching conclusions just off what you can see can be dangerous can’t it. A magazine photographer was told to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene stopped him so he asked his office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go quickly to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived, a plane was warming up on the runway. He grabbed his equipment jumped in and yelled, “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The pilot swung the plane into the wind and soon they were airborne.
“Fly over the north side of the fire,” yelled the photographer, “and make three or four low level passes.”
“Why?” asked the pilot.
“Because I’m going to take pictures,” cried the photographer. “I’m a photographer and photographers take pictures!”
After a pause the pilot said, “You mean you’re not the instructor?”
There’s a similar danger if we just look at the world and from it draw conclusions about God that we will get God wrong because our assumptions are wrong. So God, graciously, gives us the Bible so we can know who he is, why the world is like it is and who we’re made to be.
The Bible starts off by explaining how the world became like it is. God created a world full of rich lavish overflowing provision. He gives it to humanity to enjoy and calls on them to steward it wisely. To care for it as he would, to love him and one another in the way they use the plentiful resources of the world he created.
And everything in the world was perfect until humanity listened to a lie and began questioning God’s love and goodness and decided we didn’t want to live according to God the creator’s instruction. Until we decided we’d be better of deciding right and wrong for themselves. The result of that one decision to de-god God, to take what he’d given but rule it our own way fractured everything. The world is dislocated as God’s good instructions are ignored, relationships fracture as man selfishly determines not to care and love others but to get what he wants. And most importantly relationship with God is lost and with it all the wisdom God gives on how to live life skilfully, at its best, in his world.
Sometimes we learn the hard way that we need to follow instructions. Just think about flat pack furniture, the person who created the furniture tells you how to build and use it. When you don’t listen to their wisdom things go wrong, as sometimes has to be pointed out to us. Flat pack is simple. Now imagine brain surgery, brains are phenomenally complex. But I’ve just read a book by a brain surgeon, does that mean you’d be happy to let me operate on you? No, why not? Because it takes phenomenal wisdom and skill to be able to perform such delicate and skilled operations. Yet we, living in an infinitely more complex world decide to go it alone and ignore our creator’s instructions on living skilfully in his world.
The Bible honestly records the consequences of that; murder, oppression, a selfish desire to assert oneself, hatred, hoarding, and as a result pain, suffering, loss, poverty and injustice. And God isn’t indifferent; in love he warns and in love he acts in judgement on the pain and suffering he sees all caused by the sin of rejecting him. But always man drifts back to sin, to living life for self, rejecting God not loving him, oppressing others not loving them.
Poverty, injustice and inequality aren’t God’s creation they’re ours. Just think about our world right now; God has given us enough, the problem is how we use it. What percentage of the world’s global income do you think it would take to eradicate poverty? It’s estimated it would take $175billion, that sounds huge. But it’s only 1% of global income. Isn’t that staggering. What stops that happening? It’s not that God hasn’t given us enough but we need to learn to love God and love others and live by his wisdom.
Or take hunger. 16,000 children will die today of hunger, 16,000 died yesterday and 16,000 will die tomorrow. Yet what’s the biggest health challenge facing the UK? Obesity. Over eating. The UK’s average calorie intake a day is 3440. We typically need 2000 for a lady and 2500 for a man. We eat 50% more calories than we need on average. Yet in the Democratic Republic of Congo the average calorific intake is only 1590, in parts it is much, much, lower. There is enough to go round it’s just that we hoard it. Why? Because of sin, because we rule by our rules we don’t listen to God’s wisdom on living life well.
Someone has said “Sometimes I’d like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice in his world. But I’m afraid he might ask me the same question.”
Sin has turned us away from God and away from others and curved us in on ourselves. That’s why no government or system has solved the problem of poverty. It’s not an organisational problem it’s a heart problem. The problem lies not with God but with us and our selfishness and greed.
But that poses the question:
Why doesn’t God do something about it?
God isn’t indifferent, he’s loving and generous and cares passionately about justice and the poor. But we ignore him and so lose his wisdom on how to live in a way that would eradicate poverty and inequality. So why doesn’t God do something is the question people often ask. But as that quote alluded to the problem isn’t with God it’s with us, so in asking that we’re inviting God to judge. And not just the big faceless them but actually injustice, oppression, greed lurks in our hearts not just out there. It’s my problem as much as anyone’s problem. And we don’t want to face God as judge.
One day God will judge. But God is gracious and so he doesn’t judge instantly. Instead he does something unique and amazing; in Jesus God the Son enters into the world and experiences poverty and injustice, he lives a life alienated and marginalised, misunderstood, lacking power, and experiencing rejection and injustice. He enters into not just humanity but poverty and inequality.
Born to an unmarried mother with the scent of scandal and illegitimacy following him everywhere he goes. Born in poverty not a palace. Without a house or a home. Frequently misunderstood and marginalised by those who had power and influence. Thought mad even by his family. Persecuted, falsely accused, rejected, isolated, friendless, powerless and condemned to death as a result of the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever seen. Why? Not just so God can say well I know what you went through. Sympathy, even empathy doesn’t help us. But so that he could take the punishment for every injustice that you and I have ever committed. To bear God’s just anger for our rejection of God and his wisdom for life in his world and all the consequences that follow.
Jesus comes to rescue us from the cause of poverty; sin. He comes to create a people who will overcome poverty giving a glimpse of what life will be like when he returns when there will be no hunger, poverty, inequality, or injustice. A people bear the family likeness, who live looking just like their heavenly Father because they love as they have been loved by the God who held nothing back from them. A people who therefore think differently about life and stuff.
Acts 4v32-37 p.1035. Shows us the transformation that experiencing God’s love and grace in Jesus brings. Do you see how it echoes that passage we started off with? This is a community who know God’s rescuing love. Which they don’t deserve but experience by grace and who, because of that, overflow with love to others. “So that there was no needy person among them.” Why? Because when there’s a need others sell their possessions and meet that need, because they’re loved by God and overflowing from that love is a love for others.
Why is there so much poverty and inequality in the world? Because of sin, because we reject God’s way of living, loving him and loving others. Because we’ve become turned in on ourselves and unlike God who is generous and giving. God isn’t indifferent to it; he will one day judge all the sin that is the cause of poverty and inequality. And by grace he provides a way for us to escape that judgement, because Jesus in love bears our punishment.
And having experienced that love we love others. We become God’s children living by the family values, a new community in God’s church where people glimpse what life lived in God’s kingdom is like. Not immune to need but meeting it, not curved in by selfish greed but loving others, not grasping but generous, not pitying but giving, not full of inequality but welcoming and graciously loving as we have been loved.
One day God will judge. But God is gracious and so he doesn’t judge instantly. Instead he does something unique and amazing; in Jesus God the Son enters into the world and experiences poverty and injustice, he lives a life alienated and marginalised, misunderstood, lacking power, and experiencing rejection and injustice. He enters into not just humanity but poverty and inequality.
Born to an unmarried mother with the scent of scandal and illegitimacy following him everywhere he goes. Born in poverty not a palace. Without a house or a home. Frequently misunderstood and marginalised by those who had power and influence. Thought mad even by his family. Persecuted, falsely accused, rejected, isolated, friendless, powerless and condemned to death as a result of the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever seen. Why? Not just so God can say well I know what you went through. Sympathy, even empathy doesn’t help us. But so that he could take the punishment for every injustice that you and I have ever committed. To bear God’s just anger for our rejection of God and his wisdom for life in his world and all the consequences that follow.
Jesus comes to rescue us from the cause of poverty; sin. He comes to create a people who will overcome poverty giving a glimpse of what life will be like when he returns when there will be no hunger, poverty, inequality, or injustice. A people bear the family likeness, who live looking just like their heavenly Father because they love as they have been loved by the God who held nothing back from them. A people who therefore think differently about life and stuff.
Acts 4v32-37 p.1035. Shows us the transformation that experiencing God’s love and grace in Jesus brings. Do you see how it echoes that passage we started off with? This is a community who know God’s rescuing love. Which they don’t deserve but experience by grace and who, because of that, overflow with love to others. “So that there was no needy person among them.” Why? Because when there’s a need others sell their possessions and meet that need, because they’re loved by God and overflowing from that love is a love for others.
Why is there so much poverty and inequality in the world? Because of sin, because we reject God’s way of living, loving him and loving others. Because we’ve become turned in on ourselves and unlike God who is generous and giving. God isn’t indifferent to it; he will one day judge all the sin that is the cause of poverty and inequality. And by grace he provides a way for us to escape that judgement, because Jesus in love bears our punishment.
And having experienced that love we love others. We become God’s children living by the family values, a new community in God’s church where people glimpse what life lived in God’s kingdom is like. Not immune to need but meeting it, not curved in by selfish greed but loving others, not grasping but generous, not pitying but giving, not full of inequality but welcoming and graciously loving as we have been loved.
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