The Ancient Order …

THEIR CONCERN FOR THE POOR

They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do. —Gal. 2:10

In our search for what was really vital in the life of the early believers this is a most revealing statement. Paul, the apostle who was born out of due season, went to Jerusalem—“because of a revelation” as he put it in Gal. 2:2—in order to lay before those “who were of high reputation” among the apostles the gospel that he was preaching to the Gentiles. He wanted to make sure that he was preaching the full gospel, so he was seeking any further light that Peter, James and John might have. Or at least the God who sent him wanted him to have this experience so that he could proclaim the good news with complete confidence.


The apostle explains in Gal. 2:7 that those leaders contributed nothing to the message he proclaimed, for they saw that the gospel he preached to the Gentiles was the same that Peter preached to the Jews. Rather than to offer any criticism they recognized the grace of God in his ministry and consequently offered to him the right hand of fellowship, commending him as a messenger to the Gentiles just as they were to the Jews. They only asked, Paul reports, that he remember the poor, and this he was already eager to do.

This makes it clear that the gospel was not an involved system of doctrine, but a message of good news, made up of facts regarding him whom God had sent to be “light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.” When the pillars in Jerusalem saw that this new envoy of Jesus, called to the apostolate in a way different from themselves, was declaring the message. they gave him their blessings. They saw that he, like themselves, “had been entrusted with the gospel” and that God’s grace had been given to him. They did not check him out on a list of theological interpretations. As men trained in the Jewish faith and further schooled by Jesus himself they had a repertoire of doctrine that they believed and taught, and which was important, but it was only the gospel—“the thing preached” —that was the issue between Paul and the pillars. He was given no test on how he stood on the millennium, societies, instrumental music, or speaking in tongues —or even on food sacrificed to idols or circumcision. He could and did preach the gospel quite apart from all these things and hundreds of other matters that make their way into this or that doctrinal creed, both written and unwritten.

They asked him but one thing and that was to remember the poor. While this was a weighty concern both in the teaching of the Jews and with Jesus, this concern of theirs was prompted more by the emergency situation in Judea, with so many Jews in dire circumstance, than from a doctrinal concern as such. It was not that they wanted him to be “sound” on the doctrine of giving to the poor, but that he should remember his poor brethren back in Judea as he moves among the Gentiles, initiating them into the community, urging them to show charity toward their Jewish brethren.

If Paul had rejected this solicitation, insisting that it was not yet time for that sort of thing, he would have been no less a gospel preacher. This plea for the poor was no part of the gospel itself, for they were already satisfied that the new apostle was preaching a full and gracious gospel. Paul could have accepted or rejected their suggestion, for it was not part of the message they were all proclaiming. But since their request conformed with his own concern for the poor, he was eager to do it, and we know that the collection offunds that followed this meeting became very important to the apostle.

Once the chief apostles were satisfied with Paul’s message —“they contributed nothing to me” he says—they urged but one thing upon him, a concern for the poor. This is most revealing, for it shows that next to the proclamation of the gospel itself their most impelling passion was for the poor. It serves as an indictment upon the modern church that does not have its priorities so arranged. While the poor was their chief concern they are often our least concern. Our detailed budgets, now grown fat by our abundance, reflect our concerns, which serve mostly to satisfy “the system” at home. The percentage of our giving that goes to the hard-core poor is embarrassingly, if not unbelievably, low. We look to the government to take care of our charitable responsibilities.

Both the scriptures of the Old Covenant and rabbinic teaching laid the groundwork for the concern for the poor in the teaching of Jesus and in the life of the primitive church. The injunction in Dt. 15:4, “Let there be no poor among you,” finds fulfillment in the Jerusalem church, “There was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34). Since the poor will always be around, God said through Moses: “Always be open-handed with your brother, and with anyone in your country who is in need and poor.” (Dt. 15:11), Included in Job’s great apology in Job 31, the morality of which rivals that of the New Testament, the patriarch says, “Have I been insensible to poor men’s needs, or let a widow’s eyes grow dim? Or take my share of bread alone, not giving a share to the orphan?” We today not only have not had to suffer as Job did, for neither can we say we have done for the poor what he did. He could even say, “No stranger ever had to sleep outside, my door was always open to the traveler.” And when in verse 13 he says he had never infringed on the rights of a slave he holds up a morality not equaled by most of the church of western civilization.

The prophets were especially conscious of the injustices wrought by God’s people against the poor. In Isa. 58 God tells the prophet to lift up his voice like a trumpet and declare the people’s sins. The sins included quarreling and squabbling, which have not exactly ceased in our time, and “striking the poor man with your fist.” The prophet lets them know what pleases God: let the oppressed go free, break every yoke, share your bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless poor. Ezek. 18:7 describes the upright as one who oppresses no one, never steals, and gives his own bread to the hungry and his clothes to the naked.

The prophets were especially incensed over the leaders who would oppress the poor. Micah 3:4 declares that when such ones cry out to the Lord, and they will cry out, He will not hear them. Amos 8:4 condemns those who trample on the needy and suppress the poor. He says they tamper with the scales and manipulate the market so as to “buy up the poor with money and the needy for a pair of shoes.”

Wisdom literature is replete with references on how those who help the poor will be blessed of the Lord. “The man who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,” reads Pro. 19:17, while Pro. 14:31 says, “To oppress the poor is to insult his creator.” This beatitude is in Pro. 14:21: “B1essed is he who takes pity on the poor.” The non-canonical Ecclesiasticus is especially mindful of the poor in such verses as 7:32: “Stretch your hand out also to the poor man, that your blessings may be complete,” and 4:5: “Do not avert your eyes from the destitute.”

The rabbis also emphasized the importance of caring for the poor, filling their midrashes (interpretations of scripture) with such statements as “A man’s hand is to be open wide to the needy not once but a hundred times.” They taught that the poor man’s need is to be met, so the giver is not excused by a mere donation. If he needs bread, then bread should be given; if he needs a horse, then a horse. The rabbis also taught that a wealthy man who has become poor should be supported sufficiently to approximate what he has been used to, including providing him with a slave.

There is surprising sensitivity in some of the rabbinic teaching. If a brother is ashamed to receive charity, then help should be in the form of a loan, which the lender in turn forgets. In commenting on a passage in Deuteronomy one rabbi said, “Thou shalt give to him.” noting that the charity should be private, with no one else present. Private charity was so common that a special place was set apart in the temple, known as “the chamber of the silent,” where gifts were deposited for the proud souls who could drop by and pick them up in secret. The man from a good family who is ashamed to let his needs be known is to be approached by a caring brother who says something like, “My son, perhaps you need a loan.”

The rabbis put God’s judgment in all this. One sins when he refuses to help the poor, but especially so when the poor cries out to God against the one who could have helped him and did not. Even the Gentiles were to be given charity, though the Jew had prior claim. In times of an emergency when large numbers were in need, the people were to limit their giving lest the entire populace be reduced to poverty. The rabbis suggested that no family give more than one-fifth of its total worth, but this might be repeated each year. Some of their comments read like the New Testament, such as “To everyone who shows mercy to other men, mercy is shown from Heaven; but to him who shows no mercy to other men, no mercy is shown from Heaven.”

They had their imposters just as we have ours, people who feign to be in need. The rabbis laid down the rule that anyone who asks for food should be fed, but if he wanted further charity the case should be investigated. They issued a warning to those who would pose as sick, lame, or with dropsy in order to receive alms, pointing out that God may well bring such a calamity upon them for their deception. They had public funds that took care of much of the routine charity. Everyone was urged to work and care for himself, even if the work was repugnant, but charity was available to those who really deserved it. Maimonides, one of the great teachers of Judaism, concluded that the highest degree of charity is to help the one who has begun to fall, and not to wait until his circumstance is serious. Some rabbis stressed personal attention, sympathy and service as more important than merely relieving bodily needs.

This is sufficient to show some of the influences brought to bear on those Jews making up the first Christian church in Jerusalem. When in Acts 6 the Hellenistic Jews complained against the native Hebrews that their widows were being neglected in the daily serving of food, there was nothing new about the practice referred to—and probably nothing new about the quarreling! The Jews had, besides a public community chest of funds, a daily house-to-house collection of food, cooked food, for those who could not provide for themselves, with widows and orphans always having prior claim.

Acts 2:44-45 reveals a sense of community and charity that was not foreign to the best of Judaism: “All those who had believed were together, and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.” While this attitude was enriched by their faith in him who was the perfect fulfillment of the law, it was not all that different from what a dutiful community of Jews would do, Christian or not. The selling of property for charitable purposes was, as we have seen, a Jewish practice, but it was not done arbitrarily but to meet an emergency situation. Famine and destitution in Judea had brought serious deprivation to those in Jerusalem, including the believers. As Jews these primitive Christians turned to the practice they had known as Jews (and they would still consider themselves Jews, believing Jews), which was to sell from their possessions and give to those in need. We have noticed that the rabbis had advised that such charity be limited to 20% of their holdings, lest an imbalance of charity be self-defeating. We are not to suppose that these early Christians sold all their property, put the proceeds into a common fund, and then made equal distribution to all, which would be a radical form of communism. This view is contrary to the Jewish practice with which they were familiar and to the evidence in Acts.

Barnabas in Acts 4:36-37 sells a tract of land and lays the proceeds at the apostles’ feet, which served as what the Jews would normally think of as their public community chest. We are not to suppose from this that Barnabas sold his own house out from under him and stripped himself of all wealth, and then in turn drew his share from the common fund. He rather sacrificed a piece of land, as any good Jew might do, and put the price into a common fund for the poor. This is evident from what follows in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, who, like Barnabas, sold a piece of property and placed the proceeds in the fund set up by the apostles. But, unlike Barnabas and the others, they acted deceitfully in that they pretended to give all the proceeds from the sale when in reality they kept back part of the price for themselves.

Peter’s statement to them reveals the free nature of their charity: “While you still owned the land, wasn’t it yours to keep, and after you had sold it wasn’t the money yours to do with as you liked?” Their sin was in lying, not in how little they gave. This makes it clear that these believers did not dispossess themselves of all their wealth by putting it into a common fund, from which they all lived.

This outpouring of liberality reflects the best of Judaism as well as the exemplary life and teaching of Jesus, who, though he was rich, had become poor for their sake, and who had taught them that it is better to give than to receive. Jesus’ teaching in Matt. 5:42 could be considered the essence of what the scriptures and the rabbis had taught about charity: “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.”

The New Covenant scriptures are replete with references on charity toward the poor, which continues the emphasis of the previous scriptures. The Letter of James, which any Jew could have written except for an occasional reference to Jesus, identifies true religion as that which remembers widows and orphans in their affliction, and it puts down the rich as those who will “weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you” for neglecting the poor. Heb. 13:16 shows that God is pleased when we make sacrifices for those in need. And the question in 1 John 3:17 is as sober as any in all the Bible: “Whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”

This is sufficient evidence to conclude that the primitive Christians, influenced first by their Jewish heritage and then by him who had come to preach the gospel to the poor, had a deep concern for those in need. Are they not our example? Does this not provide a norm—or a pattern, if you like—for us? Is not their concern for the poor, which found expression in rather extreme action, part of the Ancient Order?

This illustrates how the Ancient Order applies to us. While we are not to adopt their exact methods, as one might follow a constitution with its sections and articles that specify every detail, we are to manifest the same passion for the needy. Their methods were drawn largely from their Jewish culture. Ours will necessarily be different, though it is likely that ways of helping the poor will never be very different from age to age, for it is mainly a matter of raising food and making a distribution. Our “meals on wheels” is similar to the Jewish method of distributing food to the needy, and our various funds are not unlike their community chest or “apostles’ feet.”

The main difference is not in the variety of methods, which do not matter, but in the measure of concern and in the emphasis. We may conclude that the poor was the chief end of their giving. They denied themselves so as to share their substance with the needy. Their money was not spent “at home,” as we put it, on elaborate edifices and furnishings, paid staff who served themselves rather than others, or even on missionary programs designed not to minister to the needy but to proselyte for their particular sect.

Are we destined, rich as we are, to “weep and howl” for our neglect of the hungry and destitute of the world? We cannot even cooperate in “Compassion Sunday,” when funds are gathered for the world’s hungry, because it is a denominational program, and we might somehow be polluted by their false doctrines—while we smugly continue in the “doctrine” of spending most of our money on ourselves.

The case of a Church of Christ near my home will not be exceptional. A look at its budget reveals that most all of their expenditures go for “at home” comforts. Their preacher, who is rather expensive, spends his time preaching to them and doing visiting that they could do themselves. When I told an Episcopalian friend what the minister is paid, he could hardly believe it, commenting that it is more than twice what his priest is paid. But then the Episcopalians are involved in programs of world outreach that includes aid to the poor of the world. I dare say what the Churches of Christ in Texas and Tennessee give to the hungry would not equal what they spend on the utilities for their multi-million dollar structures. And this in a world where thousands die daily in the streets from starvation and where over half of the world’s population goes to bed hungry.

If we are serious about the New Testament church being our “pattern,” and if we mean business about restoring primitive Christianity, then their concern for the poor and the hungry must become our concern, even to the degree of sacrificing till it hurts. As it is now, the church that moves in this direction is often criticized for going “social gospel.” We even have a text for our neglect, Gal. 6:10, which urges us to do good to all men, but especially to those of the household of faith, which means of course Church of Christ folk. And since Church of Christ folk are nearly all rich In comparison to the rest of the world, we have no particular obligation. We have no compassion Sunday and no funds for the distressed of the world. We are secure, shielded from the cry of the starving masses in our expensive “sanctuaries” and entertained by our well-paid clergy. We are unimpressed by the humble Quakers who build modest meetinghouses, do their own work “at home,” and send almost all their alms out into our hungry, suffering world.

But still we are the New Testament church, just like the Church of Christ in Jerusalem! —the Editor