Its Time for More Bible and Less Welfare Essay -- Argumentative Persu

It's Time for More Bible and Less Welfare      Ã‚   Government has considered and tried many plans for dealing with poverty in the United States, from all different points of view-welfare, workfare, charities, economic interference, and the like. There is one method, however, which has fallen out of popularity in this age. This is the biblical method.    What God says about the poor The Christian, or biblical, view of poverty is liberal in some respects and conservative in others. For example, Paul gives this rule to the early church: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10). At the same time, the leaders of the church placed great importance on providing food for the poor, and James says that pure and faultless religion is to "look after orphans and widows in their distress" (James 1:27). While the early church cared for the poor as a community, pooling together their resources and assigning deacons to oversee the distribution of food to the poor (Acts 6:1-6), in the Old Testament the welfare of the poor was not the responsibility of the church or any form of government, but of individuals: "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11). Paul's rule, if a man will not work he shall not eat, is balance d by the God-given rights of the poor (Psalm 82:3). Proverbs indicates that poverty is often the result of laziness or foolishness (Proverbs 6:10-11, 10:4), yet makes it clear that the happiest people may be poor through no fault of their own (Proverbs 13:7, 15:17, 19:1). Proverbs also declares it a virtue to help the poor: "He who is kind to the poor l... ...inated while this world lasts. However, by following the guidelines in the Bible to establish a modern-day system of gleaning, we can do something about poverty. The gleaning system, although it is almost completely opposite of what U.S. policy has been for many years, is neither impossible nor improbable. Before government welfare was instituted, the poor relied on the charity of individuals and churches. A nationwide gleaning program, bringing back the values of charity and neighborliness that our modern society seems to have lost, would be more successful than welfare can ever be in this country.    Works Cited: Osborne, David and Gaebler, Ted (1993). Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming America (New York: Penguin Books).    The Holy Bible, New English Translation. Biblical Studies Press. 16 Feb. 2002. .