U.S. economy leaving record numbers in severe poverty

And if I were hungry enough, my interest would be in filling my belly.

God commanded us to work if we want to eat.

I asked one person a specific question, to try to assist him in being self-sufficient, and he knows from PM why. Anyone with a grain of sense knows why I asked that question.

However, you can go along excusing bad behavior all you want. "Oh, he just doesn't feel like working. Let's feed him and give him cable TV."

 

I am going to guess I have lots more sense than you. I will further guess I work harder, more hours, and make more money than you ever dreamed of. That is not the point.

Not only does God command us to work if we want to eat, he commands you to help the poor, a fact you leave out while belittling them. You exaggerate the luxuries people less fortunate than you have.

Tell me, how is the situation handled when someone comes to your church because they are hungry? Why dont you read Matt 25:35 and see how amusing the Lord thinks your posts are? Why dont you read Mark 12:42-44 and see if the Lord's words match your posts? Instead of throwing out the poor as yesterday's rubbish, why dont you read James 2:5 and see if your posts line up with the inspired writing of the Holy Spirit? Why dont you read the story of the good samaratan? Read Luke 19:18 and you will see your pattern continues. While you are at it, read Galatians 2:10. There is no need to go on.

Your problem is you confuse your responsibility with that of the poor person. It is like spreading the Gospel. You are to deliever the message. What the receiver does with it is not your concern. It is up to God and the receiver. By the same token, you are to help the poor. What they do with it is not your concern. It is up to them and God to meet the standards that God has allowed you to meet.

I can see it now. A hungry person asks you for help. You say, here friend, here is a tract from Bob Jones University. Chew on the paper and pray.

 

More sense would be impossible to determine. However, I highly doubt that you work harder or more hours than I do, unless you don't sleep. However, you may make more money, I don't know, and don't really care. God has promised that I would have enough, and as long as I do, that's what's important.

Where have I ever left out helping the poor? I have gone to great lengths to help the poor, and continue to do so. I will feed them, then help them feed themselves. I will give them small jobs and try to find them better jobs.

If they're too lazy to work, I'll give them a meal and tell them to move on. "God will provide" does not translate into "feed me, I don't feel like working".

You on the other hand want to enable many to continue in a lifestyle of bad choices that will keep them poor. You want to coddle them and offer excuses for why they can't work and blame it on everyone but those individuals.

Some poor people need help for reasons that are beyond their control. The vast majority are there through their own actions, and instead of helping them correct those behaviors, you want to keep them poor.

How does that help them?

I wonder how you know this about me?

You don't! You just make up lies that sound good!

Very Christian behavior of you, BTW.

We take food to them, we make sure they're not supporting bad behavior, we put them to work so they can earn a little cash (and self confidence) and we help find them jobs in the community.

Many appreciate the help.

But, you'd be amazed how many people "don't have the time for that!" They want to "get away from it all" and "just need the groceries".

A while back, we gave a bus ticket to a lady so she and her mentally retarded son could travel for her to interview for a job. She showed up on the wrong day, reeking of alcohol and pot, and was upset that they wouldn't give her the job.

We gave her a sack of groceries and a ticket home. Nothing else.

Since I want to help the poor and you want to keep them poor, you read the verses.

I've also read the verses where he tells the poor to pick it for themselves, and the verses where he tells us "no work-ee, no eat-ee".

I challenge you to show a single passage where he tells us to keep them poor, and to support bad behavior, and to make sure that they never find work.

So, am I to assume that you stick cash in your mailbox and simply let poor people come by and pick it out, without any sort of oversight?

How helpful is it to keep them poor?

Once again, if you have no argument, make up lies!

First of all, I would never do anything to help Bob Jones University.

Second of all, if you knew anything about me instead of simply making up stuff, you would know that, although I don't give them a blank check, I will offer them food. If they refuse it, then that's their problem, and that's usually what happens.

Third of all, if you weren't making up lies, you'd know that I offer people jobs, if they need more than simply a meal. It's usually make work or something for them to have enough self-respect to better themselves. In the meantime, I try to find them work. If they don't want to work, I don't coddle them.

You should hang out with the cops some time when they check out these "poor" people. Most of them are scammers. Reading some government statistics, they estimate that about half of welfare recipients are complete scammers. Many of the others are capable of working, but why work when someone will give you just as much?

Welfare, the way the government runs it, increases poverty dramatically. Who is that helping?

All able bodied men, and women if the need arises, should be required to work.

Charity should be left up to individuals and church assemblies and not the government.

If you want to truly help the poor, teach them to feed themselves, teach them new job skills, teach them.

 

This could be a very valuable discussion, but please, let's back off the personal attacks and the you-this and you-that. That type of talk is so personal it only makes others defensive, imo, defending themselves and attacking others rather than defending and attacking the two sides of a debate. I'm not a moderator, but I think the thread, and its topic, would benefit from keeping this discussion more objective, less personal. No, I'm not blaming anyone for starting it or perpetuating it, but let's each take responsibility to stop it.

I have no way of knowing whether the "most" and "nearly all" qualifiers to poor people and their behavior in this thread is accurate. I can only report what I see living in HUD housing in an area where many homeless live in nearby parks and shelters, where many drug dealers and prostitutes work their trades on nearby streets, and where many group homes for the mentally disabled are located.

There are certainly some that will take anything they can get and abuse the system for all it's worth. I was once at a church dinner (once a month, they serve spaghetti and distribute donated groceries while they give a sermon). While I was eating, thrilled to have the meal, three people who had a lot of complaints about the food they had been served sat across from me. Then one of them got out her Marlbaro cigarettes and her cell phone, and stepped outside to make a call while she smoked. Yes, it annoyed me, the apparent ungrateful spirit and money spent on luxuries like cigarettes and cell phones. But I prayed for them and remind myself that I really don't know their situation. I'm sure there are many who are ungrateful and some that are "poor" but really doing quite well. But I can tell you from experience, there are some truly, truly needy people here that have no loved ones (or none willing to help in any way) and are not prospering on welfare. And it is quite possible, despite what the Word of Faith movement teaches, that there are some Christians brought to this low state, to witness to and otherwise be God's workers among the devastated in our society.

I know Christians here that struggle mightily with the modern teaching that we must give to God to get a blessing, we must "plant a seed," offer our "love gifts" to be a "partner in ministry" with promises to "receive a share of the ministry's reward." Many of us cry out to God for the chance to give to others, since it is more blessed to give than to receive. And we have to choose whether to tithe or buy our medication and pay our medicaid/medicare spend-downs and premiums. and always, always is the shame of failing financially in a capitalist society. And so many Americans equate poverty with character flaw or sin or lack of faith... The Word of Faith movement is devastating to the conscience of the Christian poor, and I know some that are poor only because they give to ministries so much that they become poor.

One of the reasons we are commanded to work is so that we have something to offer those in need. Eph 4:28 says we should work and gives the reason for this work: "that he may have something to give him who has need." And this is the balance, imo, those that can should work to provide for themselves, so as not to be dependent on anybody, and so that they can give. Determining the difference between those who can't work and those who won't work may seem the critical factor, but I submit that this is not as easy as it looks. And giving should not be thought of negatively, as a chore, but positively, as an opportunity to serve others, and especially God.

 

I stand by my statement. There is nothing Scriptual about anyone being the policeman of how your help to the poor is used. That is between them and God. You are commanded to help the poor.

As for your comments about my attitude keeping people poor, what is the one area in life where you are held accountable for the progress of others as far as a self supporting income? Maybe your own children? Both of my children are college graduates, are building good careers. To say an individual is keeping people poor by his actions is not accurate. It is not my job, not your job, or anyone else's to analyze the motives and actions of poor people that come your way. You either help them or not. You are not their parent. They should have been taught that as children. Its up to God to teach them now.

Oh and another question, what job skills are you going to teach these people? Which of those job skills that you so richly deserve from God are you going to graciously impart to the poor? How many of the fruits of the Spirit are you going to teach them?

Well, you are right. I just got an updated version of the New Testement and can see very clearly where the Lord made the 5000 he fed pick up trash in the streets of Jerusalem before preaching the word and feeding them.

 

Ya, I'm uncomfortable with the policeman job, too. Aren't we told to just give to those in need, not determine if they are worthy and then give to those who pass our tests?

I can certainly see anger fomenting about the U.S. becoming a culture of entitlement. I wonder...could it be that a lazy person, or one that feels they have the right to hand outs, be just as deserving of help? I mean, God helped us when a lot of us didn't recognize the need, didn't want it, didn't care, felt that if God was good, he had to help us, etc. Maybe laziness or bad attitude is just another condition people need help with, and makes them no more unworthy than anyone else. Nor does being unworthy mean one shouldn't be helped...

 

3-page warning: This thread will be closed no sooner than 1:45 p.m. ET by one of the moderators.

LE

 

I have found through working with the poor that those who are truly needy will come to the church to get the free food, or call if they have no transportation, and don't mind a visit, etc. Most drug dealers and others that have no visible means of support, but still doing well, won't bother with making an effort to save a little cash.

Those who are riding the system, however, are the other ones.

That's why I like the commodities programs they used to have. There were still a few who rode the system, but mostly it was those who truly needed it.

I worked in a convenience store on third shift for a while to help out a friend (the "help wanted" sign was up for months, but "there aren't any jobs out there"!), all kinds of people would come in at 4AM after partying hard, and whip out their food stamp card to buy cokes and Little Debbies, then complain that it's just not fair that you can't use the card to buy cigarettes and beer. (But, they would buy several of the little 6.5 oz bottles of Coke because "It tastes so much better in glass".)

Now, although I think better use could be made of the money to buy flour, bread, tomato sauce, etc., there were those who had no way to get to and from the grocery store several miles away, who would come in and use it for Ragu and such, and since that's what was available, it didn't bother me as much.

When I was a child, North Georgia (or maybe a few towns, I don't remember) instituted a work requirement for receiving welfare and food stamps. They had to stop it because the NAACP started screaming, "You're just trying to turn us back into slaves!" Never mind that there are plenty of whites on the dole.

I have two complaints about handout programs being handled by the Fed: 1. No oversight. Too easy to scam. 2. No requirements other than not working. They don't check to see if the person is capable of working, and they don't require the ones who are to do anything. If the handouts were limited to those who were not capable of working, then I would only have one real complaint about it being handled at the federal level.

Individuals can react more quickly to change than groups. Small groups can react more quickly to change than large groups.

The more government provides for people, the slower the response to any change in the needs of the people. New needs will go unmet, discarded needs will squander resources. Thus, a society that focuses on individualism is better suited to a changing world.

That's why when someone calls up our church needing a bus ticket or a sack of groceries, we can take it to them right then and there.

But, Joe Drug Dealer can make $10k per month and still get full benefits at the expense of my child.

By the same token, there is no excuse for a family of four, with the chief breadwinner earning $8000 per year to live the lifestyle that a working family would have to be earning $50,000 per year to support.

Cut the fat, get it local; get it local, cut the fat.

 

God's resources are unlimited.

Ours are limited.

I have helped illiterate people learn to read, I have helped those with no job skills learn how to fill out applications, I have helped teach people English. If this is not helping the poor, what is?

By the same token, I have bought a set of studded tires for a woman who is raising her grandchildren because she needed them and had no way to provide them. I gave a car to a man, that although the car was on its last legs, ran long enough for him to work enough to buy one that was a little better that ran longe enough to buy one a little better, and today he is self sufficient. What would have happened if I had simply said, "Here, let me take care of everything for you so you never have to lift a finger again"?

And God has put into place the requirement to work to eat. Even for the poor. They had to pick the corners themselves.

As an incentive, he's given us a hungry belly if we fail to fill it.

Using man's wisdom, we take away all the tools that God has given us to overcome laziness and bad attitude. How does that help anyone but the government?

 

Are you going to answer my question? Where in Scripture does it say for you to judge how the poor are using the food, money, and help they get from the local church or government?

 

Closed per previous notice. LE