Excerpt from Atty. Raineer Q. Chu’s Message
Rich and poor Christians should worship together.
Only one message
I have only one message today: that the church should always aim to have the rich and the poor together inside the church. This way the church can jump start the Kingdom within. This way the church can regain her voice to the world outside to speak against greed and corruption.
Rich and poor separated
The problem is the church has separated the rich from the poor Christians and now the Christians cannot feel the tension of the gospel. The gospel of the kingdom means to receive Jesus and to live out the Kingdom in me and in the community of believers called the church.
Cannot feel the tension of the gospel
This tension is found in 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, applying this, we see that a member who has two cars is sitting beside one who has not had a decent meal that day, will likely sell his second car to feed his brother. Applying also 1 John 3:17 which says, but whoever has a surplus of the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and does not provide for his needy brother, how does the love of God abide in him?
Because it wants to pursue wealth and power
The church has separated the rich from the poor not because it has decided to or has made a conscious decision to separate but the separation grew from her desire to pursue wealth and power. Ostensibly, the pursuit of wealth and power was made in order that the church could evangelize and speak prophetically to the rich and powerful.
Church has lost her voice and power
The result is that the church not only lost her voice but also her power. Today, the church can no longer say, silver and gold I have none but this I give to you, arise in the name of Christ.
Church aligned with rich and powerful
Let us begin by looking at the poor. Most churches look at the poor either with suspicion or with disdain. Historically, the church has always been aligned with the rich and powerful. Geneva Global study shows that of total USA donations to the poor including church giving, only 4% reached the poor. Mega churches in Manila will spend billions on their air-conditioned buildings when just a tenth of that will easily finance the entire urban poor ministry needs of the country. Most churches spend their money for themselves than for the poor. Tithes in the New Testament are meant for the poor, your giving in church must not redound to your own welfare like air-con and great buildings but you should make sure it is given to the Lord.
Poor are cursed
The suspicion and disdain for the poor is no different from the perspective of the Jews in Jesus’ time. They believed that the poor were cursed by God and that poverty was a curse. Thus they believed that the poor had no share in salvation.
Three kinds of poor in the New Testament
There were three levels of poor in Jesus’ time, the first were the beggars, the widows and the orphans. They were a class onto themselves and were often mentioned together. The second are the notorious people called the sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors. Sinners here is not a generic term but a brand name, used as a label for a specific group of people like you would call drunkards now or womanizers, and meant to look down on them to shame them. The last class were the outcasts, lepers, the gentiles and prisoners. The Jews had no association with them, and they were beneath even their lowest condescension; literally, they did not exist. The lepers were asked to shout a warning when approaching because they were contagious, the gentiles ate pork and touched unclean things. And 90% of the prisoners were debtors who could not pay their debts. As in the story of the ungrateful servant, we notice that the larger the debt the more of the family members were jailed, so including the wife, the kids and even the servants. Whenever you read Jesus’ reference to prisoners or those in jail, remember this. Today we have the bill of rights that prohibit imprisonment for debts. We owe this to Christian legislation in early European civilization although much eroded now by the bouncing check law.
Early church suffered crisis of discrimination against poor
As early as in the book of James which is the first century church, James in chapter 2 discussed the discrimination against the poor inside the church, that those with wearing expensive clothes or who had high status were given seats of honor while those in rugged clothes and smelled, were asked not to be seen and sit at the farthest end at the back. The church now does something politically correct, they segregate the rich from the poor. The church feels the rich would leave if there are poor inside the church.
The poor have very good working attitude, they work hard and are not a financial burden. (Church False Belief No. 1: Poor are lazy. )
Higher repayment rate
Philippine SSS or Social Security Service statistics for borrowers show most of the default of SSS loans are from the rich class and lowest default are from the poorest class of borrowers. I am the lawyer of one of the biggest Christian microfinance company in the Philippines and the company extends loan of over several hundred millions to hundreds of thousands of poor families. It is obvious that the poor are very bankable.
Work hard overseas
Also, when a poor person goes abroad to work, he works harder than anyone else we know. This is proven by the fact that today more than 10 million OFWs send over 14 billion dollars annually which is more than any big corporation is able to do for the country.
Have three jobs
The AIM or Asian Institute of Management several years ago published a study that showed the core poor, meaning the poorest of the poor, had three jobs, which means they work that much just to survive.
Philippine poor
The Philippines today has the highest inequality gap in Asia. More than 50% live below the poverty line. 40% of Metro Manila live in slums. Note that only 10% of the poor need capital for entrepreneurial business, 90% of the poor need jobs. Most of the big Christian micro finance institutions lend to the upper level poor who are bankable because they have a cash flow or a business, while the 80% poorest of the poor are not reached by them.
More people will live in cities than in the rural places ten years from now
The poorest are rural poor but the United Nations statistics show in a few years more people will be living in cities which means more than a doubling of metro manila population within 2010 as well as in most cities worldwide. It is therefore strategic to aim at reaching the poorest of the poor in the cities. The church may consider what kind of city she envisions ten years from now. With a flood of migrant workers coming into the city, the city resources like schools, traffic, water, clean air, sewerage and housing will get overwhelmed. Crime, pollution and epidemic rate will also go up.
Bible says poor are rich in faith
To dispel forever the notion that the poor are a liability, the bible says the poor are rich in faith and the poor are blessed. Most of our supporters in our mission come not from the rich and the wealthy but are very poor people like Pastora Millet and Ate Sally Silva and Ate Thess who give more than half of their possession to the poor. The opposite happens in the church. Often when you give a million pesos the church will appoint you as elder, while a poor widow who gives 100% of her possession goes unnoticed. We need to learn to read the Bible from the bottom up.
Bring the poor to the church
If you want to have lots of members inside your church, bring in the poor, the beggars, the sick. The only problem is your air-con will breakdown and you will have more debits than credits in your books of accounts and soon your rich members will leave because the church is no longer presentable or fashionable.
To reach the nation, we must focus on the poor, by going directly to the poor.
Jesus went to the poor
Jesus turned the tables upside down and instead focused the gospel on the poor, saying that the poor are blessed and that the rich will have a hard time entering the kingdom and that the prostitutes and tax collectors would go to heaven ahead, and that a gentile like Zacchaeus is actually an heir of the kingdom being a true son of Abraham more than the Jews. We must see these terms (heir or son or family) in the context of the Jews’ disdain for others, the poor, the gentiles and the rest of the world. Each time Paul encouraged the new church that they were the people of God, the term denotes not a generic meaning but a specific label, harking back to the Old Testament usage, that the Jews so jealously guarded as their own, which now Paul says belongs to the Christians.
And today, this is what God is still doing. If you want to know where God is or what God is up to today, go to the poor.
Poorest of the poor most responsive to the gospel worldwide
Worldwide, the most responsive to the gospel are the poorest of the poor. (Church Wrong Belief No. 2: Hard to evangelize the poor. ) The explosion of the house churches in China and the Pentecostal movement in South America happened mainly among the poorest of the poor. I attended evangelism consultations in Paris, London, and Pretoria, and the whites always complain that their cities are difficult to evangelize but a few blocks away from their meeting rooms are churches overflowing with thousands of people, except they are not white, they are blacks, Morrocans, Algerians, etc. The whites do not recognize these phenomena. This is true also of cities filled with migrant workers, as Mexicans and Chinese thirst for the gospel in such places as New York and Los Angeles.
We must go directly to the poor
The church has believed wrongly for the last century that if we reach out to the elite Pinoy they will in turn reach out to the masses. Most elite Pinoy would rather go to a high-paying job than work among the poor, which to them would be a demotion.
Church must evangelize and at the same time fight corruption
Thus no matter what the church does to help the poor, it will never succeed unless the church also addresses at the same time graft and corruption. Evangelism is not enough. Helping the poor is not enough.
An American gospel
The gospel we have was inherited from the Americans which does not have the wherewithal to combat structural evil. The book by Emerson and Smith entitled divided by faith showed that among evangelicals surveyed, the whites think there is no racism in America while the blacks think there is. White evangelicals think poverty is a personal problem not a structural or social one. That is the same with our American gospel here, the church thinks poverty is a personal ethical problem, that if the poor work harder they will also get out of poverty. (Church Wrong Belief No. 4: Poverty is a personal problem, not a social problem requiring a change in distribution of wealth and power). The church also believes that when a person becomes born again he will automatically fight injustice which is incredible. (Church Wrong Belief No. 5)
When Christians become majority, the Philippines will become a righteous nation
In addition, the church believes wrongly that when the country becomes majority Christian, corruption will disappear. For the church the answer is evangelism. but statistics shows that the country’s population of born again is increasing significantly every year but the country is plunged yearly ever closer to becoming the most corrupt country in Asia. (Church Wrong Belief No. 6)
We must have a gospel that is good news to the poor, not the gospel we know now.
The gospel must be preached to the poor and the gospel must also be good news to the poor.
Luke 4: The mission of Jesus
Let us look now at Luke 4:1. The mission of Jesus was to preach the gospel to the poor. This is very revolutionary considering that in Jesus’ time, the poor were considered cursed and they have no share in salvation. Jesus turned the world of the Jews upside down by declaring that the gospel is going to be preached to the poor. You have to hear the pin drop in this verse. People who heard this for the first time were horrified.
Note two things here: all the power of God has been poured upon Jesus. Secondly, this power is given so that the Gospel is preached to the poor. This is the mission of Jesus.
Gospel preached to the poor and also gospel is good news to the poor
We note also that the gospel He preached was good news to the poor. Thus, not only is the gospel preached to the poor but also the gospel He preached was in itself good news to the poor. To implement His mission, we see four things or programs: help for the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed and Jubilee.
Prisoners and Jubilee
As mentioned earlier, the prisoners here referred mainly to the poor debtors who were jailed because they could not pay their debts. The climax of the gospel is Jubilee. Jubilee in the Old Testament meant four things: cancellation of debts (which is terrific news to the poor), release of prisoners, return of the land, and letting the land lie fallow. Note that Jubilee could only be done by the rich people of God, not by the poor.
Isaiah version
This passage was taken in context from Isaiah 61. The Lukan version uses poor while Isaiah’s text uses meek and brokenhearted. The context of Luke is a poor, politically much-diminished Israel while Isaiah was a prophet of the royal class, preaching in an air-conditioned palace to a prosperous but spiritually impoverished Israel.
Today the church needs to preach the gospel to the poor and the gospel we preach must be one that is good news to the poor also. Is your gospel good news to the poor?
The Kingdom Gospel
Throughout the life of Jesus, He preached the gospel of the Kingdom. So with Paul. But the Kingdom never came. But the church came. It was a great disappointment, no?
Link between church and kingdom
The relationship of the church with the Kingdom is most clearly shown in Acts 1.
After He died, Jesus resurrected and showed Himself to His disciples and friends for a period of 40 days. Verse 3 says throughout this period He talked to the people about the Kingdom. What would be the most logical and necessary question one would ask during that time? Of course, the question, When is the Kingdom going to come, When will He restore Israel?
The power from high given to the church
What is Jesus’ answer? He says in verse 7 shut up, it is none of your business! Then the famous line, verse 8, that everyone knows by heart: and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses here in Jerusalem, then in the whole of Judea up to Samaria, until the ends of the earth.
Church now the Body of Jesus
What do we notice here? The Kingdom did not come but the church came. The same power that came upon Jesus now comes upon the church. The task of Jesus in preaching the Kingdom was not done yet. The church was going to finish that task. There was something Jesus could not do alone but only could be done in a community, that was the kingdom life, the church was going to live out the Kingdom, jumpstart the Kingdom. The church would live out Jubilee and demonstrate to the world the new life, by people who had received the new life.
Church is also good news: social equality
And God made the church good news also. By herself, the church was good news. In Paul’s writing, we know that in the church, there is now no more male or female, Jew or Gentile, free or slave, rich or poor, alien or citizen.
Women first to rejoice
The first to celebrate this of course were the women, who, for all the years they could remember, were sidelined, and had to stay apart from the men in the temple, and when they had menstruation, they could not even draw near (remember the woman who had bleeding for 12 years). Now the women stand side by side with men. This was the first hurrah. The church is good news to women.
Onesimus, slave and brother
The most dramatic demonstration of the church is in the story of Onesimus. Paul was now restoring him to his master Philemon and under Roman law, a slave who stole from his master and who run away, as a fugitive, could be executed. Now Paul pleads Philemon take him back, but not just as a slave, now, also as a brother. The church was good news to slaves, who now sat side by side with their masters in church.
This is the social implications of salvation. When we are saved, we are saved also into a new family. In the church, the private sits side by side the general, the slave with this master. What a wonderful thing God created. The church is not a disappointment. It is a work in progress.
Aliens welcomed
Remember also the foreigners, the gentiles, they could not enter the city, and had no right to a day in court, nor find lodging inside the city, now had a warm welcome inside the church, and given a lawyer too. More of these are found in the writings of apologists like Diognetus.
The church is good news to the poor. The gospel is good news to the poor but only when she exists as the Messianic community of believers. Luke 4 now belongs to the church, as the empowering is now on her also.
The gospel of the kingdom is good news to the poor only when the rich and the poor worship and become a community together.
Giving from our comfort zone
Giving from the safety of the windows of our air-conditioned cars can not work. The church cannot just give to the poor, no matter how sacrificially. The poor must be inside our church. The worse sin of the church has been to divide the rich Christians from the poor Christians. That way, the kingdom is no longer relevant. If the rich and the poor are together, this is what will happen. When one has two cars and the other has nothing to eat, the first has to sell his car and give food to the other. 1 John 3:17 says if anyone has a surplus and finds a person in need and does not give him any food, is God’s love in him?
Burden of wealth
Riches and wealth have always been a burden. Not only did Paul say the love of money is the root of all evil, but by itself, having wealth can be a burden. Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. When the poor people come to our house and I have lots of cash in the house, I always feel uneasy and uncomfortable in their presence. But when they come and I have no money, I am perfectly at home with them.
The kingdom inside the church: economic equality
James says this is true spirituality that we take care of the widows and the orphans. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians speaks the loudest when he quotes from Exodus that he who gathered much did not have too much and he who gathered little did not lack anything. We cannot feel the tension of this verse when the rich and the poor are apart. The kingdom works when the rich and the poor are together in a new economic arrangement. The church’s role is to jumpstart the kingdom from within.
The desire of the church for wealth and power, for buildings and surplus funds, has resulted in the church losing her prophetic voice.
Church must seek to be poor
The church believes that with money, a nice building and air-conditioning, she can attract the rich and powerful and thus be able to speak to them but the opposite has happened, by her desire for wealth and power, she has unwittingly supported the status quo which promotes the wealth and power of the elite. Thus she lost her right to speak to the rich and powerful, and can no longer speak out against greed injustice. Today the church has lost her voice and consequently also her power, the demonstration of the presence of the Holy Spirit. But when the church gives up her desire for wealth and power to become poor with the poor, as Jesus became poor to make others rich, she will again regain her voice and God will give her the privilege to speak to the rich and powerful. Again in 2 Corinthians 8, Paul reminded the church that 9You know how full of love and kindness our Lord Jesus Christ was. Though he was very rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich. The church has to take the same step, to become poor with the poor and maybe someday be able to say to the cripple, Silver and gold I have none but this I give to you, arise in the name of Christ!
This brings us to the final point which is defining the problem. When we say the problem is poverty we put pressure on the poor. Iis the problem poverty?
Malthusian prediction
Many years ago, scientists predicted that the world will face a global crisis because in the Malthusian bias, population growth will outpace food production. The same scientists came together recently and concluded that they were wrong and in fact, in the USA, the biggest problem is obesity. There is enough food to feed everyone in the planet.
Wasted food enough to feed world’s hungry
I was in Washington DC one time, during the last election of the US President, and was billeted in the Hilton. There was so much food thrown away. Each day I would try to save the food on our dining table, on the third day I had no more place to sleep. All the food the USA throws away is enough to stop death by starvation worldwide which is about 25,000 children every year. It takes only 1%, scientists say, of the wealth of the rich countries to end poverty and 1% also to remedy global warming which affects mainly the poor. The problem is not poverty but greed and this is born out in Deut. 15. (Church Wrong Belief No. 5).
There must be no poor among you
This passage is about God teaching the Israelites, how they may enter the promise land. In verse 4 we have a Grand Declaration, there should be no poor among you and God gives two reasons why that is. First, when they enter the land, all the cattle, all the orchards, all the wheat fields, that they never worked for, will be given to them, free. Second, once in the promise land, God will bless them. This is a double whammy. The blessings so overflow that God guarantees they will not borrow money from other nations but will in fact lend to nations around them.
If there is any poor among you
Then comes the suspenseful part, God says in verse 7, but if there is any poor among you when you enter the land you are not to be greedy but to be generous. God even warns them that if they will be greedy and the poor man calls out to God, their refusal to help will be considered a sin! This is serious because God repeats Himself, that if they will choose instead to be generous He will bless them, and listen to this: God will bless them in everything they do! What a promise!
The poor will always be with you
The passage has a dark ending. Verse 11 regrets that nonetheless there will always be some poor among you that is why there is the reminder to be generous. This is what Jesus quoted in the Gospels and this did not mean that poverty will go away, only that people will always choose to be greedy and not share. If they did share, God would bless them a doubly whammy in all that they do!
Voluntary, depends on our obedience
And yet, like the Luke 4 verse, this is not imposed on the Christian or on the church, it is a voluntary act and the command depends on the obedience of God’s people. There will be no sharing if God’s people will not be generous and there will be no Jubilee if the church will not decide to be the Messianic community that lives out the Kingdom today.
Luke 4 is true today only if we obey
The end of the story in Luke 4 ends with what some may call Jesus’ super optimism: This verse has come true today! But it has not. And the church will continue to fail to be good news. And yet, God is hopeful, that the church will stand up and demonstrate the Kingdom in her midst, and be the good news herself.
We need the poor, there are more than 300 commands in the bible to help the poor.
Journey with the poor: see Christ in the poor
Remember that our spirituality depends on the way we treat the poor. We must study and learn how and in what way we need the poor. When we minister to the poor, we touch Jesus in the flesh.
35For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. 36I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ ‘I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25)
Conclusion
1. The church must give up her desire to pursue power and wealth and begin to journey with the poor by seeking to be poor like the poor, and
2. She must be in solidarity with the poor, by fighting for the poor and instituting jubilee and jumpstarting the Kingdom from within her, that those who have a surplus share their wealth and
3. Finally, she must preach the gospel to the poor and bring them to herself, take care of them and worship with them because she needs them.
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They reside in their respective countries, but only as aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and put up with everything as foreigners, every foreign land is their home, and every home a foreign land, hey marry like all others and beget children; but they do not expose their offspring. Their board they spread for all, but not their bed. They find themselves in the flesh, but not live according to the flesh. They spend their days on earth, but hold citizenship in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their private lives they rise above the laws. They love all men, but are persecuted by all. They are unknown, yet are condemned; they are put to death, but it is life that they receive. They are poor, and enrich many; destitute of everything, they abound in everything. They are dishonored and in their dishonor find their glory. They are calumniated, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted and render honor. Doing good, they are penalized as evildoers; when penalized they rejoice because they are quickened into life. The Jews make war on them as foreigners, the Greeks persecute them; and those who hate them are at a loss to explain their hatred.
Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Deut. 26:12. When you have finished paying the complete tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and the widow, that they may eat in your towns, and be satisfied.
Lev. 19:19ff. Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.
Prov. 31:8ff. [Commandment to kings.] Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.
Is. 58:66ff. Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Jer. 22:3. Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
Luke 12:33. “Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys.”
Luke 3:11. And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, “Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise.”
Mt. 5:42. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.
Prov. 29:7. The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor; the wicked does not understand such concern.
1 John 3:17. But 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?
Luke 6:33ff. “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to receive back the same.”
2 Cor 9:7. Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver.
Mt. 6:2-4. “When therefore you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
Mt. 6:24. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money.”
1 Tim. 6:10. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang.
Gal. 2:9ff. Recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John… gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we might go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. They only asked us to remember the poor– the very thing I also was eager to do.
Lev. 19:15. “You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.”
Acts 2:44. All those who had believed were together, and had all things in common; and they began to sell their property and possessions, and share them with all, as anyone might have need.
Acts 4:32-35. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet; and they would be distributed to each, as any had need.
Eph. 4:28. Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.
ncern Department) launched on November 8, 2009. Four families are the initial beneficiaries. Pray for the growth of the investments of these families and that we will all learn to be good stewards of God’s blessings
