Coming to grips with the needs of the poor and the lost

Naked did you not drop from the womb? Shall you not return again naked to the earth? Where have the things you now possess come from? If you say they just spontaneously appeared, then you are an atheist, not acknowledging the Creator, nor showing any gratitude towards the one who gave them. But if you say that they are from God, declare to us the reason why you received them. Is God unjust, who divided to us the things of this life unequally? Why are you wealthy while that other man is poor? Is it, perhaps, in order that you may receive wages for kindheartedness and faithful stewardship, and in order that he may be honored with great prizes for his endurance? But, as for you, when you hoard all these things in the insatiable bosom of greed, do you suppose you do no wrong in cheating so many people? Who is a man of greed? Someone who does not rest content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes away what belongs to others. And are you not a man of greed? are you not a cheater? taking those things which you received for the sake of stewardship, and making them your very own? Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation? The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong. - St. Basil the Great, Sermon to the Rich

 But obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else. The antidote for affluence is reconsecration. Consecration is by definition the "setting apart of things for holy use." Affluence did not keep Bordon of Yale from giving his life in Egypt. Affluence didn't stop Francis of Assisi from moving against the tide of his time.- Ralph Winter, Money and Mission

 Wealth is not limited - it can be produced and enlarged.

 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. - Deuteronomy 8:18

Wealth is being produced every day as a result of ingenuity and hard work.

If we have indeed exploited the poor then we need to face up to it.  We should adopt the posture of Zacchaeus who determined to pay back fourfold those whom he had cheated.

We are to feel responsible to compassionately and wisely use our abundance to help the less fortunate.  Every person is our neighbour, and we are to show mercy and care for each in their need.

There is a letter from Roman emperor Julian to Arsacius, the High-priest of Galatia when he was on his way to Antioch.  He makes some interesting comments, but this one compliment was an interesting sentence --

"For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us."

 Third-century Christian author Tertullian observed,

“It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’”

So there was a hope and peace in Christians that was nurtured by the Holy Spirit. There was an attitude of outgoing love even in the sore trial they faced. Around A.D. 260, at the time of the plague, Dionysus wrote:

Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty; never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and caring for others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead…. The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of presbyters, deacons, and laymen winning high commendation so that death in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith, seems in every way the equal of martyrdom.

John Wesley came up with rules for church stewards and here is one of them --

If you cannot relieve, do not grieve, the poor. Give them soft words, if nothing else; abstain from either sour looks or harsh words. Let them be glad to come, even though they should go empty away. Put yourself in the place of every poor man, and deal with him as you would God should deal with you.

John Wesley personally practised what he preached.  He limited his expenditures by not buying the kinds of things generally considered essential for a man in his station of life. In 1776 the English tax commissioners inspected his return and wrote back,

“[We] cannot doubt but you have plate for which you have hitherto neglected to make entry.” They assumed that a man of his prominence certainly had silver dinnerware in his house, and they wanted him to pay the proper tax on it. Wesley wrote back, “I have two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread.”