Why is there poverty?

The question often arises; if God is loving then why is there poverty in our world? It is valid question seeing that early in the life of the nation of Israel God told his people "there should be no poor among you", then just a few verses later seemingly contradicted that statement by saying, "there will never cease to be poor in your land." A close reading of this statement in Deuteronomy 15 shows at least one reason why there will be poor always among us. Deut. 15:5 follows up the statement "there should be no poor among you", with this statement..."IF only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today.

What we see is that God said there will always be poor because He knew Israel would not do what they were supposed to do! They were a material blessed nation who turned their back on the orphan, widow, poor, and alien. Most think Israel went into captivity because they built idols and worshipped them 24/7 but in actuality their pride, greed and idolatry manifested itself in committing injustice toward the poor. A close reading of Isaiah 1 and 58 show us that Israel defiantly closed their ears to the cries of the poor and put even heavier burdens on them.

While povery has a list of symptoms the root cause is God's sovereign will. God in his infinite wisdom has allowed material poverty to continue due to the sins of mankind and also in order that we can grasp a physical picture of our spiritual condition. Poverty at its core is relational and we as sinners can see just how broke we are spiritually by seeing how impoverished some people live. Not only is God's sovereignty responsible for poverty so is God's providential acts. Sometimes poverty occurs because of a great calamity. Poor people find themselves in precarious situations and one storm or medical condition can completely deplete a poor persons' resources.

Another reason there is poverty among us is the acts of wickedness of those who hold the cards. We have seen in our country how devastating greed can be as millions have lost jobs, 401k's, and retirement benefits. When justice for the poor is not intentionally remedied through systemic measures our efforts become bandaids to a much larger issue. While certainly poverty is a systemic issue filled with injustices we also must point to laziness and sins of those who are in poverty as another cause.

As we see poverty is a complex issue that we must address from a biblical perspective. Neither republicans nor democrats have a sure fire remedy to the solution of poverty. Both sides respectively have some good and bad points. One thing for sure is that our governmental programs of welfare have created more dependency and enablement than they have empowerment. The mentality of people receiving welfare has caused many of them to abandon any hope for their future of being self sustaining. I am convinced that poverty will only be ended in our country when the church steps up and begins to think and act through a biblical lens on this issue but the reality of us coming together and agreeing on solutions sometimes feels like a pipe dream. I wish I could tell you I had a whole bunch of solutions but I only know one; to love God with all of our heart and love our neighbor as ourself. If every proclaiming bible believing Christian would do their part in completing this commandment we would see drastic changes in our country.