The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. -- Psalm 146: 9 (NIV)
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. -- Proverbs 31: 8-9 (ESV)
http://thekingsrights.com/welfare-is-theft-not-christian-charity/
To be honest beloved when I first came across the article linked above today I did not plan on writing about it because it was a year old. Secondarily, it was so vile and disgusting as an obvious political shill article wrapped in Jesus that I assumed it was low hanging fruit for discerning Christians. Then I saw the article later in the day and read some of the responses to the posting that showed how wrong I was. It saddens me that I would have to even deal with this but apparently some people still read the Gospel and think Jesus was somehow against the poor. Such is the case from the article linked above by someone named Matthew Travis, entitled: "Christians"Welfare Is Theft, Not Charity." The title alone should make you cringe as a Christian but the details are far far worse. Let us hold our noses and reason together and hopefully dispel this garbage once and for all.
"John Kasich once said that when he got to the pearly gates Peter probably wouldn't ask if he made government smaller. Instead, he thinks Peter would ask if he performed the noble deed of expanding the government, by increasing the welfare state and its dependents." -- Matthew Travis
Never a good sign when an author opens with an easily fact checked bald faced lie. Kasich, and I am no huge fan, said that he will be asked what he did for the poor. Anyone who follows politics knows that John Kasich is hardly a supporter of welfare and expanding government. What we see here however is the underlying beliefs of Matthew Travis. To him any help for the poor at all must be deemed as expanding government and increasing the welfare state.
'This understanding of Jesus' teaching is absurd. Governments with too much power and control over their citizens have killed tens of millions of people just in the last century. It's not unreasonable to assume Peter, and Jesus, might believe it a noble cause to reduce the power and influence of government. Also, I think it's pretty clear that Peter will not be interested in how many welfare programs John Kasich supported. The bible contains zero evidence that Jesus would support an involuntary, government run, inefficient "charity."' -- Matthew Travis
So in the mind of Matthew Travis, defending the rights of the poor is absurdly not close to the teachings of Christ? Seriously? Has even read the Gospel? The two key verses today show that Travis is absurdly wrong. Before you start with the fact that these are from the Old Testament, we believe God inspired all Scripture and Jesus is God so therefore these are also His words. In the verse from Psalms, the poor are represented by the fatherless, foreigner and widow. Notice how Jesus refers to those who would oppose helping them? They are the wicked. The Proverbs verse only further drives the point home that we are not only to support the cause of the poor but defend them as well. While I agree that Peter (God) will not be concerned about how many welfare programs we supported He will be very interested in how we took care of the least of these. Travis then launches into a strawman argument by pretending that if you support helping the poor, then you must support involuntary, government run, inefficient, charity. Now this may be how you view welfare because you routinely get your opinions from people like Matthew Travis. Our view of what our government does well or poorly does not change Scripture beloved. If we are so dissatisfied as citizens then there are lawful avenues to try and correct what we might see as injustice but we may want to truly check Scripture first.