We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

7238087616_35883243a9_z

Speaking of “the Poor”

D. L. Mayfield wrote this guest post on Love is What You Do titled The Language of Poverty. How do we think of and interact with “the poor” on a daily basis? Here’s some good insights should impact our lives as Kingdom people.

From the article:

Words like “the poor” mean something. They are rich, compelling phrases that ask us to stop what we are doing and sit for a minute in the real world. For there is a veil here, one that we have been building up ever since the beginning of time: that the whole world is a set of isolated peoples, far-away issues, unknown and unavoidable tragedies. We are ourselves oppressed by our own world which is manic in its pursuit to ensure us that yes indeed we are happy with things the way they are. But some of us are not convinced. Because, deep down, we know. There is still the divide to bridge, there is still the call for the people of God to rise up and take notice, to welcome, to care for the poor.

Image by Alex Proimos. Sourced via Flickr.

Category:
Tags: ,

Related Reading

True Life Now

Whether we want to admit it or not, experience teaches us that life is a perpetual, relentless process of decay, one that we know inevitably leads toward death. And this fills many of us with a certain amount of angst. Some try to relieve their dread by immersing themselves in mind-numbing entertainment or chemical substances.…

God’s Goal for the World

 Helga Weber via Compfight In a world that is all about doom and gloom… In a time when we never seem to have enough… In the midst of messages that tell us that we don’t measure up… In an age when we are more interested in whether or not we can own automatic weapons than…

Little Pacifism

Richard Beck spoke about something he names Little Pacifism on his Experimental Theology website. It’s so easy, in the name of peacemaking, to become angry and aggressive. I suppose this is just part of what it means to be human. However, if we hope to bring the Kingdom of God closer the earth (and to…

Did Jesus Instruct Us to Arm Ourselves?

Over the past few posts, I’ve been dealing with the passages that are frequently used to argue how Jesus condoned violence. One of these takes place just after the last supper and just before Jesus and his disciples were going to travel to the Mount of Olives to pray. To prepare his disciples, Jesus tells them;…

How Are We To Love the Soldiers of ISIS?

Over the last several weeks I’ve received some form of this question almost every day. In some cases the question is asked rhetorically, as though the very question exposes the absurdity of suggesting we are to love this terroristic group. Other times the question is asked with a pragmatic twist. One person recently said to…

The Distinctive Mark of Jesus Followers

Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies was understandably shocking to his original audience—just as it is to us today. Jesus expected much, which is why, after telling his audience to love their enemies he added that if we only love those who love us and do good those who do good to us, we’re doing…