The Ideal Poor

John Piper recently tweeted:  "Don't idealize the poor and afflicted. God is merciful, but he is not a refuge to the afflicted who cleave to their idols."

I posted it on Facebook and got some great interaction!  One friend said, "Jon, there must be a context to Piper's quote. I don't know anyone who idealizes the poor and afflicted. Most of the people I know want to ignore them. Let me know your thoughts."

Here's my response:  

Thanks for your interest.  I think that the quote is based on two or three ideas.

1.  There's a movement afoot in the church that the mission of the church is primarily to minister to the physical and temporary needs of people.  Piper is calling us to recognize that meeting the needs of poor people is not the mission of the church.  It is certainly good and right to minister to the physical needs of poor people, but our primary mission is reaching and teaching the Gospel--calling sinners to repentance in Christ.  Minister to the poor?  Yes, but not at the expense of the Gospel.

2.  There is a movement afoot that if we share with poor people they will "ideally" see the light.  If we are just nice enough, we will "win" them.  But again, winning them relationally (or materially) is not the same as winning them to Christ.  So having stuff is not usually the thing that is the final domino to fall in their pursuit of Christ.  Again, kindness and love to all?  Yes.  But not without the Gospel.  Poor people who have clean water and are given bigger houses must still repent of their sins and trust Christ.

3.  There is a movement afoot to minister to the poor because they are poor.  The New Testament says it is harder for a rich man to go to heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  In some ways (this is hard to read), poor people are closer to the kingdom of Christ than the rich because they have less self-sufficiency.  But it seems that it is actually morally questioned by some to minister to both poor and rich.  We must minister the Gospel to both poor and rich.

Those are the things I meant to imply by re-posting the quote.  The poor have indeed been overlooked by the church and society for generations.  In some ways, we have always overlooked the poor.  To that end, the church must not lose sight of loving all of our neighbors with Christ's love.  But I am wary of leaving the gospel behind if we are not careful.  And I'm wary of those who are kind and loving and generous in material ways, but think their work is done with good deeds and 'generosity.'  We are losing the urgency of preaching and sharing the Gospel.

In the conversations that I read, lots of people are idealizing the poor, saying that they should be our primary aim, that kindly meeting their physical needs is primarily what the church should be doing and that if we just do that, we shouldn't even worry much about if they respond to the Gospel:  "Let God take care of that," I hear.  The whole mission of the church is the Gospel to every nation!

We must not do the opposite either!  If we focus on the rich or those most like "us" only, we equally miss the mark.  If we have words, but no deeds our faith is dead!  We must continually press toward becoming all things to all men that by God's grace we might win some.

The quote without all that context may be lacking.  Sorry!