Some very short thoughts about evangelicalism and welfare

Amen. Thanks Glenn.

Food for thought for a Christian libertarian. (More than just “gleanings”!) Great post, Glenn.

The concept to provide for the poor is correct, we should do that. Where conservatives get heartburn is the perception that many poor choose not to work and live off the efforts of others. Gleaning at least required the poor to go work and get the food. We have removed all work requirements from welfare. So now the lazy can steal from the needy and conservatives are painted as greedy for pointing that out… As for the percentage, we now have a society that wants far more that gleanings, they want 35% of the orchard.

In OT law there were multiple tithes that when addedup equate to about 25% of annual income, these were compulsory ( ie not “giving”) and hence effectively taxation to run Israel. Provision for the poor and widows was included. The provision for “gleaning” was effectively a specialist tax on agriculture, not everyone had fields to harvest. Again not an accident but compulsory, you had to harvest you fields in a manner that left crop to be gleaned.
I believe the “lazy poor” achieve a prominence in peoples eyes and minds that is not justified by their actual numbers relative to those who genuinely need some help. They become an excuse rather than a valid reason for not wanting to contribute.

Oh and the rich were taxed at a higher percentage right? Oh that’s right they weren’t – it was equitable and not based on perverse class envy.

IOW there is no civil penalty because it IS A RELIGIOUS LAW, and so, your comment about not being able to say we are talking about a radically different thing. As such you have in appropriately vilified that quote by not reading what the concern is. Using government CIVIL force to COMPEL CHARITY.

Thus I believe your argument fails. It is not the job of a centralized government to perform under threat of force.

You’ve probably already read this, but Jonathan Edwards has a great sermon on Christian Charity which isn’t really politicized but carries the same point. It relies more directly on the gospel as the force of argument than new testament regulations:

http://www.biblebb.com/files/edwards/charity.htm

It might be worth mention that OT Israel had some other laws that also addressed welfare issues.
Year of jubilee, land sales were effectively only leases to a maximum of 50 years, prevented longterm alienation of land.
Debts to be forgiven at seven years.
Indentured servitude.
Obligation of brothers (or nearest male relative) to care for (typically marry) deceased brothers widow. First son of such a union to inherit the deceaseds land etc.
I am guessing that even most Christians would prefer the modern welfare state to a return to some of these rules, especially wealthier Christians.

Glenn, you don’t see the force of the argument? You said:

” Not every vice should be a crime and not every virtue should be legally required, and in the example of Israel, we get to see which values make it into law – not just the moral law that God wants everyone to follow, but the civil law that citizens were compelled to follow. And one of those values is very clearly the moral value of providing for the poor.”

You haven’t proven it isn’t a morally based law. You haven’t show that citizens were “compelled” to follow, and you must show that. I find it very hard to believe that the Scripture clearly gives DEATH for working on the Sabbath, yet fails to mention any civil penalty at all for this? Seriously? You are guessing about what a judge would do. Sorry your guesses don’t make for good governmental theory.

You also say:

“And again remember, none of this was simply a matter of private conscience. This was written into law. Israelites had to live this way or you were a law-breaker.”

And so was loving your God with all your heart, mind, and strength. Thus all are law-breakers. This is why I find your argument brimming with casuistry.

The reason I chastised you for not even mentioning the other points is that mostly there is a large context to this discussion that gets boiled down into soundbites that assume the larger context. You cannot rail against conservative opposition without even giving a nod to the larger context and that is that a large portion of welfare, simply isn’t. Birth control isn’t welfare, funding and encouraging unwed child-rearing isn’t, rewarding laziness isn’t…. etc. I can only speak for America but we are an incredibly prosperous nation. There are true poor here, but the numbers are not what is presently on welfare (and I would include social security as part of the welfare budget, and I don’t think your 14% figure dealt with the whole of what American conservatives are talking about when it comes to welfare).

You have not even begun to prove that a centralized government, for most of us geographically and culturally distant from our local communities are the way to benefit the poor as per the Biblical model.

All you proved is that God cares for the poor and God’s people should make provisions for them. No true Christian would disagree.

And this comment interested me:

“I would also be careful about saying that if everyone paid the same percentage then that must be considered “equitable.” A man with ten dollars who pays, say, twenty percent has a much heavier burden placed on him than a man with two million dollars who pays twenty percent. I also don’t know how much confidence we can have that the poor obviously paid the same percentage as he rich. If they could, I’m sure they did. But the impression I get (yes, terribly subjective I know) is that the tithe was provided by those who were able to pay it, and used to provide for those who simply weren’t. ”

Of course it is equitable. It is the same burden, unless you are going to argue that the Old Testament says that if someone owned many fields, he had leave more droppings than usual or the burden would be unequal on someone who had just one field. The only way to make it logically equitable if we reduce your argument down is then to set an amount that everyone should have, and force it to be so. And that is pure socialism.

I do think you are correct on the tithe being for those who were able to pay it. It is just common sense. You don’t give someone charity and then ask for part of it back just to give it back to them again. But once you get above the level of needing assistance, everyone paid the same percentage minimum, though of course one could give more.

Dee Dee, I guess what I’m finding a bit strange is the suggestion that while a specific, identifiable action was required by law, there was no real, well, requirement to carry it out in any usual sense of that word. It’s true that there exist some capital offences in the OT, but that doesn’t mean that since no specific response is required when a person doesn’t pay as much as required, or doesn’t leave anything from their produce, that nothing could have been done about it. I don’t see what the comparison is supposed to show. And commandments about loving God with your whole heart – that was really a summary commandment, with specific examples given in the law. These commands on the other hand are specific examples of identifiable actions. We agree – I think – that having a specified penalty vs not having a specified penalty doesn’t mark the difference between what you’re calling “religious” laws and other laws. The Sabbath commandment that you refer to is perhaps a good way of confirming this. That said, there was a fairly clear expression of the fact that people who don’t meet their obligations in this regard were meant to make up for it. For example, if a person wanted to keep part of their tithe (“redeem” it instead of giving it), they were required to add a fifth of its value when doing so (Leviticus 27:31). Granted, you might not really see that as a “punishment,” but it was certainly a financial burden laid on those who didn’t give the whole tithe.

Maybe the question is – how severe do you think any consequences would need to be before you’d think that actually the people were required to provide for the poor in this way because it was the morally right thing to do, and not some sort of ceremonial act?

As for gleaning, I can’t really see what the ceremonial or “religious” end here would be. Surely the purpose of requiring people to leave some left over for the poor was simply to provide for the needs of the poor because they don’t have enough. Maybe you could explain a bit more what you mean by calling this a religious duty and not really amoral one.

Of course it is equitable. It is the same burden, unless you are going to argue that the Old Testament says that if someone owned many fields, he had leave more droppings than usual or the burden would be unequal on someone who had just one field. The only way to make it logically equitable if we reduce your argument down is then to set an amount that everyone should have, and force it to be so. And that is pure socialism.

That doesn’t seem to me to follow from what I’ve said at all. Up to a certain amount of income, ten percent would make a very large difference, and once people get beyond that, it doesn’t make such a difference anymore. There’s no reason to think that everyone would need to have exactly the same (or even roughly the same) income in order for ten percent to have the same impact. For example – a person who earns a million dollars per year and a person who earns 1.5 million. Ten percent isn’t going to have much of a different impact on either of them. But someone who earns 20K per year – it’ll make a much larger difference to that person. So there’s more than one way to measure how “equitable” contributions at a fixed rate are.

And I freely admit that my reference to 14% may be wrong, depending on how much is included or excluded as “welfare.” I was referring to this chart (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/united_states_total_spending_pie_chart), but now as I take a second look I see that the figure is 12%. Some of the other things listed there (e.g. healthcare, education) didn’t exist in an ancient Israelite social spending scheme, so it’s hard to do any sort of direct comparison between one full set of spending stats and the biblical examples we have. I make no pretence to having much knowledge of American government social spending in general.

I agree with Glenn. When you barely have enough to provide for your family, fronting up with 10 % is a significant burden and sacrificial. When you have plenty of income for discretionary expenditure [toys, holidays, investments, opportunity to accumulate wealth ] then 10 % isnt an equal burden nor sacrificial, even if it represents far more money. There is a big difference between having to choose between christmas presents or some new clothes for the kids, and having to choose between a new mercedes or a new jet boat for yourself.
I am reminded of Luke 12:48……From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked..
It would seem that if you a blessed generously, you are expected to be more generous in carrying responsibility….

My 2c worth: When I see (often American) conservatives (usually Christians) complaining about the welfare state, it is usually not simply a complaint about the fact that it’s implemented inefficiently or that welfare recipients are lazy, but it does tend to be the same complaint that Dee Dee made earlier: “It is not the job of a centralized government” to engage in require giving to the poor “under threat of force.” Her argument is the common one that I see. But my experience may not be typical.

Glenn, you are confusing civil authority with a requirement to carry it out. This is why your argument does nothing but prove that God requires Christians to care about providing for the poor. It does not argue that it is the job of a non-theocratic government to carry it out. There WAS a requirement, but it was a requirement before the individual and God. The society would expect such a person to repent and make the appropriate sacrifices but there is no specific CIVIL punishment given, because it wasn’t the job of the civil authorities to enforce. It was a personal obligation. Of course it was moral. Same as loving God with all your heart, mind and strength is. But just as you started out your article,

“Not every vice should be a crime and not every virtue should be legally required, and in the example of Israel, we get to see which values make it into law – not just the moral law that God wants everyone to follow, but the civil law that citizens were compelled to follow. ”

You haven’t proven government compulsion, but God’s law to individuals. It is not the job of the secular state to enforce charity.

No you didn’t show an extra financial burden for non-compliance Glenn, you showed an extra financial burden for someone who was voluntarily complying and wanted to do something differently. There was nothing about what if they said no. It said nothing about those who weren’t doing what they should. I think the fact that you are stretching to find something should let you know that you can’t use your argument as support for secular welfare.

Jeremy, God didn’t put into law a greater percentage for the more well off. So while your ideas are nice and all, I think I will stick with God’s.. You are quite the budding little socialist though, I will give you that.

No, I wouldn’t think that the priest would take from you what you were supposed to pay – or the 20% fine for not paying as required by the law, either (and this simply covered cases where a person kept all or part of the tithe – you can’t insists that it strictly refers to people who really did intend to pay and who did voluntarily in the end – the law did not limit the penalty to them, it was an incentive to all to pay the full amount). This wasn’t their job – That’s why judges existed.

But it wouldn’t matter if no penalty or method of enforcement was mentioned at all – and you can see that this is not what’s carrying the argument. After all, you could just come back and say “but what if they refused to pay the 20%? The law doesn’t say how to enforce THAT either.” Let me throw this into the mix to see if it helps: In ancient Israel, if you stole somebody’s sheep, you were supposed to pay them back four times the value of what you stole. The law stipulated that you should pay this (Exodus 22:1). I don’t think anyone has claimed that this was a ceremonial or “religious” requirement, it was just a matter of moral requirement being enforced in law. But there’s the rub.”enforced”? The law didn’t say anything at all about what should happen if the thief didn’t pay. Actually this is true for many Old Testament civil laws. What people were supposed to do under certain circumstances was spelled out, but the consequences of non-compliance never were. And yet, nobody thinks that because the manner of enforcement was never specified in the case of, say, restitution, that means restitution wasn’t really compelled or required.

This is why the law working as intended required good judges. Exactly how best to respond to non-compliance can’t always be stipulated in law as it depends on the situation being dealt with on a case by case basis. But certainly (I think), the fact that the law doesn’t state what should happen when people don’t meet their obligations on a given scenario is no good reason for denying that a law was moral in its motivation.

Now that i am at a real keyboard i would like to add a few things.

I agree with Glenn again, in the classical liberal sense of less intrusive govt and less taxation. Also i think DD made a comment about bureaucratic inefficiency, and this has been well demonstrated. A dollar achieves far more through voluntary/community agencies than it ever does through govt bureaucracy.

A little analysis suggest that OT tithing gleaning laws were in fact progressive rather than flat rate.

The poor, not expected to tithe if beyond there means, maybe not even the later temple tax.

Most people, two annual tithes, the three yearly tithe, and the temple tax.

Landowners, tithes, temple tax, and requirement to harvest in a manner that left gleanings available.

Only three steps, but those with the most got to bear a larger portion of the burden. “Giving” was over and above these requirements.

On the subject of giving, Jesus commended the widow for giving generously/sacrificially from her poverty but was very scathing of the wealthy pharisees who gave big time and flamboyantly but only from their excess.

Last point, as i understand it while moral law is mandated by God across all time and culture, OT civil and ceremonial law was addressed specifically to ancient Israel and has never been binding upon Christians or gentiles in general. Having said that much OT civil law embodies practical outworking of moral law and offers us guiding principles in creating civil law in our own culture and lands.
Further, Jesus in the sermon on the mount raised the standards by addressing the heart attitudes that the LAW spoke to and which are the real issue with God.
Consequently arguing that OT civil law did not include a particular function of govt in the way it is manifest in the early 21C is meaningless. The real question is what are the principles involved?
Are we our brothers keeper?
Should we love our neighbours as ourselves?
Are we stewards of what God has blessed us with?
Is it ours to hold on to?
Are we being salt?

I really liked that Jonothan Edwards sermon that Mike referred us to. There was a really good question in it? To paraphrase, What has the sin/failure/laziness/incompetence of others got to do with us obeying God in the pratice of Christian charity [love]?

Jeremy we aren’t a Christian nation glad you finally figured that out. Would that we were.

These are good Scriptures to help focus the issue. My thoughts on their interpretation.

The provision was for immediate need, laws were given for food. Not certain that clothing was included though God concerned about this as you couldn’t keep garments for security overnight. The poor would have to work harder for the same amount of food (gleanings).

This is not government provision, it is private provision enshrined in law, and unclear if any civil punishment applied. It seems that God was the poor man’s defender, not the judge (Deut 15:9). You took care of the poor out of fear of God, not concern for a fine.

I don’t see extra payment for keeping tithe as a punishment for failure to comply, more an extra payment in acknowledgement that the tithe is God’s. You couldn’t keep back from God, but if you wanted to keep an animal for a reason you were able to do so with an extra payment (because the animal was really God’s). I don’t see this a punitive.

Bethyada, I am in complete agreement with you. I see Kenneth has not had the decency to apologize. I guess the poor are more important than honesty with the brethren. Yes something is disgusting, and it isn’t my point of view.

But in closing, I injured my back at work yesterday (as Glenn knows I have chronic back problems and every few years it flares up– -and am hopped up on pain meds and steroids, thus best for me to abandon this conversation in favor of rest)

“But that does not equate to legislating everything.”

Agreed – and I really hope that wasn’t a reference to my view.

I know you agree Glenn, I was using the example to say I don’t see that you have shown from the Old Testament that a command not glean to the edges is to be politically enforced as opposed to the poor calling to God and him defending them.

I strongly believe in fighting for others (as opposed to oneself). I wonder whether double and thorough gleaning is something that a prophet may preach against, rather than, say, a judge ordering the farmer to give 10% of his crop as a punishment.

I think this passage is most instructive on our ideas about helping the poor and appropriate to appeal to. Interpreting it is where we are coming undone here. If I am incorrect then so be it, best I change my opinion. Though I have increasingly rejected welfare over the years. I now think that neither unemployment nor superannuation should be state funded or provided (relatively extreme for a kiwi, even Act allow for minimal welfare). My exceptions would be food in the situation of famine relief (universal and temporary); and possibly stipends for widows of war (with caveats).

semi urgent – urgent being surgery that is needed to be done immediately – surgery to find out if my precancerous cells had become cancerous, something that is life threatening, took a year to get into see a specialist and 8 months to get the surgery). In the US, I’d be eligible for private health insurance with my disability payments and would get amazing help.

I had no idea until a few years ago. I thought the US system did very little welfare, but I have a friend in the US who has a few of my health problems, and has a child with autistic spectrum disorder like I do, and she not only gets payments for herself but for her son as well – and in addition to this, she gets support as a single parent. Over here, you can only get one type of support at any one time – it’s sole parent or disability – and in addition to this, she gets disability support for her son as well. All his therapy is paid for, and even things I’d consider optional extras are paid for by the government – both her and her son get free gym membership, counselling, occupational therapy, basically everything imaginable, under government support for her health conditions and her son’s autism.

I can’t even find a therapist for under half my weekly income for my daughter. We gave up on that long ago. And even when my friend has a partner, she keeps most of her disability benefits. I got married a week ago and I lost every piece of government support I got. We are definitely far from rich, but I can’t even access cheaper doctors and cheaper medications any more. Considering how many doctors I see and meds I take this is quite a blow for me to lose.

Also, over in the states, they support their single mums a LOT better. Over here, once your youngest child turns 6, you have to be working or studying part time (or proving you’re looking for a minimum number of jobs) to access any single parent help, and once your child turns 8, that’s it, you’re cut off from any sole parent help – even help looking for work. Even if you have a dozen kids and some with special needs, you’re treated the same as any other unemployed person – and if you dare reject any job at all, no matter how unsuitable, you’re cut off from unemployment benefits. Doesn’t matter if there is no childcare (childcare is hard to access here) and there are no babysitters available and it’s illegal (ie you risk going to jail, and you WILL have your kids taken by the state and put in care) to leave a child under the age of 12 at home without an adult to look after them – if you reject ANY job offer at all, you can’t access unemployment benefits.

I know of far too many mums who are faced with the choice of risking jail and their child being snatched by the state because they are offered a job outside of school hours and can’t reject it without having their only means of financial support cut off.

We are also not the US – there are no punishments for parents who refuse to pay child support. It is not a crime, and if a man refuses to pay, all they can do is seize his tax return – and many dads have learnt that it’s really easy to either just not file a tax return, or to get their employer to take out less tax so they owe tax not have a refund. They’d rather pay fines to the tax office for tax evasion than pay child support.

In many ways, the US system is superior to the Australian system. Doesn’t mean their system is good, but all the systems in the western world need a huge shake up. A few cheats like my dead beat ex is no reason to deter people from supporting those who are desperate and suffering terribly. In a western country, no one should have to go without food and/or basic medical care, but sadly many do. I have been one of them, and I will fight for those who are still in that situation.

Call it a duty as a christian, or call it being a good secular citizen – I see it as both and don’t care who disagrees.

Just for clarity: there is a small welfare payment (VERY small) for all parents on a low income here in Australia whether they are partnered or single, but receiving child support drastically decreases the small government payment to parents (usually to nothing), so it favours intact nuclear families and punishes sole parents and those who are repartnered.

I am not sure that you can compare the tithe with a state tax, it was given to the priesthood – the church. Israel was a church-state so it seems to be fufilled in the Christian’s obligation to tithe to his local church and not in the state tax system.

The same argument works in reverse against tithing: I am not sure you can compare tithing in Israel with tithing to the church. Israel was a church-state, so the parallel obligation today would be giving to our state, not the local church. Truth is, the temple was a central communal point for society, and was the best equivalent that they had for a central distribution point like government. Otherwise we end up dismissing all of Israel’s laws as good models of laws, as they were things that existed in a church state, and so the state can’t carry out any of them today – but the church can.

Moreover, the the problem with saying that gleaning was only for primary industries is that they didn’t have supermarkets and so on. Primary industry, as far as food goes, was virtually the only industry.

“But if the Church is the priesthood in the New Covenant, then surely the Church gains the rights that the Old Covenant Priesthood once had?”

Well if that’s so, then the church gets to have a small part of the tithe – just like the priests, surely. The priests got enough for them individually, the bulk of the tithe did not go to them. Notice that the Levites didn’t get part of the tithe simply because of the holiness of their role. It was because they had no land allotment like the others, so they were int he same boat as the poor.

“But you can’t go applying the gleaning principles to crops which have already been harvested!”

Well what we need to do is figure out the best way to emulate the same principle. This is what some theologians refer to as the “general equity” of the law. In the modern world it’s just not as easy to machine harvest a field but not really do it thoroughly. So we may need to be a bit more creative than just observing that the situations aren’t identical and declaring it too hard. Machines take away the manual effort of harvesting and doing most things in producing food, so I see nothing wrong with simply leaving some extra over when the factory is done with it. But fair enough – in some contexts this would involve leaving unharvested food (namely in cases where the food is harvested by hand). There are other factors too – like the fact that in the modern world it is normal for orchards etc to be many miles away from towns, so the poor with no vehicles would have an extra difficulty – we’d have to take all of this into account when working out how best to approach this – but we should certainly approach it.

None of this will give us pre-packaged answers, we’ve got to think about the best ways to do this in the modern world of course. But whatever the solution – at least one of the principles is that it wasn’t just private affair, it was mandated in law, and the community is responsible to see that it happens.

Hi Glenn,

The tithe is no longer mandatory for all since we are no longer under a church-state system like Israel. Now there is a more settled distinction between the two, as the Apostle Paul seems to suggest in Romans 13. Only Christians need pay the tithe to their Church leaders, who are to distribute it firstly amongst the poorer Christians and secondarily to the other poor in their local area. But the crucial point is that the New Covenant tithe is about the Church and her mission. The taxes to the king are a separate matter and are dealt with in other parts of the law. This is why I take a more broadly libertarian, rather than classical view.

[As an aside, I think that Christians should still spend some of their tithe on meat, bread, beer and wine etc and share it with one another every Sunday as a love feast to God, of which the Lord’s supper is a part. This seems to be the background to Paul’s understanding of the supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Call it a weekly bring and share lunch if you will!]

Regarding gleaning, it is still easily possible for harvesters to leave parts of the field unharvested. This seems to me to be the best way of fulfilling the law. For those poor not living in rural areas, they would perhaps consider migrating, although the Church certainly ought to be helping them as best it can (perhaps even helping them to relocate, who knows!). Regarding it being mandated in law, this is certainly the case. However, the punishment for breaking this commandment was not to be administered by the state, unlike for many other crimes (where punishment was enforced by elders – local government). It was to be administered directly by God, in accordance with Exodus 22:21-24.

Julie,

You are quite right that there are no Christian countries. But I think that there will be, as the Church disciples the nations, in accordance with the great commission. Perhaps not for hundreds or even thousands of years, but eventually. The modern Church ought to teach its members to tithe to their leaders and encourage groups of Christians to get involved in works of mercy. And it certainly appears that God has raised up a false Church, the welfare state, as a testimony against the Church for failing in her duties.

They are required, they just work differently under the New Covenant. Each institutional Church is part of a wider Church priesthood, they receive the tithes from working Christians (Melchizedekan priests like us are special and get to have ordinary jobs of course) and they use those tithes to pay the pastors, provide for the poor and many other things. The laws regarding looking after other people are still important (especially the ‘every 3 years’ tithe for helping widows, orphans and immigrants) – but such laws were never enforced by the state, even under the Old Covenant!

Correct me if I am wrong, but I’m pretty sure that the whole ‘ordinary’ tithe went to the temple (though I can’t find the passage). The temple then distributed it as they saw fit, including amongst the poor. How can you identify the Old Covenant temple and priesthood with a secular welfare state? And how can you argue for state enforced charity when such a thing was non-existent in God’s holy Law? It was certainly commanded but never enforced.

Not that any of this is hugely important of course. Especially since it is ultimately the Church which governs the world through her ministry.

“For those poor not living in rural areas, they would perhaps consider migrating, although the Church certainly ought to be helping them as best it can (perhaps even helping them to relocate, who knows!).”

I’m sorry but this totally ignores what poverty in the western world is.

Once you remove the lazy sods who don’t want to work, the majority of poor in the western world fall into two categories – those who are unable to work at all and those who make up the “working poor”.

Those who are unable to work – ie the disabled, people who are full time carers of disabled or elderly family members, sole parents with many young children – giving them the option to glean would be totally useless. They are already swamped and struggled with their illness or caring responsibilities that many can barely cope (or aren’t coping) with what they already have to do.

And then you have the working poor. Low paying jobs these don’t help make ends meet, and many people are in seasonal or casual jobs where the work comes and go. They do have an income, but it is not sufficient. Moving to rural areas to glean would make them worse off, not better. Gleaning might provide very simple food (possibly), but it doesn’t provide shelter, it doesn’t provide clothes, it doesn’t provide medicine. For the working poor, they are still financially and physically better off in their low paying jobs in the cities than picking up scraps of food in the country.

Even for the unemployed who are seeking employment, at least they have a chance in the cities. They hope that their unemployment is only for a few weeks or months at worst. In the country, they will simply not be able to find work. Unless you are something like a teacher or a doctor or nurse, it’s near impossible to just move out to the country and get work.

There is a reason so many people move FROM the country TO the city. There are no jobs, no future no hope. While farmers could leave parts of their field to glean, particularly in a country like Australia so fiercely affected by both droughts and floods on a regular basis, many farmers are finding they don’t get enough from their crops to plant for the next year, many are having to shoot their animals as they cannot feed them, and quite simply, many are forced to give up their farms. They cannot sell them – they cannot even give them away they are so burdened by debts to bank from borrowing to buy seeds and feed for their animals. They just walk away, bankrupt with the bank taking a worthless piece of land.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t leave some of their crops for gleaning, what I’m saying is many don’t end up with crops to glean most years, and the years they do, they only end up with just enough to plant the next season. If they were to leave any, there wouldn’t be a next season.

Telling people to go rural isn’t the answer. Western society simply doesn’t have the resources.

“How can you say that as a society we don’t have any obligation to the poor comparable to the obligation that Old Testament Israel had as a society?”
Why do you assume that the Government is a good instrument for meeting these obligations? That would not be my personal experience. When I was widowed (with 8 dependant children) I found welfare presented an impersonal poverty trap. I found people (not just Christians) to be overwhelmingly generous and it came in the context of relationship and community. I can’t explain how important friendship and community is, when coping with personal tragedy. I might use the example of Ruth and Naomi to argue that God is interested in more that just providing bread.

Hi Julie,
You wrote : “No one was there for us.”
Oh Julie! How did you manage? That is awful to read, because the Bible is so clear: James 1:27.
I fear that dualism affects the church so much, they reach out to “save souls” and forget about the whole person.

Chris, so we agree that absent a monarchy, the temple served a practical civil function as a central rallying point that was well suited to be used for distribution. Good. But you add to this the claim that since the temple is also where worship happened, it follows (logically?)that the two are inseparable and only worship centres can do this. But this is anything but persuasive, since we’ve already agreed (I thought) that if there was any place that served as a *civil* central rallying point, the temple was it. Trying to incorporate this entirely within the priesthood does not work, as the priests were only one beneficiary of this scheme. The function served by the redistribution was certainly a civil one. The fact that the temple served both functions at this point in Israel’s history doesn’t give us licence to just decide that therefore everything should be subsumed under the religious function of the temple, any more than we can say that everything should be subsumed under the civil function of the temple.

I suppose one way to put it to you, Chris, is this: If Israel did have a scheme that existed simply to provide for the poor by way of a civil mechanism because that is the right thing to do, and they wanted to use a central distribution point in a way that we as a society could look at and emulate, what *would* they have used? (My answer: probably the temple.)

Well said David!

As the United States Supreme Court has ruled in taxpayer suits, once your tax money goes into treasury it is no longer your money, so you cannot say your money is being used for one thing or another. If you want to do that arbitrarily for conscience sake, then my money is used for helping the poor, and not things that other taxpayers approve of but are against my conscience as a Christian. Paul and Jesus did not make any distinction regarding use of tax money, and I’m sure there were plenty of things the Romans were doing that could be considered against God’s will. Jesus did not object to the use of tax money to provide a corn dole for the poor in Rome. As I told my sister, you don’t like your money being used for welfare, then you can consider your money to be used for buying arms to kill, or for paying the rent on your Republican Senator’s local office.

Fair enough.

I do think it is important to remember that even though God sets governments over us to achieve his ends, that fact does not make them infallible 🙂

Hi Geoff,

Sorry, I completely forgot about this thread!

I have no problem whatsoever with the concept of a central civil rallying point. But in Israel’s entire history, it was the temple. You don’t see tax collectors appointed to collect the tithe (as they could have done). Additionally, the tithe was never coerced out of people in this way (though it was certainly prescribed by law). Now that we are living in the New Covenant, I think the tithes and offerings of ordinary people ought to be given to the Church (as part of the fulfilment of Rev 21:24), but not by state coercion. My initial point stands: a welfare state is nothing but a false church.

So in answer to your question: the judges and later the kings could have appointed tax collectors to gather the tithes and then distribute them. But they chose not to separate ministry to the poor and worship in this way – the two are held firmly together.

I suppose my throwback question is this: What positive evidence can you bring me that there was ever any kind of civil penalty for failure to pay the tithe?

Oh! This thread exists and I should have answered a question already. A long time ago too, it seems! I probably overlooked it because it said “Hi Geoff.” Sorry. I don’t know if anyone will still read this, but I would just add this:

“You don’t see tax collectors appointed to collect the tithe (as they could have done).”

There were no tax collectors, so they couldn’t have done this. But we do have this practice of bringing goods to a central civil rallying point mandated by law, which is as close as it gets to there being a tax collector.

Chris, you could say that the the temple had redemptive significance and is fulfilled in the new covenant church. I agree. But that doesn’t impact at all on the present question: Did the temple also in this instance serve an important civil function? I say yes, and I think the example of the distribution of resources to those who had none is an illustration of this: It’s not part of the cult / sacrificial system and plays a primarily moral and civil role.

When it comes to hermeneutics and Old Testament Law, two people who have influenced me a lot (not that I necessarily here am saying that I would always agree with them) are Greg L. Bahnsen and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. One of the insights of which they remind us is that we should acknowledge the redemptive / typological / ceremonial aspects of various commands and institutions, but not at the expense of acknowledging their civil and moral value. So we shouldn’t for example – and this is an extreme example – say that since the law of Israel was given in a covenant context, that means that we can just not listen to it because we’re not in that covenant context (or else it only applies spiritually in some allegorical way via the church).