Uncharitable Charity

It's that most wonderful time of the year. The season when organizations guilt people into giving to their non-profit organizations. Soon, we'll start being reminded of "tax-deductible gifts" as we near the end of the calendar year and that without your partnership, the world may end, or something like that.

Am I a Scrooge? A heartless rapscallion? A cynical scoundrel with a heart as black as coal and twice as hard? I'm certainly not against charity, nor against (some) charitable organizations. I am opposed to entities who are more concerned with the organization than they are with the charity. It's hard to talk about missionaries and money, or how charity work isn't always charitable, or social justice isn't usually justice without sounding cold. But, allow me to mention all three topics.

In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul, a missionary, had a job. He worked "night and day" so that he wouldn't be chargeable to anyone as he ministered to them. This wasn't always the way he operated and isn't the best way (1 Timothy 5:17-18) but Paul sacrificed for the furtherance of the gospel. So, he practiced what he preached, and he preached on working. In verse 10, Paul said, "If any would not work, neither should he eat."

Is Paul also a Scrooge and heartless rapscallion? Didn't Paul have a dime to spare a brother? Anyone who has ever read the Bible knows God's people are to care for those in need (James 2:14-17). Jesus himself fed the hungry multitude. He could have fed the multitude every day if he had wanted to, but He did it only twice. We are to care for widows and orphans, but orphans do grow up and sometimes widows don't need charity (1 Timothy 5:11). Paul isn’t saying that if an octogenarian widow with two bad eyes and a missing leg isn’t working 80 hours a week, she’s lazy and should starve (1 Timothy 5:3;5).

Social justice says to take money from the wealthy and give it to people who don't have as much. But that's not justice at all. If a man is able-bodied and doesn't work, justice is for him to be hungry because he's the rapscallion. I'm all about helping those who need it but giving to a lazy man isn't charity. The word charity means love, and it's not loving to let a man live in sin and a man ought to be ashamed if he doesn't provide for his own (I Timothy 5:8).

I want to be loving. I want to give (2 Corinthians 9:7). I want to help people. But we should ask ourselves, what is it to help people? Is it helpful to perpetuate sinful behavior? Is it loving to allow men to continue in the patterns of life that keep getting them into the messes they are in? The "charity" in Charleston seems to have increased the homeless problem. Is that loving? Sometimes, justice and love require saying no and letting a man suffer enough to change or at least to see there's a problem.