Distributing with Discernment

This month World magazine put out a special issue on Wealth and Poverty in America's Cities.  Interestingly, the first city referenced is Boston.  Here's how the article begins (you'll have to work through some of the Old English in the second paragraph):

Christians want to be generous, and that's as it should be.  But we can learn from our predecessors who emphasized that generosity is only the first step.  If we act without discernment, our generosity may actually be selfishness that give ourselves a warm glow but hurts others.  

We can learn from the oldest charity still existing in the United States, the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston, founded in 1657.  The Society from its start resolved to "open the bowells of our compassion" but to make sure that "no prophane or diselut person, or openly scandalous shall have any part or portione herein."  They viewed poor people not as standing at the bottom of a ladder but halfway up, capable of ascending to independence and even wealth if they saw themselves as created in God's image and were willing to work and live accordingly, but likely to descend into abject dependence and despair if they started to see themselves as animals.

Boston pastor Cotton Mather three centuries ago asked his church members to be charitable but also careful not to "abuse your charity by misapplying it."  A half-century later prominent pastor Charles Chauncey instructed leaders of the Society for Encouraging Industry and Employing the Poor to be careful in "the Distribution of Charity" so they would not "dispense in promiscuously" and "bestow upon those the Bread of Charity, who might earn and and eat their own Bread, if they did not shamefully idle away their Time."

Let me stop there for a minute, because we certainly see this particular principle taught in Scripture within the life of the church.  The apostle Paul wrote, "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat" (1 Thes. 3:10).  Just so we're clear, Paul was not referring to those who were without work (i.e. the unemployed) but rather those who will not work (i.e. the idle and disorderly).  It's amazing to think that our government used to take roughly the same approach.  Marvin Olasky, the writer of this article, goes on to note,

Two centuries ago Americans did not subsidize others in self-destruction.  Some 23 Boston charity societies declared in 1835 that recipients should believe it "disgraceful to depend upon alms-giving, as long as a capacity for self-support is retained . . . [To] give to one who begs . . . or in any way to supersede the necessity of industry, of forethought, and of proper self-restraint and self-denial is at once to do wrong, and to encourage the receivers of our alms to wrong doing."  The groups declared that relief should be given only after a "personal examination of each case," and "not in money, but in the necessaries required in the case."

Similarly, the Boston Provident Association (established in 1851) gave food, clothes, and coal to those willing to work but in temporary need.  The association refused requests from drunkards and asked supporters to give beggars not money but cards proposing a visit to the Association's offices, where volunteers would examine needs, make job referrals, and provide food and temporary shelter.  It also developed a list of "impostors" -- able-bodied persons who refused to work!

Imagine if our government as a whole - or even our beloved city of Boston - practiced such protocol today!  I am thankful for how these Bible-based principles are applied so lovingly and carefully by the Deacons of our church.  They distribute to the needs of others, but not without discernment - and always with the Gospel.  And after looking into a situation, if there is still a question as to what would be best, I have found them to "err" on the side of grace.  

When Christ comes to set up His kingdom, what a difference it will make in our welfare system!  In the meantime, may we the church operate by kingdom principles and serve as a prototype of what one day will be operating on a global scale, when "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:2).