Caring for the poor is a local responsibility.

“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.” Deuteronomy 24.17, 18

In an economy in which material prosperity is the defining ideal, the State assumes the role of ensuring the realization of that ideal for all its members. This is an impossible task, and one that divides societies along class and economic lines because it contradicts the Biblical teaching both about the role of government and how to respond to the needs of the poor.

In the Law of God poverty is considered a local problem. Granted, in the New Testament, when the Body of Christ began to take on universal proportions, the needs of impoverished communities in one part of the world were considered to be the responsibility of all Christians everywhere. But the members of the Body of Christ maintain a special unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4.3) which other communities and societies do not possess. The unity of the Body of Christ makes every local church a full-fledged member of the universal Church. Thus, in the Church, everything that pertains to the needs of local churches is also to be the concern of the universal Church, and vice-versa (for example, in the area of doctrine).

Poverty in ancient Israel was regarded as a local problem, to be resolved at the local level. The lines of response whenever someone fell into poverty were, first, family, then, immediate neighbors, and, finally, the resources of the community as a whole. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that communities could share resources with one another if necessary; however, we do not see any explicit instruction requiring this.

Since even the poor are expected to contribute to the justice and wellbeing of a community, it is in the community’s best interest to provide for them and to help them escape the bonds of poverty. Local solutions to poverty were designed (1) to facilitate the expression of neighbor-love in tangible ways, (2) engage the dignity of the poor in caring for their own needs, and (3) alleviate the immediate needs of the poor, without making them dependent upon the generosity of their neighbors.

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