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[0:00] Please be seated. You may like to open again the Old Testament passage from page 150 in the Bibles, and we're continuing a sermon series on the middle chapters of the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament.

[0:18] And I will pray for us as we hear God's word. Speak to us now, Lord God, we pray from your word. In mercy to us, open our ears and hearts to receive it, believe it, and obey it.

[0:32] For Jesus' sake, amen. He's Kevin, he's from Queensland, and he says he's here to help us. What fun an election year is.

[0:46] It's great. It's like Christmas all year. That is, you get the offer of presents from early on in the year. And Father Christmas Costello is about to give us lots of presents in the May budget, I expect.

[0:58] And it's fantastic. Remember, it was 1987, 20 years ago, that we had that great present offered to us. Within three years, by 1990, there will be no child poverty in Australia.

[1:14] We're still waiting. 2005, one in seven children in Australia were born into poverty. Well, like any election year, economics will be a key factor in our thinking, in what is offered to us, in the presence that will be awaiting us to unwrap on election day, whenever that is.

[1:36] And it begs of us, then, what economic policies will we support? What factors will determine whom we vote for? Now, let me tell you, this is not a political speech.

[1:49] I'm not from Queensland, and my name's not Kevin. I hope I'm here to help you as we hear from God's word. Deuteronomy 15 is a radical economic manifesto.

[2:02] The book of Deuteronomy, remember, is God's word through Moses to Israel, as they are poised to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land. And the laws, which comprise, really, chapters 12 to 26, so the majority of the book, are there, in effect, to establish how Israel, God's people, are to live in God's land and under God's rule once they've entered that land.

[2:25] In Deuteronomy 15, we read that every seven years, all debts between fellow Israelites are to be cancelled, wiped out.

[2:37] And every seven years, all slaves are to be given the freedom to leave slavery. Now, that's a radical economic. It's, some would say, an economic irrationalism.

[2:51] Or is it? Well, inevitably, some people fall into debt. In ancient Israel, it was an agricultural community. We're dealing here with 1400 BC.

[3:02] Quite primitive, quite agricultural. And it may be that somebody is a poor manager of their little farm or vine or whatever it is. Maybe that their animal trips and falls and dies.

[3:14] Their livelihood is gone. Maybe that the weather is bad or somebody in the family is ill. And so, for whatever reason, maybe beyond their control, they may well fall into debt.

[3:27] The laws allowed for loans between Israelites, but loans without interest. That law is back in the book of Exodus earlier on in the Old Testament. And in a sense, that's radical enough.

[3:39] You imagine that if all loans between Australians had no interest allowed, that would vastly change our economy in our country.

[3:50] But, of course, even repaying debts without interest itself can be enslaving. If the management of the little farm or estate or whatever their job is doesn't go well, even having received some loan, it could well be that the only way out of debt that is unable to be repaid is to sell yourself into slavery.

[4:12] Now, when we think of slavery in the Old Testament, don't think Uncle Tom's Cabin. That is, don't think Afro-American slavery of the 19th century in America with chains and whips and degradation to the extreme of black slaves.

[4:29] Slavery, it's not quite like being a hired worker. They are certainly better off. It would be where the owner of you provided your food and board, basically, and you worked for that person.

[4:39] It wouldn't be necessarily maltreated. Probably in the ancient world, everybody would have worked fairly long hours. But you wouldn't necessarily earn an income and you certainly wouldn't earn savings to buy your way out on the whole.

[4:54] Chapter 15 begins, Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission. Every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbour, not exacting it of a neighbour who is a member of the community, because the Lord's remission has been proclaimed.

[5:13] Now, the translation of member of a community there is literally your fellow Israelite, your brother, sister, Israelite. And keep that in mind because we're dealing here with intra-Israel relationships.

[5:26] Verse 3 goes on to say this is not applied to a foreigner. From the foreigner you may exact the loan. It's not because there's a mistreatment of foreigners. But rather because there is a heightened care and provision for fellow Israelites.

[5:42] Especially those who, for whatever reason, become impoverished. Now, you imagine if this sort of rule came in in Mr Costello's budget in a week or two's time, whenever it is.

[5:57] You can't imagine the National Australia Bank being very happy with this. That is, there is to be no interest charged from any Australian to another Australian. It would be an astonishing thing for Mr Costello to do.

[6:09] And I suspect there would be too many powerful people who would oppose it. So he never would do it anyway. Imagine that the next time the Reserve Bank Board met, and you know the speculation that builds for a day or two before they meet, that we're anticipating an interest rate rise of 0.25% or whatever because of the inflationary pressures, etc., etc.

[6:27] Imagine what they did if they issued their statement and said, from today there is no interest. So it's not gone up by a quarter of a percent. It's just become zero amongst Australians.

[6:39] I mean, it would be an astonishing thing. What would that do to our foreign exchange rates and so on? Well, this radical economy here in Deuteronomy is poor protective and poverty preventative.

[6:53] That is, it's aimed for the generosity and the care and provision for those who are poor, those who become impoverished for whatever reason. Remember, there's no real social security, of course, in those days, and so their whole economic structure is very different from ours.

[7:12] But that's the purpose of these laws. And the ideal is expressed in verse 4. There will, however, be no one in need among you, among you Israelites, the people of God.

[7:26] Maybe that's what Bob Hawke read. Maybe he thought that sounded like a good election speech, and so in 1987 he threw it in. It's a pity he didn't keep reading on in Deuteronomy, but he wasn't renowned for reading the Bible, Bob Hawke.

[7:36] Because verse 4 goes on to say, Because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today, meaning the whole of the laws, not just the economic laws, but the social laws, the ceremonial laws, the relationship laws, etc.

[8:00] Obey all the laws that will lead to God's blessing, and from God's blessing as you obey the laws of economics and share and care for the poor, you will find there will be abundant for everybody.

[8:14] Imagine, in the budget next month, Mr Costello's statements of expenses, this much to health and this much to Iraq and this much more to Iraq and this much more to this, that and the other, and then over on the income side, you've got this tax and that tax and bits from GST, and then you've got a line that says, Lord's blessing.

[8:32] So many billions. I mean, he'd be laughed out of Parliament. But in a sense, what Deuteronomy's economy is about is that Israel can budget for God's blessing, but on the premise of Israel's obedience to the commandment.

[8:50] It's not a complacent budget, sit back and say, we're Israel, we're in the land, God's here to help us, and down comes all the blessing from God. But rather, as they obey God and obey the entire commandment and law, they can look forward with confidence to the blessing of God to come.

[9:10] Deuteronomy remember, acknowledges, as indeed the whole Scriptures do, the New Testament as well, the reality of the Lord's blessing. It's part of the equation we so often rule out when we do our own domestic economics, when we add up our income and all that sort of thing.

[9:24] We think that it's all under the control of economic forces or our own forces or control, and we don't consider the Lord's blessing. We just complain when it doesn't happen.

[9:36] So back in Deuteronomy 11, as God is exhorting the people to approach and conquer and enter the land, we read, for example, in chapter 11, verse 11, the land that you're crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys watered by rain from the sky, a land that the Lord your God looks after.

[9:56] The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. If only you will heed his every commandment that I'm commanding you today, loving the Lord your God and serving him with all your heart and soul, then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain, the later rain.

[10:12] You'll gather in your grain, your wine, your oil. He'll give you grass in your fields for your livestock and you will eat your fill. That's the land to which Israel is headed.

[10:25] But all of them having sufficient is based on their obedience to the law and sharing with those who are poor. If Israel is obedient, verse 6 of chapter 15 says, when the Lord your God has blessed you as he promised you, you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow.

[10:45] A statement in effect of the wealth of Israel and they won't need money from elsewhere or they'll have sufficient from God as they've trusted and obeyed God. And you'll rule over many nations but they'll not rule over you.

[10:59] And often nations became weak economically and then vulnerable politically. Israel would be strong, not that it would necessarily be a world dominion power. The idea more is that Israel will be blessed by God, it will be wealthy in itself and other nations will acknowledge that.

[11:15] Indeed, back in Deuteronomy 4, part of the incentive for obeying the law is that other nations will say, what a wise God these people have come and they'll come not only to Israel but to worship Israel's God.

[11:26] That is, Israel in the land, under God's rule, reaping God's blessing, obeying the law and sharing with the poor will become such an attraction that others will want to come not just to Israel but to Israel's God because they will see the hand of God in the blessing of ancient Israel.

[11:44] Of course, since the Old Testament and since Jesus' day, there has been no nation of God's people. And despite the Christendom years and decades and centuries of Europe, for example, and the Western world, even to a sense today, there is no Christian nation in the world.

[11:58] There hasn't been a nation of God's people since Old Testament Israel. And even though some nations like ours indeed have got sort of little glimmers of Judeo-Christian sort of ethics and laws and so on, we're not a Christian nation.

[12:12] We've never been one. Not even America is a Christian nation or Britain never was. So there's not a simple transference of ancient Israel to any other nation today.

[12:23] It doesn't quite work so simply. It's true, of course, that God is working in the world. He's working amongst nations and amongst peoples in the world. It's true, of course, that God is sovereign over the world and that he does give reign when he wants to and son and all those sorts of blessings or non-blessings if he chooses to refrain.

[12:44] But it's not a simple line of continuity from Israel to Australia. We can't just sit down and say, well, if the whole of Australia obeyed God, then those blessings would come.

[12:54] My guess is that probably would be true. But it all goes back to our trust in the Lord Jesus and trust in God at the heart of that. The line of continuity works, though, more obviously from ancient Israel as the people of God to the church.

[13:11] And so it's quite striking that in the early church, in Acts of the Apostles, for example, when the people, having responded to the gospel and repented and been baptized and become believers in the Lord Jesus, when they begin to practice their Christian faith and meet together, they share all that they have in Acts 4 and there was no one in need among them.

[13:30] Words that echo, I think, deliberately this passage in Deuteronomy 15, which shows us that the fulfillment is especially to be applied to the church. That is, these words of Deuteronomy 15, primarily for us, are about how we relate to our fellow Christians, not so much as how we as Australians relate to fellow Australians.

[13:51] It's how we relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ, that these words are fundamentally to be applied. Now, the ideal was expressed in verse 4, there will be no poor or no one in need amongst you.

[14:04] The reality is that doesn't happen. It's never happened. Probably won't until Jesus returns. The reality is that we sin, we fail. We're greedy, not generous.

[14:16] And so verses 7 to 11, the second paragraph of this passage, picks up the reality. How do we then live dealing with the fact that there will be people in need in our midst?

[14:28] Brothers and sisters in Christ is how we apply this. Now, let's deal with the issue of debt first. There is a year of remission of debt every seven years, we read in verse 1.

[14:42] That's a fixed year. It's not so much that you might take out a loan and you have the loan for six years and then the seventh year the debt is remitted. But there seems to be a fixed calendar year when debts are remitted.

[14:54] Let's argue, for argument's sake, that 2006 was the year. And somebody comes to you now and says, look, I'm in a bit of strife, can you lend me some money? And you think, oh yeah, okay, I can do that, because 2006 was the year of remission, so the next one won't be to 2013, I've got a few years to get all my money back.

[15:11] How different that would be that if 2008 was the year of remission and somebody comes to you and says, I'm a bit stuck, I need a bit of money. And you think, oh, hang on a minute, if I lend this person money, I've only got to the end of this year, six months left, seven months left, I'm not going to get much money, I don't know that I really want to lend money to this person.

[15:31] Well, that's the issue that's dealt with here in verses 7 to 11. Verse 7 onwards says, if there is anyone among you in need, a member of your community, that is, a fellow Israelite believer, or for us, a fellow Christian, in any of your towns, within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbour.

[16:00] You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful that you don't entertain a mean thought, thinking the seventh year, the year of remission is near, 2008.

[16:13] And therefore, you view your needy neighbour with hostility and give nothing. Your neighbour might cry to the Lord against you and you would incur guilt. Rather, give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.

[16:29] Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land. Well, that's striking commands, in fact.

[16:46] The whole person is involved in this. Notice how often the word hand is used. It's not always there in our translations. Verse 7 says, don't be tight-fisted, as though you're clutching on to your wads of shekels, not going to let them out of your grasp.

[17:03] Rather, verse 8 says, verse 11 uses the same expression, be open-handed, that is, generous to give. It's a very evocative sort of expression or gesture in mind.

[17:14] And literally, the year of release, back in verse 2, it used the expression, every creditor shall remit the claim. That is literally, release the hand.

[17:25] So you let go of what you've got in order to give to those who are needy or poor. As well as the hand, the eye is involved. In verse 9, don't view the neighbour with hostility.

[17:37] That is, don't eye them with hostility. And down in verse 18, at the end of this passage, when it says, don't consider it a hardship, literally, the expression is, don't let it be hard on your eye.

[17:49] So your eye must look with generosity and favour on those who are in need. I mean, how easy it is to turn a blind eye to the needs of those around us, in effect, to close our eyes against their need.

[18:05] But ultimately, the most important organ is the heart. And verse 7 says, don't be hard-hearted, a heart that's unresponsive to the needs that are presented before you.

[18:16] And again, in verse 9, it says, don't entertain a mean thought, literally, a mean heart. The thinking and the heart are from the same place in ancient Hebrew and in the Old Testament.

[18:27] So don't have a mean heart. And then in verse 10, when it says, ungrudging, again, it's the heart that is ungrudging. Obedience flows from the heart.

[18:39] And there's a sense in these laws that we capture something important about obeying God. It's not just sort of doing this and doing that. But it's something that will flow from us from a heart that's right.

[18:53] So give liberally. Well, how much is liberal? That's not the question to ask. Give generously. Well, what is generous? Is it 100 or 200? That's not the question to ask.

[19:05] Give open-handedly. Am I going to get all my money back? That's not the question to ask. You see, the law is in one sense here, unquantifiable.

[19:16] That is, it's something that, in a sense, comes from your heart. And if you obey it from your heart, you'll know that. We've got to question that with God. Is my heart right? It's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9 when he applies this passage to the Corinthian giving and says, be cheerful or joyful givers.

[19:33] How much should I give? Well, give as much as it takes to be joyful in your giving. And it's the same sort of idea as here. Well, the last paragraph of this passage, verses 12 to 18, deals with the next step of poverty.

[19:48] If somebody is in debt and for whatever reason that loan has been unable to bring them out of their poverty, they may then, in this seven years, sell themselves into slavery. And the same principle applies in verse 12.

[20:02] If a member of your community, that is, a fellow Hebrew, as it says in the next line, or fellow Israelite, a believer, a brother or sister in Christ, we would say, male or female, this applies to, is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year, she'll set that person free.

[20:20] Now, the slavery seven years isn't a fixed year like 2008. You become a slave, let's say 2007, and so in 2014, you have the possibility of freedom.

[20:31] Whatever you, you begin a slave, it's a sort of six years of slavery and then a seventh year for freedom. But notice the laws in this little section, verses 12 to 18.

[20:43] Firstly, if the slave goes free at the end of the six years of slavery, they don't just walk away empty-handed. Probably slaves were not paid, they were just looked after.

[20:53] So they wouldn't have accumulated a little, you know, bank account of funds to go and set themselves up after their six years of slavery. So verse 13 and 14, addressing itself to the master, the one with the power and the money, when you send a male slave, and female slave is applied as well at the end of verse 17, when you send a slave out from you, a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed.

[21:15] Provide liberally out of your flock, threshing floor and wine press, the three basic food components in effect, and thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you.

[21:29] If the master would say, well, should I give one sheep or two and a litre of wine or a jug? That's not the question to ask. Give liberally. Give generously to this person so that they can go from slavery and set themselves up in their own life and income and economy and so on.

[21:49] That is, helping them to be viable as economic households in effect. Give because of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you, the end of verse 14 says.

[22:03] And again, in 2 Corinthians 9, that's part of the motivation that Paul gives to give. Because God has blessed you, then you give and give liberally, generously, and joyfully. Also, the motivation comes in verse 15, because God has redeemed you.

[22:18] You were slaves in Egypt. The Lord your God has redeemed you. So because God has redeemed you from slavery in Egypt, and for us, it's slavery from sin, which is an even greater redemption through Christ, then we also are to offer generosity in redeeming slaves.

[22:36] That's the command and motivation here. Now, it may be that some slaves don't want freedom. It may be that they like their employer, they like their work and their household.

[22:47] It may be that they're getting old and frail and don't think they can make it by themselves. For whatever reason, they may choose to stay. Notice that the master has no right to insist that the slave stays.

[23:01] The freedom lies entirely with the slave. If they want to go, they go, and he gives to them liberally. If they want to stay, he accepts them. He can't reject them. And he has to then look after them in perpetuity, in effect, as slaves.

[23:18] And in such a case, verse 16 says, if the slave says to you, I will not go out from you because he loves you and your household since he's well off with you, then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his earlobe into the door and he shall be your slave forever.

[23:33] Now, that might make you horrified and think, I would never want to be a permanent slave because that sounds so gruesome. But simply, it's getting your ear pierced. And probably the significance of against the door, I mean, you need something to push through in a sense to pierce the ear, is to symbolize, this is where I belong.

[23:50] The door represents the place, the house, the farm, whatever it is, to which I now pledge myself as a permanent slave in this household. So it's a mark of ownership and belonging.

[24:02] And interestingly, when Paul writes to the Galatians, at the end of his letter to the Galatians, he talks about bearing the marks in his body of belonging to Christ, which may be metaphorically saying, I'm a permanent slave of the Lord Jesus Christ for the gospel's sake.

[24:18] Well, the master may be thinking, I don't want to lose my slaves, they've been good for me. And the cost-benefit analysis comes in verse 18. Don't think like that. You've had slaves for six years, verse 18 says, they've worked for you and they've not been hired laborers.

[24:34] You haven't had to pay them like you do a hired laborer. So be thankful for the six years that you've got and don't be greedy to enforce slavery for the years to come. Well, as I say, this is a very radical economy that Deuteronomy is giving us a manifesto for.

[24:50] I doubt that it's a vote winner. I doubt that Kevin is going to adopt it and I doubt that Peter Costello, Father Christmas, is going to bring it into his budget next month either. In our country, there'd be far too many rich and powerful people who would oppose it and would vote against it.

[25:06] On the other hand, can we simply dismiss it as Old Testament primitive stuff or idealism, head in the clouds economy? Is it too fanciful to believe? I think for us Christians, it teaches us very important principles, even though we don't belong in a sort of ancient Israel agricultural community.

[25:26] The basic principle that this passage is teaching us is that believers in God, Christians, have a fundamental and a non-negotiable responsibility to care for our fellow Christians who are in need.

[25:44] We cannot escape that. It is a fundamental responsibility that when we're Christians, we're brought into the body of Christ. We have a responsibility and commitment for our fellow believers, brothers and sisters in Christ.

[25:57] And if they are in need, it is our responsibility to care for them and look after them. So throughout this passage, the emphasis has been on your brother, your member of your community, your neighbour, all the way through.

[26:11] And so what it means is that those who are poor Christians belong. They're not isolated, alienated, ostracised or institutionalised. They belong equally, with equal rights as any other Christian in the body of Christ.

[26:27] Now what sort of thing does it mean in practice? I mean, here we are in Doncaster, it's a wealthy suburb, we don't see gross poverty on our streets, there aren't people begging outside at the traffic lights or anything like that.

[26:40] What does it mean for us? It does mean for us that we welcome, without any hesitation, those who may come and be part of our fellowship who are poorer than we are.

[26:52] And there are some, there are a number who are part of our fellowship. We ought not to be social or economic snobs, for want of a better word, for those who are poorer Christians in our midst.

[27:07] It means that in our giving and care for them we do so without counting the cost, not because we'll expect money in return, as we heard in the Luke reading from Luke 6 today as well.

[27:19] It means that we should strive to be a church community where there is no one in need, as indeed was described of the early church in Acts chapter 4.

[27:31] Doncarster is wealthy, but this is not limited just to our own church community at Holy Trinity either. Our brothers and sisters in Christ live all around the world, and even if we don't know them, we belong to them and they belong to us.

[27:47] Part of the word in this passage of Deuteronomy 15 is if you have fellow Israelites in need in any of your towns, you may not know them. You may live in Beersheba and they may live in Dan in the north.

[28:00] You may not know them, but if they're in need, then you have a responsibility for them as well. So for us, that means that we have to also look beyond, especially because we live in an area that is relatively wealthy and the needs are not so great amongst us.

[28:17] So for example, it is right and proper that we should consider generously giving to the Diocesan Drought Relief Repeal, even though it's raining at the moment.

[28:28] That is, to help Christians in other parts of Victoria, in rural Victoria, who are suffering much more greatly from the drought than we are, and yet very little was given by our church to the Drought Relief Repeal over summer.

[28:43] It means that we should consider how we might care for Christians perhaps in other parts of Melbourne who are poorer. As an Archdeacon in Melbourne, I've just inherited a few more churches to look after because I've got nothing else to do, it seems, and one of those is West Heidelberg, which would be one of the poorest areas of Melbourne, the old Olympic Village and so on.

[29:06] And it's a poor place in terms of numbers of Christians, in the resources that they've got, in the lack of ministry they've got, and so on. And it's just this week in thinking about them and this, made me think, well, what should we consider doing perhaps as an act of caring for the needy in our midst and in maybe helping that sort of impoverished Christian community there?

[29:30] But of course, our brothers and sisters in Christ aren't limited to this land either. And so when Paul speaks to the Philippians, for example, he urges them to give generously for the poor in Jerusalem.

[29:42] They're brothers and sisters in Christ. They belong together. They don't know the Christians in Jerusalem. But Paul says, give because they're wealthy and they're not. And so he takes up a collection. You can read about that in the letter to the Philippians and other parts of the New Testament, similar ideas.

[29:58] Our brothers and sisters in Christ live all around the world and mostly they are much less well off than we are. Some of them living in extremes of poverty, sometimes because of persecution and depression, sometimes because those countries are just basically impoverished.

[30:15] Christians in Sudan, in Burma, Nigeria, and so many, many countries in our world today. And we should think then, how do we exercise this sort of generosity as wealthy Christians for those who are poor and in need?

[30:31] We do it a bit. Our Thanksgiving Sunday appeal last November included one component where we've given $6,000, as it turns out, to Elspeth Young in Nigeria for medical supplies for the hospital at Vom near Joss where she works in Nigeria.

[30:46] That's an act of good generosity and great help for an impoverished community at a Christian hospital. We, some of us heard recently the founder of a Christian organization called Opportunity International, David Bassow, and very impressive work that that organization has done where they receive money from wealthy Christians and they give smallish loans to help impoverished Christians in various parts of the world to begin to get out of poverty.

[31:18] So, somebody who's virtually enslaved to say a sewer in a sweatshop might be given an interest-free loan to buy a sewing machine to start her own business not to become wealthy in our terms but to become less of a slave and less impoverished.

[31:34] A very worthwhile organization. We've given to tier fund over Christmas as our annual appeal not explicitly for gospel ministry so much as giving for the poor brothers and sisters in Christ.

[31:49] Giving overall ought to include a number of categories not just giving to the poor but evangelism as well but sometimes I think for us we need this challenge of thinking about how we give of the blessing that God has given us for those who are in need and impoverished.

[32:09] We filled in a survey last October the National Church has done that and the survey results which we'll share with you in sometime soon show that we are well below average of Christians in giving to charities at Holy Trinity something that surprised me a bit and shocked me and something that this passage might rebuke us and urge us to be more generous.

[32:33] This passage urges us to evaluate our hearts as I pointed out especially in verses 7 to 11 our generosity will flow from our hearts that are not hard and are not ungrudging.

[32:46] Now remember our hearts are very deceitful our hearts will spin all sorts of excuses why we should not give you're in need as well they don't need it it's their fault the government will look after them they've got family someone else will do it they're on drugs all sorts of excuses will spin off our lips from our hearts we've got to make sure our hearts are not deceitful that our hearts are generous it doesn't mean that we throw away our money that we think wisely and carefully about how we give it and where we give it but ensuring that we give it generously and liberally for those who are in need we need to make sure that we're cultivating in our hearts a love of the poor beyond us as a church and even beyond our Christian community this passage nonetheless urges us to think seriously about what will motivate us economically when we vote the federal election later this year and any year for that matter are we voting selfishly or selflessly are we voting in a sense on behalf of the poor and marginalized of our society or not not that this is a political speech and not that I think there's a simple answer to that either but it ought to be as Christians part of our motivation and prayers before we come to vote at the end of the year verse 14 ends with the exhortation to give of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you the same motivation that Paul uses to the Corinthians the same motivation that ought to motivate us to generous giving for the Lord has blessed us enormously we are in general terms the wealthiest people who've ever lived on earth in one of the wealthiest nations that's ever existed on earth and there are individual exceptions and we're not in multi-million dollar mansions or not many of us perhaps but we are on the whole very wealthy by world history and geography standards the Lord has blessed us extraordinarily beyond what we deserve far beyond we are to give therefore out of the bounty with which the Lord our God has blessed us to give generously willingly open-handedly ungrudgingly liberally joyfully faithfully and obediently

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