Describe analyse and explain the Christian teachings on wealth and poverty charitable giving and charity
Religion, Wealth And Poverty
A (i) Describe analyse and explain the Christian teachings on wealth and poverty charitable giving and charity.
In the New Testament Jesus spoke a lot about how money and material achievement was no good as an achievement in itself and sometimes got quite sad and other times angry about how people got trapped by their success. Often the more people have, the less they want to share and that misses the point. Jesus says that at the end of the day all that we have is because, one way or the other, He gave it to us. We may have to work for it but it’s there only because He made it.
Jesus says that it’s only right that we should share what we have got because He makes it available for us freely and we are only looking after it, it’s never really ours and if we think otherwise, we are just kidding ourselves.
Jesus tells us about the time He will come back to judge us and compares us to sheep and goats. He compares the sheep to people who follow his advice and goats to people who greedily snatch everything for themselves! Jesus says when we share what we have – that’s not just our wealth but our time as well- with people who have a need we are as good as sharing with Him and showing that we aren’t just listening to what He says but we are doing it too- we are like His sheep. If we don’t share then we are proving that we don’t care about what Jesus says and in the end what we have had is all we will ever have and that this won’t be any use to us after we are dead.
