Explain what Christians believe about their responsibility for the poor. Use Bible passages and Christian Church teaching to support your answer.

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Fiona Taylor

World Poverty: AO1 – Explain what Christians believe about their responsibility for the poor. Use Bible passages and Christian Church teaching to support your answer.

Christians believe that it is our responsibility to help and look after the poor. There are many teachings in the Bible to support this such as the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. In this parable, Jesus, represented by the King, says how the just people on his right will go on to heaven because he was ‘hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, ailing and in prison’ and at all these times, they helped him. The people on the right hand side of the King asked him when did they do all of these things and Jesus replied, ‘When you did this for any of the less important people, you did it for me’. The king then condemns those on his left to hell, as they did not help him. This parable shows that it is a Christian’s responsibility to look after the poor. If they have helped out somebody, it is as though they are doing it for Jesus himself. These good actions could be things such as giving money to charity, giving clothes to a charity, helping out with charity work, teaching the work of Bible and many other things.

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Another parable that teaches about helping the poor is the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. This parable is about a rich man who lived in luxury and there was a beggar named Lazarus who was ‘laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table.’ Both men in the parable died, Lazarus went to heaven and the rich man was taken to Hades. The rich man saw Abraham and asked him if Lazarus could go and testify to his five brothers so that they would ...

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