The topic of the poor has been floating around in my mind a lot lately. It seems to me that the poor, or 'social justice' is one of, if not THE most overlooked topics among evangelical circles (myself included). "The poor" is one of the main themes of Jesus teachings and the Bible (especially the Gospels), but sadly has fallen to one of the least thought of, least talked about, least acted out, and most overlooked topics in today’s evangelical church.

I feel that Christians have separated the Gospel into two parts. The ‘conservatives’ took the spiritual and forgot about the physical while the ‘liberals’ focused on the physical and social, almost completely ignoring the spiritual. We must realize that God desires us to work at both. Surly the good news of salvation should be at the forefront of our ministry but we must not neglect the social. Someone once said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When Jesus said, “sell all you have and give to the poor” (Matt 19:21) He was speaking of literal goods (helping their physical, social condition) not simply speaking the good news of salvation.

Here are some verses that reveal, to us, God's heart for the poor:
Luke 4:18, Prov 14: 21,31, 17:5, 21:13, 28:27, 29:7.
Matt 23:23-24, 25:31-45 Luke 3:3, 10-11,

James 2:15-19

Jer 22:16 (NASB) “He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?" Declares the LORD.”
THIS IS HUGE! God is saying that Josiah "pled the cause of the afflicted and needy" in order to "KNOW GOD!!! I want to really know, and experience God. I’m tired of religion. If hanging out with homeless people on the streets is how we get to know God (Matt 25?) than that's what I want to do.

We are supposed to be the salt and light of the world (Matt 5;13-16), the flavor and the life giver to the Earth (do you think that that description fits the Church today?). He calls us to ‘do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.’ (Micah 6:8) Why then are the largest organizations in the world, fighting world poverty, secular organizations? Christians should stand out as the people who give their lives to doing justice and loving mercy! A people who plead the cause of the poor (Jer 22:16) not just those people who go to church on Sunday, hold ‘tent revivals,’ pass out slips of paper with the three step plan to go to Heaven, take our youth groups to Christian camps, and take missions trips to exotic locations. We need to be salt and light! Vessels of social redemption.