Let me be clear about my original question. I was not asking
a general question about whether God’s word applies to the
individual or to groups. My specific question was about how
the issue of the poor is to be addressed per the Bible. Is it
the responsibility of the government, individuals, or both to
ease the suffering of the poor and indigent? I’ve long sus-
pected that liberals want to absolve themselves of person-
al responsibility.
We are all called as individual persons to care for the poor, downtrodden and brother's and sisters and if we happen to be part of the government we should use our responsibility to do such whereas we are not causing undue burdens upon our fellow citizens. A government of the people by the people and for the people should do just that but government is not a charity. Charity has to be a free act of the will on the part of person(s) to be a true act of charity.
We all know and it has been shown over and over again that government is not a charity and it is not an efficient vehicle for distributing charity. One of the things that gets me about the tax code is the ridiculous restrictions put on donations to charity by taxpayers. It is simply evil
It is the firstly the primary responsibility of the person to perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. But we cannot pull a Pelosi, Biden, JFK and act like our public beliefs are different from our private beliefs. Our Lord rails against hypocrites constantly. Our Christian faith is to be lived out in every part of our life. This is one reason why I am a conservative and not a libertarian.