I’ll re-post basically what I put in another post that I cannot find.
Taking care of the poor is the responsibility of the Church, not the government.
Jesus gave that mandate to His followers. It is the responsibility of the individual believer to fulfill. It is not to be foisted off on others, or voted off onto the government to fulfill. Voting for the government to do the job is NOT obeying Christ in that matter.
It is part of spreading the message of the gospel and sharing the love of Christ to them. The good works like that are to show them that God loves them and to motivate them to turn to Him.
Individual church members have abdicated their responsibility by voting it away.
The other problem is that the government’s only source of money is taxes, which means that it is FORCING others through extortion, basically, to perform a service which they are to do out of love and service. Since it’s the heart that matters, forcing people to pay for acts of charity through extorted taxes means nothing. It cannot be credited to their account.
well, playing devil’s advocate — we let it go in the 1800s. Bismarck set up the welfare state in response to the shocking conditions of poverty then.
Exactly! Jesus said the poor would always be around - and we know that even in that first century there were many reasons why that was so. In the 1960's LBJ instituted the "War on Poverty", with grandiose ideals to eliminate poverty in America. How's it working out? The "poor" class has more than quadrupled, more people are on food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, etc. than there were when the "war" first started. Illegal aliens can even get subsidies now! The Bible says, "Those unwilling to work will not get to eat." (II Thess. 3:10) and "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (I Tim. 5:8)
I think we DO honor the Lord when we use our own resources to help those who genuinely cannot help themselves, but we DISHONOR those to whom we sacrifice for that are fully able to provide for themselves. We do them no good to encourage sloth and an entitlement attitude and they, in turn, will miss out on the blessing of helping others. Like Reagan said, "Government is not the answer to our problems, Government IS the problem."