Neither Poverty Nor Riches: Summary, Conclusions, and Applications

From Neither Poverty Nor Riches by Craig L. Blomberg:

Biblical material summary:

Pentateuch – goodness of wealth and God’s desire to bless his people with material possessions

Law – restriction of use and accumulation of property

Historical – the negative effects of wealth consolidation

Prophets – economic injustice

Wisdom and Poetry – wealth as a reward for faithfulness and industry; warnings against the wicked rich and ill-gotten gain; justice will come at the end of time

New Testament – carried forth many Old Testament principles with the exception of material wealth as a guaranteed reward for spiritual obedience or hard work; all Christians should have access to houses and fields thanks to the generosity of other Christians

Bible – never views material poverty as good; God wills his people to distribute wealth more equitably; God and mammon are rival masters; almsgiving integral to kingdom of God (241-3)

Additional Conclusions:

1. Material possessions are a good gift from God meant for his people to enjoy
2. Material possessions are also one of the primary means of turning human hearts away from God
3. A necessary sign of life in redemption is that of transformation in the area of stewardship
4. There are certain extremes of wealth and poverty which are in and of themselves intolerable
5. The Bible’s teaching about material possessions is inextricably intertwined with more ‘spiritual’ matters. (243-7)

Applications:

1. If wealth is an inherent good, Christians should try and gain it
2. If wealth is seductive, giving away surplus is a good strategy for resisting the temptation to overvalue it
3. If stewardship is a sign of a redeemed life, the Christians will want to give
4. If certain extremes of wealth and poverty are intolerable, then those with excess (i.e., most readers of the book) will work hard to help those in need
5. If holistic salvation represents the ultimate good, then our charitable giving should be directed to people or groups that minister holistically (247)

Neither Poverty Nor Riches: Still More Quotes

More Quotes from Craig L. Blomberg's book entitled Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possesions:

“While the materially impoverished of our world should provoke Christian compassion, irrespective of their world-view of religious allegiance, James 2:5 in not teaching anything about automatic religious superiority based on low socio-economic standing, even if it is often the case that the materially poor more quickly recognize their dependence on God than the material rich.” (152)

“So, too, professing Christians today who have surplus income (i.e. a considerable majority of believers in the Western world), who are aware of the desperate needs locally and globally, not least within the Christian community (a situation almost impossible to be unaware of, given our barrage of media coverage), and who give none of their income, either through church or other Christian organizations, to help the materially destitute of the world, ought too ask themselves whether any claims of faith they might make could stand up before God’s bar of judgment.” (155)

“Together, these two examples in verses 10-11 [James 5] strongly suggest Christians today should besiege God with complaints about injustice, particularly among the oppressed poor of our lands, and plead before God’s people for a greater measure of compassion, generosity, and sacrifice.” (159)

On the earliest Christian community: “There is no once-for-all divesture of property in view here, but periodic acts of charity as needs arose.” (162) “What is more, it is only consumption and not also production that is shared in Acts’ model.” (162) “Interestingly, what does not appear in this paragraph [Acts 4:32-5:11] is any statement of complete equality among believers. Presumably, there was quite a spectrum, ranging from those who still help property which they had not sold (cf. the reference to the home of John Mark in Acts 12:12) all the way to those who were still living at a very basic level. But the church was committed to taking the principle of Deuteronomy 15:4 very seriously: ‘there should be no poor among you’.” (165)

“On protestant presuppositions, all Christians should be committed to modeling patterns of generous benefaction without the expectation of reciprocity. The various particulars will change from situation to situation, but generous giving rather than selfish hoarding, accompanied by compassionate commitment to doing what will most help the genuinely needy, must remain a priority for God’s people.” (175)

Although one cannot move directly from these texts [1 and 2 Thessalonians] to determine in detail what modern welfare reform should look like, one can find certain precedents here, namely: 1, the Christian community taking great pains to ensure that the genuinely needy in their midst do not suffer because of the lack of an adequate government programme for them; and 2. a concern to put as many to work as possible, even in conditions of higher unemployment than in most First World countries today.” (182)

“Contemporary applications of these principles [as found in 1 Corinthians] should lead congregations to seek to compensate generously those who lead them in Christian ministry.” (187)

“Just as we pointed out the Israelites would have gathered and consumed varying amounts in the wilderness according to their needs, so, too, Paul is not enunciating the ideal of some fully egalitarian communism. But he does recognize that there are extremes of wealth and poverty which are intolerable in the Christian community.” (194)

“In 2 Corinthians 9:6-11, Paul returns to the theme introduced briefly in Galatians 6:6…Wealth is portrayed as a good, particularly if it leads to generosity.” (196)

“But there appears to be no support in either Testament for God’s people to refuse to pay taxes simply because they disagree with the way their government spends that money. Particularly if part of Paul’s purpose in penning these words was to respond to civil unrest in the late 50s ‘centering upon abuses in the collection of taxes’ (Byrne 1996: 386), it must be God’s will that Christians render financial tribute to the government even when the authorities spend some of that money in ways that displease God. Otherwise it would have been impossible for Paul to commend paying taxes to a pagan, totalitarian regime that ultimately came to deify itself.” (200)

“Paul may not issue any of Jesus’ wide-ranging or radical calls to abandon everything, although we have already argued that none of those calls was intended to be normative for all believers in the first place. But he does insist that Hellenistic Christians be equally counter-cultural in rejecting the systems of patronage and reciprocity so endemic in their culture. And he calls all believers to act as generous benefactors regardless of their net worth and with no thought of any material reward in this life. Should they fall into acute need, they should be able to count on their fellow believers to minister to them, even as they are expected to give from their surplus at the moment. In short, Paul commands generosity simply because it honors God; the only guaranteed rewards await in the life to come.” (212)

Neither Poverty Nor Riches: a Few More Quotes

From the book Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions by Craig L. Blomberg:

• “Thus it is clear that the man [the rich fool in Luke 12] is condemned not just for being rich. Still, it is important for professing Christians today to ask themselves how many unused surplus goods, property or investments they accumulate without any thought for the needy of our world. If the parallels become too close, presumably Jesus would say that their professions of faith are vacuous.” (119)

• “Self-justification or rationalization of one’s attachment or material possessions continues to trouble those in every age of human history, including those who, like most Pharisees in Jesus’ day, are also generous in giving to charity. Only God knows a person’s true motives.” (123)

• “The parables always contain a spiritual dimension relating to Christian discipleship, forgiveness, salvation by grace, and the like, as the primary foci of God’s kingdom or dynamic reign. But this discipleship will inevitably produce a tangible impact in the area of stewardship of material possessions.” (126)

• “There is no indication in any of Jesus’ stories that this kind of stewardship can ever be quantified or that any economic reversals would ever lead to pure egalitarianism. But it is clear that Jesus believes there extremes of riches and poverty that are intolerable in the circle of his followers.” (127)

• “The principles of the Sermon on the Mount/Plain are meant not as a constitution for government or merely as a guideline for individuals, but as a manifesto for those already willing to follow Jesus in the context of ‘church’.” (128)

• “Both versions of the sermon begin with the beatitudes, and the beatitudes commence with Jesus declaring the ‘poor’ to be blessed. The Greek word ptochos is the term that referred to someone not just below the poverty-line but utterly destitute.” (128)

• “All of this suggests that Jesus was not commanding, either in his day or in ours, that his followers necessarily give all beggars everything they demand. What is best for them is not always what they request. But to the extent we can determine people’s genuine physical or material needs, we should be concerned to point them towards the kind of help that stands a reasonable chance of remedying the situation.” (130)

• “Jesus is not teaching that we can never store or safeguard possessions, but we must scrupulously determine which are really necessary.” (131)

• “Thus, when we come to Mark 10:21b, we must be sure to read all of it. The command to sell everything and give to the poor cannot be separated from the accompanying, climactic command, ‘Then come follow me.’ The only charity that counts is what comes as the price of discipleship.” (139)

• “Zacchaeus comes to salvation not by his stewardship, but by his encounter with the Son of Man.” (141)

• “The good news of the gospel is consistently holistic, according to the teaching of Jesus. Material sustenance without spiritual salvation proves meaningless, but the liberation that God in Christ grants regularly includes a physical or material dimension to it as well. The only way God’s people can consistently obey all of his commands is as the entire Christian community worldwide, and any local expression of it, increasingly captures the vision of sharing its resources with the needy in its midst.” (145)

• “Nevertheless, there is a clear emphasis in Jesus’ ministry and teaching on meeting the needs of the outcasts and have-nots of this world.” (145)

• “It goes too far to say that one cannot be rich and be a disciple of Jesus, but what never appears in the Gospels are well-to-do followers of Jesus who are not simultaneously generous in almsgiving and in divesting themselves of surplus wealth for the sake of those in need.” (145)

• “The covenant model that assumes material reward for piety never appears in Jesus’ teaching, and is explicitly contradicted throughout.” (145)

Neither Poverty Nor Riches: a Few Quotes

From the book Neither Poverty Nor Riches by Craig L. Blomberg:

• “The wealth of the patriarchs must therefore be understood within its clear covenantal context. This wealth is tied directly to God’s plan to give his people a special land. In the Christian era, in which believers do not live in a uniquely promised land, we must take care not to assume that wealth necessarily, or even frequently, represents God’s blessing.” (36)

• “No command issued to Old Testament followers of Yahweh necessarily carries over into the Christian era unchanged, but every command reflects principles at some level that are binding on Christians.” (39)

• “So, without necessarily calling into question the wisdom of modern distinctions between legal and illegal aliens for legislative purposes, it would seem unconscionable that any Christian should ever support efforts to withhold basic human services from the neediest in any land, regardless of their country of origin.” (48)

• “Wealth can be a sign of God’s blessing, even if it is not always related to an individual’s or a nation’s obedience. But the unique covenant arrangements between God and Israel prevent us from generalizing and saying that god must materially reward his faithful people in other nations or eras.” (51)

• “In passing, this text shows that ‘the lending of money was itself no evil; better that a man should be in debt than that he should have to beg his bread. Nehemiah shows no remorse for having been a money lender’. Instead, he focuses on the usury.” (54-5)

• “God may have made a unique arrangement with the people of Israel to bless them materially in response to their covenant faithfulness, but he calls all people to care for the needy, seek justice and use their wealth compassionately.” (71)