Helping Others

When some brethren use James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world," to justify supporting human institutions out of the church’s treasury, we are quick to point out this verse is outlining an individual’s ("himself") responsibility, not the church’s responsibility. The question is then usually asked of us, "But what are you doing (in the area of benevolence)?" Sometimes we might answer, "Even if we aren’t doing anything, that doesn’t prove the church has a benevolent responsibility toward people who are not Christians." This may answer the argument but doesn’t really answer the question. The question needs to be answered by each one of us, "What are we doing in the area of benevolence?"

A quick reading of Prov 14:21, Matt 5:40-42, 14:14, Luke 3:11, and I John 3:17 should convince the reader it is our duty to help others physically. More specifically Gal 2:10 exhorts us that "we should remember the poor." Matt 25:40-43 teaches us that if we don’t help our brethren when they are hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, or sick and in prison, then on the judgment day we shall depart from Jesus, "into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And back to James 1:27, we most assuredly should be visiting the "fatherless and widows," etc.

Really, these are just specifics of a more general principle: Gal 6:10 reads, "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith." It is not enough just to know James 1:27 applies to the individual; we (individuals) must practice the verse (as we have therefore opportunity) to be pleasing to God. James 2:14-17 reads "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone."

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