Was Jesus Really a Socialist? (Part 5: Charity as Discipleship)

Recap

In part 3 of “Was Jesus Really a Socialist?” I list the claims made by those attempting to present Jesus as this very thing. In part 4, I pushed back at those same out of context claims. There, I kept my contextual examinations near the texts at hand and promised at the end that I would draw back a little for a grander contextual consideration in part 5. (X You Are Here)

The Grand Context of Charity—Discipleship

This grander, broader, more comprehensive pondering, considers the goal of biblical calls for charity and the many aspects of discipleship that should be present in our charity. Life is messy, and in a messy world everything we do needs to be done with wisdom.

Charity Must Be Given Wisely

Wisdom sees the end of a matter from its beginning and considers more than just the good feelings that our actions give us. Wisdom asks, “What are the real-world, practical outcomes of this action. And wisdom knows that no good deed goes unpunished and that every cloud has a silver lining… even a mushroom cloud.

Charity with Caveats

If a starving man needs food, feed him. I’ve never denied a hungry homeless person a meal. But when I drive down the road and see a “homeless” person on every street corner, with nicer shoes than I have and a cell phone, checking begging schedules with other “homeless” people, I will not give them a penny. When a homeless person says to me, “Got a buck so I can get high?” Why no I don’t have a dollar for that. If a person is perfectly able to work and simply won’t, I have nothing for them.

Discipleship is the Most Basic Context for Giving

Biblical calls to charity do not take place outside of a larger Biblical framework of responsible discipleship. This is one of many reasons why Torah, Jesus, and the rest of the New Testament have no kinship with socialism. Biblical charity is personal. It holds the giver and receiver accountable. It involves social pressure to use charity as a “hand up not a hand out.” Yeah, I know… a bumper sticker phrase.

Lazy Giving with Self-Congratulations

I have of late had Christians trying to sound spiritual by declaring, “Jesus said give, so I give. I let God worry about the results.” Sorry, Charlie (no his name was not really Charlie) this won’t fly because there is more about charity than feeling good about giving. Charity without wisdom isn’t Christlike—it’s carelessness with a halo. Our charity must do good and not just make us feel good about what we do.

Yeah, I know… that’s a lotta work. It’s easier just to congratulate your self for being like Jesus by giving thoughtlessly… or better yet… by voting for candidates that will tax your neighbor and do the “giving” for you. That way you can be virtuous, taxed, and tucked in for Netflix by nine.

A Larger Biblical Context of Giving

Consider:

Isaiah 26:10 — “Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and do not regard the majesty of the LORD.”

Proverbs 19:19 — “A man of great wrath shall suffer punishment; for if you deliver him, you must do it again.”

Proverbs 6:6–11 — “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise!… A little sleep, a little slumber… and poverty will come on you like a thief.”

Proverbs 20:4 — “The sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”

2 Thessalonians 3:10–12 — “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat… we command such people to settle down and earn the bread they eat.”

Proverbs 19:18 — “Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on his destruction.” This pairs nicely with Hebrews 12:6–8 — “The Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.”

Foolish Giving is Anti-Discipleship

To ignore envy and greed and theft and indolence is never a loving act. Easing the pressures necessary for developing maturity and self-sufficiency is anti-discipleship. Giving endlessly and without condition, unconcerned with the perverse incentives that it offers corrupt hearts is anti-evangelism. It traps the poor in their poverty and cements the lost in their wickedness.

Again, charity like everything else the church does must be bound within the broader context of making disciples and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded.

Biblical Charity Has No Affinity with Socialism

Socialism has no such goals… it sees redistribution of wealth (except the personal wealth and power of its leaders and its administrator & enforcement classes) as an innately righteous act, without regard to the long history of ruinous effect that such wanton “robbing and giving” have on both the robbed and those they are supposed to be trying to help.

Real Outcomes Matter

The impact of the Christian’s actions on others is always a matter of concern. You cannot claim to be doing righteously when the real-world impact of your actions is the direct harm of those you claim to be helping.

You cannot claim to be doing righteously when you myopically fixate on a target for mercy without regard to how your actions impact everyone else as well. Jesus didn’t leave the 99 to the wolves when he went for the one, and wouldn’t celebrate saving the one if it killed the 99.

You cannot claim to be doing righteously when you do not even have a biblical understanding of human nature and real human need. If you get people wrong, you get almost everything wrong. And socialism has from its inception gotten people wrong. It misunderstands the source of their problems as coming from systems rather than from corrupt hearts. They are mistaken as oppressed victims when they are, almost always actually victims of their own ignorance and indolence.

I can say that about myself as well. I am responsible for most my own trouble in life. If I could figure out how, it would go a long way to empowering me to remedy many points of frustration in relationships and ministry, I’m sure.

It’s like expecting a doctor who radically misdiagnoses a patient’s illness, and applies the wrong medicine, to still cure the patient.  

Toxic Charity

A charity case whose ailments are centered in bad culture, bad values, poor choices, laziness, ignorance, and a lack of self-control will be destroyed by being made the object of artificial support.

Biblical Charity Should Be Intimate and Impactful

Biblical charity is highly personal. As localized as possible. There is mutual accountability between the giver and receiver. There should be stigma felt by the taker to prevent resting indolence. There should be discipline to break observable patterns of behavior that lead to destitution. There should be the teaching of wisdom and the sharing of knowledge, and opportunities… nay, demands… to work.

Distance Breeds Corruption

The further removed the giver is from the receiver, the greater the opportunity for graft and deceit. Human sin corrupts everything, so systems need to be in place to prevent corruption of charity itself, first as an act of discipleship, and second as an act of wise stewardship with the resources God has put at our disposal.

Don’t imagine that this isn’t going on in every centrally controlled “socialist-like” system of “charity.” These give without love that which is received without gratitude and rapidly becomes one’s due in the mind of both the giver and receiver to the injury of both.

Just so, NGOs and Western entitlement programs who operate with Socialist-like disconnection are corrupt beyond imagining. They never have the real rescue of their objects of charity as a real goal. Generations of grand-children, children, parents and grandparents all on the adopt a kid programs… Go Sally Struthers! These programs are not only being bled by indolent recipients with not incentive to change, but are also being fraudulently managed by corrupt administrators… to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year. And they do radically more harm than good through a reckless impact on the surrounding economic systems needed for overcoming poverty in every place they claim to be helping.

If Here, then Everywhere

Even with Jesus’ little band we find corruption. John himself denounces Judas as having thieving motives in his own blustering about “charity” when, in John 12:4-6, he complains that the ointment “wasted” on Jesus could have been sold for a lot of money and spent on the poor. John comments, “He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

If Then, Then Always

Now, fill that “money bag” with multiplied billions of dollars taken by force from hard working people by those with nearly irresistible power. Make the total confiscation of funds a huge percentage of that produced by now disincentivized workers. Render those funds unwatched, poorly tracked, unaccounted for and pass them through many hands across the nation and globe by people with every incentive to lie and deceive and to keep the funds flowing. Then give those funds to other people who are either non-working or underproductive who also have every incentive to lie and deceive to keep the funds flowing. Yeah… that’s just the beginning of the real situation with socialist or socialist-like programs. That is not charity. That’s not biblical.

Paul the Big Bad Meany

Let me close this discussion with an illustration… Paul’s statement to Timothy about his own systems of charity in the churches in the larger Ephesus community. Every statement by Paul is trimmed by the ultimate goals of Biblical Charity… discipleship.

1 Timothy 5:3-14: 

• Honor widows who are truly widows.
• But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.
• She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.
• Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach.
• But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
• Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.
• But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.
• So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.

No, Jesus Was Not a Socialist

Only a fool equates socialist systems of any stripe with biblical commands for charity… even when talking about the command in Deuteronomy 14:28–29 for food stores put locally into the hands of religious leaders for an as needed distribution the local community.

Only a blind soul imagines that any of this is what Jesus or Torah or the Apostles and prophets intend with their calls for charity and their warnings about runaway selfishness and greed.

No… Jesus was NOT a socialist.

~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD