‘God helps those who (can’t) help themselves’

Written by Uncle Luther

Sunday, 30 August 2009 00:00

A 2005 survey shows 75 percent of Christians in the United States believe the Bible teaches “God helps those who help themselves.” That’s three-quarters of American Christians who believe this phrase is found in Scripture, a phrase that practically discounts the entire message of the Bible.

Anyone want to guess where the phrase actually comes from? Benjamin Franklin. The idea that God helps those who help themselves is an American one, but it isn’t a Biblical one. Yet, we’ve allowed this incorrect commentary on the nature of God to creep into our theology. It has gripped our belief system so much that it overtakes actual Scripture.

We would rather believe God helps the independent and the self-sufficient than to believe that Christ loves the helpless and calls us to feed the hungry. I’m not sure about your church, but I know at mine there are people who actually believe that the poor are poor by choice and that if they wanted to be rich, they would simply make money.

This philosophy is greed, not God. The God of the Bible is the savior of the helpless. He brought a group of helpless slaves out of captivity, rescued a prophet from a den of Lions, and gave His life for a world too lost in sin to find its way out. Jesus healed lepers and forgave prostitutes. These are not stories of the self-sufficient being aided by the Almighty.

But we’d rather help ourselves. We prefer to confuse our financial shrewdness with a blessing, and we call what we have earned through greed “God’s favor.” We’ve been helping ourselves for so long in this country, we don’t even remember that Jesus told us to look out for “the least of these.” Here’s a brief list of some of the things that have been going on while we’ve been helping ourselves.

39.5 percent of Americans now live below the poverty line, and this is according to the Census Bureau, statistics that were calculated before the recession.
In 2004, 20 percent of requests for emergency food assistance went unmet. These are real people who were allowed to go hungry. How much food did we let spoil in 2004?
9.6 million people in the U.S. experience hunger. 3 million of these are children.
In 2001, over 23 million Americans turned to food banks. 40 percent of these were working families.
The majority of those below the poverty line are working families. Two out of three impoverished families include one or more workers.
Almost half of all Americans will have experienced poverty at some point in their lives by the time they reach age 60.

Poverty is a real problem. There are no excuses. Jesus commands His followers to have compassion for those who are in need. They are not deadbeats. They are not lazy. They are people in need of Christ-like love. These are people who cannot help themselves, but whom God has called His people to help.

This is not a political issue. It is not a debate about whether or not government should provide aid. That is irrelevant if we call ourselves Christians. Regardless of what you believe about the role of government in fighting poverty, as a follower of Christ, you are commanded by the One who’s name you claim to do something about this problem.

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