Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want…” (Mark 14:7). Does this mean there is no cure for poverty? Isn’t Jesus a bit defeatist?

Jesus is alluding to a passage in Deuteronomy: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land” (Deut 15:11). And yet just a few verses earlier he affirmed: “… There will be no poor among you… if only you will strictly obey the voice of Yahweh you God…” (Deut 15:4-5).

Jesus certainly didn’t live as a defeatist. We might say he was both a realist and an idealist. The passage he quotes shows us that poverty can be conquered—but only when people follow God’s laws. Within the commonwealth of ancient Israel, this was a possibility. But outside the Kingdom of God, eradicating poverty does not seem possible, given human sin and the absence of the impact of Word of the Lord. Not to say we shouldn’t try.

But why should we think there could have been no poverty in ancient Israel?

  • There was to be no long-term land acquisition, because the land belonged to God. This is the point of the Jubilee laws (Lev 25:23).
  • Loan sharking was strictly prohibited (Exod 22:25).
  • The legal system was not be titled in favor of the rich, against the poor (Exod 23:6). On this matter the prophets had much to say (Amos 2:7)!
  • Implemented consistently, the laws of Torah would have brought about the end of the institution of slavery. For example, kidnapping was a capital crime (Exod 21:16). Moreover, slaves had rights (Exod 20:10; 21:26-27; etc).
  • The Israelites were charged with caring for the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor—remembering that they too were once slaves and powerless (Deut 10:17-19).

Lived out consistently, such a system would spell the elimination of poverty!