Obedience to God Irradicates Poverty

Will there always be the poor among us? Yes.

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, "You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land." (Deuteronomy 15:11)

For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. (Matthew 26:11)

Does that mean we should do nothing for the poor? No. The more we obey God, the more we should love and serve the poor because obedience to God is meant to irradicate poverty.

But there will be no poor among you; for the LORD will bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess -- if only you will strictly obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. (Deuteronomy 15:4-5)

This passage seems like a direct contradiction of the earlier passages. Moses claims that there will be no poor among us if and only if we obey God. Why would obedience to God lead to irradication of poverty? Because God's laws command us to love and give to the poor.

If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. (Deuteronomy 15:7-8)

If obedience to God leads to irradication of poverty, as the world was meant to be, yet Jesus and Moses reminds us that the poor will always be among us, that can only mean that while on this earth, we will never be able to truly follow God's laws. If we were able to fully follow God's laws of loving the poor, there would be no poor left.

So, God's laws are good because they teach us to love the poor. Yet the very attempt at following God's laws shows us our own brokenness and inability to love the poor (Romans 7:13). God's laws are meant to point us to the fact that we need Christ (Jude 1:24) -- a Savior who loves the poor and enables us to truly follow God!