Mark Horne | On December 5, 2019

People with means should help those without means. This has not been affirmed by many societies in history. But with the spread of Christianity the idea has taken root that we all have an obligation to help others.

Weirdly, this idea has come to be associated with another one: that capitalism is evil or at least morally questionable. Helping others is thought to conflict with wanting to make money.

This is morally and logically backwards. If you don’t make money, then how can you have anything worth sharing with someone in need?

Back many centuries before the time of Christ, Solomon associated diligent labor with helping the poor while laziness meant one was unable to help:

The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labor.
All day long he craves and craves,
but the righteous gives and does not hold back (Proverbs 21:25-26; ESV).

The Apostle Paul claimed that Jesus taught the same doctrine and appealed to this teaching to justify his own behavior as a model for all Christians to follow:

You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:34, 35; ESV).

Luke, the author of Acts, shows us what Paul was talking about when he said his “hands ministered to” his “necessities.”

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks (Acts 18:1-4; ESV).

Apparently, Paul’s lifestyle appeared to be substandard in the eyes of some of his Christian critics (I Corinthians 9). But Paul pushed back, insisting that his lifestyle was a model that others would do well to imitate.

All the evidence we have from Paul’s writings is that he considered this work ethic, and his way of making a living and providing for the needy, an essential part of his ministry and message. For example:

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12; ESV).

Mark Horne

Mark Horne has been studying the intersection of ethics and the economy since high school. He was raised in Liberia, West Africa and Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, as well as on the Atlantic coast of Florida. He graduated from Houghton College in 1989 and from Covenant Theological Seminary in 1998. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America and has pastored churches in Washington state and Oklahoma, as well as serving as an assistant pastor in St. Louis.