Remember The Poor

Andrew Wilson summarises a new stance of Bruce Longenecker on Galatians 2.10. Traditional understandings of this passage viewed it as a call from the Apostles to Paul to remember the poor within the Jerusalem church (and therefore the application for us today is to remember the poor within the church community) but Longenecker argues that it is actually a call for Paul to bring the very Jewish ethic of remembering the poor in our geographic communities (Isaiah 58 etc) as he goes on gentile mission and to ensure that that the new gentile converts retain this vital element of what it means to be the people of God (and therefore the application today is for us to care for the poor in our local geographic communities.

Have a read of the article here http://whatyouthinkmatters.org/blog/article/remember-the-poor-why-simon-pettit-was-right

In terms of application for us today, this obviously isn’t the only verse in the New Testament regarding Christians caring for the poor and it seems that whichever way you read this verse that from the rest of the New Testament we are to both care for the poor within our church communities (Acts 4.32-35 & Matthew 25.40) and in our local communities (Luke 10.25-37 – the Good Samaritan story).

It is great to get the exegesis right, it is even better (and more important in this case) to get our practice right