I don’t think that there is much argument in the church over whether Christians should be compassionate to the needy. Plenty of verses deal with this, from the the command to be generous to the poor in Deuteronomy 15:

I command you, saying, “You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.” (Deuteronomy 15:11)

To the release from slavery in the same chapter:

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. 13 And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. 14 Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. (Deuteronomy 15:12-14)

To the command to do good “to all people”:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:10)

Probably the main verse which calls Christians to care for the poor and needy is:

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)

In fact, this point cannot be stressed enough. Consider the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities utterly destroyed for Lawlessness of every kind, but see what caused them to be given over to their own sinful ways, which ultimately led to their complete destruction:

Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

Throughout the Bible there are commands to Christians to care for the poor, to care for the needy, and especially, to care for the widow and orphan. So I don’t think it’s useful at all, or correct, to argue that the poor are “undeserving”, or that, since they wasted their lives in unhealthy ways that we are not required to help them. “Let us do good to all people”, it says.

In arguing for public health-care, many Christians focus entirely on this point, and I think this is due to the churches recent lack of involvement in caring for the needy. This lack of involvement has not always been the case, many hospitals were at one time largely funded by churches—usually a whole denomination would pool resources together, since a single church would not have the necessary backing—as is evidenced by such largely known hospitals as the Methodist Hospital common to many towns, among others.

But a distinction must be made, for in reading various blog posts I noted that many Christians say that a government health care system is an acceptable substitute for Christians helping the poor. In fact, one blogger said that it was right to fund health care from taxes, because taxes were equatable with tithing:

“So not only is universal health care right, but it is right to fund it out of taxes (“tithes”).” (Khanya)

This equating of taxes with tithes is certainly esoteric, and most assuredly wrong: Biblically, tithe was always directed toward the church and never toward a government. Taxes of various kinds were levied throughout the whole of the Bible, but those funds always went to the government, while the church has always been the one commanded to care for the poor.

Governments may or may not be able to successfully assist the poor, in some countries it is done within a tolerable degree, but in other countries it is done so poorly that the whole idea should be scrapped. This inconsistency only serves as a reminder that our view of whether a government should do something cannot be based on whether a government is able to do something, or on how well the government can accomplish it. Our standard must be the Bible, and it alone.

Which brings me to the most important point: Public health care is entirely consistent with a theology that rejects the authority of the Bible to the area of civil governance. This point cannot be stressed enough, and will, I hope serve to bring attention to the fact that modern “Christianity” has rejected the Bible as the ultimate authority in every area of life.

Most people who argue against the public health care bill (even most Christians) do so from humanist principles. “It will never work, governments are too bloated.” “Taxing the people to pay for irresponsible behavior only yields more irresponsible behavior.” The list of quotes grows tall rather quickly, but all of them are lacking a true and consistent Biblical approach—all of them rely only on man-centered logic.

The arguments supporting public health care are only slightly better, and are marked frequently by such statements as “I believe…” and “I don’t like…”. At best, they might say something like “Jesus cared for the poor and sick, therefore we also should”, or perhaps “the general theme of the Bible is to care for those less fortunate”. This statement seems to summarize the whole argument:

The Gospels overflow with stories of Jesus caring for people in need–not only the fortunate few, but whole gatherings of people–hungry masses, gaggles of children, and scores of the infirm. In one instance, Jesus healed too many to count (Luke 4:40). If we take Jesus seriously, then our obligations to the naked, hungry, beaten, suffering, and vulnerable are hard to deny. (Washington Post, Aana Marie Vigen)

This argument, if only this section is analyzed, cannot be refuted. Jesus cared for the needy, for the sick, for the poor. As mentioned at the beginning, Christians are commanded quite clearly and in multiple passages to care for the needy. However, the argument goes “proof A, therefore B”. More specifically, “Christians must help the needy, therefore governments must help the needy”.

But this argument is entirely illogical as defined–it would be just as reasonable to say “foxes need food, therefore computers need food”. There is no necessary connection between the two, and the argument is particularly interesting when it is noted that the people arguing this point are also the same group of people who argue in favor of the “separation of church and state”.

Summary:

In part one we see that the Bible is ultimately clear that it is an individuals responsibility to care for the poor and needy. This personal responsibility is shown throughout all scripture, from James 1:27 stating that we must “visit orphans and widows in their trouble”, to Deuteronomy 15:11 which says “you shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land”. We also saw that the general argument for government control of “caring for the poor and needy” is illogical (although to be sure, other more careful arguments do exist) and faulty.

In the next part, I hope to explore more thoroughly the Biblical arguments in support of government run health care, and the theological errors (some of them stemming from clear heresy) which drive these arguments. Finally, since we apparently now have government run health care, I hope to present some Biblical principles for how we as Christians can go forward.

These alternate methods included the “induced pluripotent stem cells” (IPSC), which can be retrieved from living adults, from skin, fat, and even some of the tissue hiding in the nose. The IPSC research has been the most promising, and avoids the ethical and moral issue of embryo destruction.

Obama’s annulment of the federal ban on embryonic stem cell research has been met with a great deal of anger from the pro-life community, for understandable reasons, since the harvesting of embryonic stem cells almost always comes at the cost of the death of the still-forming baby.

Additionally, adult stem cell research has made huge contributions to medicine, contributing to significant and serious potential cures for things ranging from sickle cell anemia to fibromyalgia and paralysis. Many in the scientific community are presumably upset over the removal of federal funding, although the few I attempted to contact could not respond in time for this writing.

Overall, the annoyance of the pro-life party is focused on two things, namely, the approval of actual embryonic stem cell research, and the removal of funding for other alternate studies in stem cell uses: Adult stem cell research should be funded, they argue, because it is less ethically dangerous than embryonic stem cell research.

It is not my intention to disparage the pro-life movement, I support them in their mission of removing the abortion industry. However, while I am fully in agreement with the dispute against allowing and funding embryonic stem cell research at the cost of a human life, I am also against the governmental funding of adult stem cell research. The government has no authority to take my money to fund such research in the first place, and we as Christians should be pushing to remove federal funding from both embryonic and adult stem cell research.

The Bible does not give the government unlimited authority over it’s citizens, in fact the role of the government is quite clear in many verses–the most-used verse being Romans 13 which says that the purpose of a ruler is to be a “terror … to the evil” and that if you do evil you should “be afraid; for he bears no the sword in vain.”

That is, the governments role is not of a provider, but of an enforcer. Enforcing the law of the Bible, laid out in the first five books, was the role of the government in the Old Testament and it is still the role of government, although it is monumentally failing at this role.

Many people oppose the idea of the Old Testament government system as a model for an ideal government, so let me explain a few details and thoughts concerning the subject.

Most Christians recognize that the Bible is a source of guidelines for our behavior, but question it’s use in forming governmental decisions. The main question which I would have is, if the Bible cannot direct our political views, what should? Will it be the latest opinion of the political scientists? My point, which I hope is clear, is that if we do not rest our political views on true Biblical arguments our views will never last, and are often detrimental.

Throughout the entire Old Testament, from the very founding of civil government starting in 1 Samuel 14, through Israel’s entire history, the government had a specific limited role and was not allowed to step out of that role. Quite clearly, the government stepped out of it’s role at times, but always was required ultimately to answer to God. The establishment of the king was a planned even; 1 Samuel 12:14 says that if the people and the king follow God’s Law they will be blessed.

When we in America, or in any other country, want the government to fund things such as medical research, we are yielding more authority than they should have. It is not the duty of the government to work for the physical health of the citizen, and every country that has tried this has failed to do so. It is, instead, the duty of the government to punish evil by using just punishment described in the Bible.

In my personal conversations with many pro-life individuals I have found that the goal of stopping abortion comes first, even before understanding or following any of God’s laws concerning government authority. For example, while a majority of pro-lifers are Christian, they would be hard pressed to present a solid Biblical argument for or against the death penalty, in fact many would be hard pressed to present a solid Biblical argument on why abortion, the very thing they are fighting, is wrong.

I don’t say all this to be hyper-critical, or to assume myself better, but rather as a calling out to the Christian pro-life movement. I have heard many an argument against abortion that boils down to “just being wrong”, but if that is the strongest argument we pro-lifers can make we are very bad off. Even further, if we can only apply the Bible to our personal lives and not to guiding governmental policies, we don’t have a leg to stand on when we argue things like homosexual marriages not being legally allowed.

Summary: Read your Bible with a view of politics as well. Know why laws and governmental actions are allowed or restricted, from a strictly Biblical sense.

Extra: My eyes were opened up to the very practical way the Bible guides government policy when I read R.J. Rushdoony’s book, “Law and Liberty”. If the ideas of Biblical government intrigue you, try reading this book as a primer to the subject. Each chapter is roughly 4-8 pages long, and can be read in a twenty minute stretch, twice that if you have to look up words in the dictionary.