In our winter 2025 Recommended Books post, senior contributor Jesse F. Owens praised Alex DiPrima’s Spurgeon and the Poor: How the Gospel Compels Christian Social Concern for its call to Christian social action. His laudatory summary caught my eye. These kinds of exhortations are exactly what we need to bring before our fellow believers.
We need to remember that the second great commandment (Mk. 12:31) calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and not simply as a means to bring them to Christ. This command does not mean we are unconcerned about sharing the gospel. Rather, it means we must meet the physical needs of our neighbors out of kindness and mercy because we care about them as people, regardless of whether they ever show interest in Christ. After all, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, ESV), even though many people will never accept Him as Lord.
Even so, some well-meaning Christians interpret Scripture’s explicit prescriptions to care for the poor as Biblical supports for state-mandated wealth-redistribution. Often, they are motivated by a real and legitimate concern for the good of the poor. However, their calls for various forms of socialism or a large welfare state reflect a poor handling of the text. In this post, we will review a few of the passages that are used to argue for state-mandated wealth redistribution and offer a rebuttal.
The Witness of Scripture
Some point to Deuteronomy 14:28–29 as a model for wealth redistribution programs. Here, God instructed the Israelites to bring the tithe of their crops on every third year to store it up in their towns for the Levites, sojourners, widows, and orphans to access. This triennial gift was a variation on the annual tithe that each family was to bring to the place God set aside for them to gather to worship Him (Shiloh and then Jerusalem). They would eat the tithe before God and share with the Levites who ministered before God and had no land of their own. The Israelites had been invited to share a meal with God. They would offer sacrifices, which was to offer up a portion of the meal to God, and then they would eat. Every third year, the Levites would receive the tithe because they did not have an inheritance in the land. They would eat what had been given throughout the following three years and offer it to the poor and the sojourner in the land as it was needed.
While the people were instructed to make these donations in towns across Israel, rather than at Shiloh or Jerusalem, they were not state programs of benevolence. Rather, they were localized benevolence programs offered through a religious institution: the Levites. Furthermore, God told them to pursue this practice so that they might be blessed in the land, but He did not issue any punishment for disobedience. That is, it was elective. Clearly, God would not bless them if they disobeyed, but the state was not instructed to use force on those who disobeyed.
The Sabbatical year commanded in Deuteronomy 15 and the year of jubilee detailed in Leviticus 25 are also popular references for those calling for welfare programs. However, these passages provide a system for dealing with debt in society rather than the redistribution of wealth. All societies need a system for dealing with a debtor who has defaulted on their loan. Under the Law, debtors were to be released from their debts every seventh year. It is also interesting to note that this clearing of debts did not apply to foreigners (Deut. 15:3); their debts would remain. This system was designed to work in a slave economy where defaulting on loans led to debt slavery, and it was connected to the covenantal promise of land for the Israelites.
Some aspects of this system might be applicable to our democratic-republican form of government, but it might not work quite as well in our particular context. Our bankruptcy system addresses this social need with justice and, perhaps, even gives more support to the debtor than the system laid out in the Law. Regardless, this passage is about defaulting on debts, not redistributing wealth. Therefore, it does not support redistribution schemes.
One other Old Testament passage relating to benevolence comes from God’s expectation for the Israelites to leave the edges and corners of the fields untouched along with the gleanings (Lev. 19:9; 23:22). However, this passage is clearly a call to personal, private benevolence. The grain from the fields was not gathered up by the state and redistributed. In fact, the poor had to work to acquire their food. Ruth had to go out into the fields to gather the grain for Naomi and herself (Ruth 2:2). Plus, this practice was voluntary. The state did not give oversight to this command. It was a religious duty to their neighbors to offer the edges and gleanings for the poor in the community.
Lastly, let us look at the most commonly cited passage used as Scriptural support for redistribution of wealth: Acts 4:32–37. Here, Luke tells us about the early church’s serious commitment to providing for poor Christians. Many take his statement that “no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common” (4:32b) as a description of communal property ownership. However, that reading of the passage is not a careful one.
Luke says that their property “belonged” to them but was generously shared with anyone who asked for assistance. Property ownership was not abolished or transformed into community ownership. Rather, the congregation was characterized by extreme generosity and was willing to share out of whatever they had to help those who were in need in their congregation. They sold lands and properties and gave the proceeds to the apostles to distribute as it was needed. However, this practice was not the systematic redistribution of wealth aimed at diminishing wealth inequality and providing a regular income to the poor. Rather, the wealthy were giving out of their abundance to provide intermittent assistance to those in need. Also, the wealthy were not necessarily selling all of their property to share. Some may have sold everything they had to give to the poor, but this passage does not clearly state that they all engaged in such radical generosity. Lastly, the system the early church developed revolved around the church, not the state.
Welfare Programs or Local Benevolence
If Scripture so clearly calls on us to give generously to the poor both individually and corporately through the church and other voluntary associations, why not do the same through the state? Having a state welfare system is a less ideal way to meet the needs of the poor and falls prey to numerous unintended consequences.[1] As a result, some people are truly helped by the welfare system, but many more find themselves trapped in intergenerational poverty and broken homes. Furthermore, this system of addressing poverty leads the poor to look to the state for help rather than to their neighbors.
Where massive welfare systems have been put into action, they have not actually served to alleviate poverty. Instead, the economies shrank with less wealth for everyone, and the poor suffered the most. On the other hand, free market economies with small or non-existent welfare systems have tended to grow economies that spread wealth throughout society, though in an unequal distribution.
Some have noted that churches and local civic associations are not currently doing enough to help the poor. As a result, we may have to rely on the state for poverty relief. However, the reduced social activity of churches and civic associations is largely the result of the governments’ growing influence in the twentieth century. When the state sets itself up as the provider of safety and identity, it destroys the community and atomizes the individual.[2]
Unfortunately, the modern world with mass migration both locally and internationally makes building healthy and stable communities especially challenging. However, it would be much better to work to rehabilitate and support local community than to turn to state solutions to address poverty.
We could list numerous examples of benevolent services failing to address the needs of the poor in our community. After all, we live in a fallen world where all of our best plans and goals meet with only limited success. Some suggest that this inherently imperfect situation gives us cause to embrace less than ideal policies, like state mandated wealth redistribution. However, just because we could use those means to address poverty in a fallen world does not mean that we should.
Conclusion
After the Jews returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, they asked the prophet Zechariah if they should continue the fasts they had kept during the seventy years of exile. God’s response highlighted their confusion about what He desired of them. He was never interested in fasting for the sake of fasting. Instead, He had always simply wanted the Jews to follow the instructions of the former prophets to “show kindness and mercy to one another,” including offering loving care for the poor (Zech. 7:4–10). We have the same call on our lives. To ignore the suffering of the poor in our midst is a horrible sin, as Charles Spurgeon taught. However, our concern for the poor should not lead us to replace individual and communal benevolence with state-mandated redistribution plans.
[1] The inescapable nature of unintended consequences for all actions is magnified exponentially by the immense scope of state programs. See James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
[2] For an excellent explanation of how large states work to destroy community coherence and loyalty, see William Gairdner, The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree (New York: Encounter, 2015).
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