Quotes About Poverty

Maybe we're born not knowing what is and isn't valuable. Tribulation and poverty expose need, which forces the disciplines of relationship. Relationship opens the door for love and communion (great riches). Tribulation and poverty force us to rely on people. People are like a field of dirt that contains treasure. Storms wash away the dirt and expose the treasure.

The tribulation and poverty weren't the riches. They EXPOSED the riches: faith, hope, and love. Although this world burns away, writes the apostle Paul, these three will remain. Faith in Jesus, hope in Jesus, love that IS Jesus--this is treasure. The jewel exposed by the fire, the gold refined by the furnace, the treasure unearthed by the storm--treasure is found in people, and it is exposed by suffering.

Most of the people who would have apologised for Stalin in his day have now found other causes - the cultural and sexual revolution, campaigns to tax the Western poor to provide money for Africa's rich, and above all, the intolerant and puritan secular fundamentalism that gathers around the belief in madmade global warming.

If you lend money to one of My people among you who is poor, you must not act as a creditor to him; you are not to charge him interest.

You shall not deny justice to the poor in their lawsuits.

But if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two young pigeons, he may bring a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a sin offering. He must not put olive oil or frankincense on it, because it is a sin offering.

If, however, the person is poor and cannot afford these offerings, he is to take one male lamb as a guilt offering to be waved to make atonement for him, along with a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with olive oil for a grain offering, a log of olive oil,

If your brother becomes impoverished and sells some of his property, his nearest of kin may come and redeem what his brother has sold.

But if the one making the vow is too poor to pay the valuation, he is to present the person before the priest, who shall set the value according to what the one making the vow can afford.

There will be no poor among you, however, because the LORD will surely bless you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance,

If there is a poor man among your brothers within any of the gates in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, then you are not to harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother.

Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.

If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession;

You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.

The LORD sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the LORDís, and upon them He has set the world.

But when Saulís servants relayed these words to David, he replied, “Does it seem trivial in your sight to be the son-in-law of the king? I am a poor man and lightly esteemed.”

He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.

The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from the thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.

So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

He will no longer be rich; his wealth will not endure. His possessions will not overspread the land.

His sons will seek the favor of the poor, for his own hands must return his wealth.

For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor; he has seized houses he did not build.