Have you ever wrestled with that nagging question what the Bible has to say about world hunger? Or with the (equally nagging) related question as to whether our CRC’s philosophical approach to feed the hungry indiscriminately is strictly based on Biblical principles, or perhaps influenced by contemporary philosophical ideas? Whether or not you have given these subjects any thought, the fact remains that these are real life issues and important to our denomination. While the subject is complex, I write as a layman for laymen. You likely will find the article controversial; but you will also find the approach to the questions Biblical and, therefore, positive.

Searching for Biblical Principles:

When searching the Scriptures, one finds over and over again in the Old Testament, the admonition to care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger (i.e. sojourner) who resides with you (examples: Lev. 19:10; 23:22; Deut. 14:29; 26:12); but nowhere does one find that the Israelites were commanded to feed the Moabites, the Philistines, or any other “foreign” nation. Even when examining Isaiah 16:3, 4 (which appears to instruct the people of Israel to feed the outcasts of Moab) one finds that these Moabites were refugees who were trying to enter the land of Israel and as such, attempted to become “strangers who resided with the people of God,” which consequently must be fed. God’s Word, as proclaimed by Isaiah said: “do not close your borders to prevent these people from becoming strangers in your land.”

Going to the New Testament for guidance, one may become puzzled by the following: in Matt. 4:24, we read that the news about Jesus went even into all Syria and that all the ill who were brought to Him were healed. In the same way, Luke 6:17, 18, reports that the people from Tyre and Sidon who came to hear Him and to be healed, were cured. Yet when Jesus departs from His own country to go on a retreat in that same region (Tyre and Sidon –Matt. 15:21), He tells His disciples that He does not want to hear the petition from a needy woman, because: “I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). When the woman finally bows down before Him and calls Him “Lord,” He brushes her off, comparing her to a dog. Only when she shows humble trust in His mercy does He grant her her request. Is it not surprising that Jesus healed all those foreigners who had come to Him within the borders of His own land, yet at first He refused to heal this woman of the same race when she approached Him while He was outside the borders of His own land? Could it have anything to do with God’s command to treat the sojourner within your gates just as you would treat the widow and the orphan?

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), Jesus said that the man lived “sumptuously every day.” According to two Dutch and four English translations (including a linear translation), the meaning seems to be that t he rich man feasted lavishly every day. Compare these words from Jesus with Luke 12:21, when talking about another rich man, Jesus said: “So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” To be rich does not appear to be sinful in itself; we will come back to this later. Riches may even be a blessing from God. What generally is sinful is our response to riches: selfishness and greed. Back to the parable; the rich man selfishly feasted lavishly each and every day without any compassion for the poor stranger at his gate. That was a blatant transgression of God’s repeated instructions to take care of the sojourner who resided with them. To make matters worse, Lazarus was not a sojourner, but a brother (i.e., a child of Abraham). In regard to brothers, God’s Word becomes even more specific. Listen to what God says: “If there is a poor man with you, one of your brothers, in any of your towns in your land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from the poor brother” (Deut. 15:7). After flagrantly disobeying God’s command by hardening his heart and closing his hand in regard to Lazarus, the rich man finally dies and wakes up in hell seeing “brother” Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. The parable ends with Jesus having Abraham point out to the rich man that his brothers had the Law and the Prophets to listen to, just as the rich man could have done. Now we are back where we started this section. What did the Old Testament Law require? To take care of the widow, the orphan, and the sojourner who resided in Israel; and especially to be very careful not to harden hearts or close hands when a poor “brother” is involved.

Turning to the New Testament we find mentioned in many places that the churches in Asia were supporting the church in Jerusalem. One wonders: were there no poor among the non-Christian Jews in Jerusalem? Why didn’t the churches collect money for them? Why this discrimination? This (some may point out) is an argument from silence. While that cannot be denied, further study of God’s Word will reveal that there is a qualitative difference in God’s care for Christians and non-Christians.

In searching further, we find in Matt. 25:31–36, Jesus‘ discussion as to what will happen in the last days. Our judging Lord will say to the sheep: “. . . inasmuch as you did it to one of these brothers of mine, you did it unto Me.” Compare that statement with Mark 9:41 where Jesus says: “For whosoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward.” Next go to Mark 3:35, where you will find Jesus saying: “For whosoever does the will of God, he is my brother, sister and mother,” by which statement He even disassociated Himself from His own kin as far as the terminology brother, sister and mother were concerned. We find a similar statement in Matt. 12:50. There can be no doubt in our minds that our Lord is very discriminating as to whom He considers to be His “brother,” when in Matt. 25:40 He refers to “one of these brothers of mine.” Then note the absence of the word “brother” in verse 45 when He addresses the goats. Why? In view of Mark 9:41: “For whosoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as a follower of Christ, truly I say to you he shall not lose his reward,” it must be obvious that our Lord pointed to the sheep (“these”) while He was addressing the goats. To believe that the “these” referred to the goats would first of all render Mark 9:41 meaningless, while at the same time it would be suggesting that Jesus identified Himself with the goats. Of that group, we read that their names were not found in the Book of Life (Rev. 20:15) from the foundation of the world (Rev. 17:8).

In counting the term “one another” in such expressions as “love one another,” “be hospitable to one another,” “serve one another,” etc., one comes upon this expression some thirty odd times in the letters of the apostles written to the churches; or to the saints in Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Colossae and Thessalonica; or to the twelve tribes which were dispersed abroad; or to the aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, which were chosen of God. Here again, one finds t hat all these texts instruct the saints to help those who were Christians and/or the poor strangers in the land.

On the personal level: my wife and I know what real hunger is, both from experience as well as from observation. During World War II, I was a prisoner of war of the Japanese army for three and a half years and, believe me, we were hungry! My wife was in Holland during the German occupation; and especially during the hunger winter of 1944, she learned what hunger was all about. In September of 1945, right after the end of the war, I drove a truck through the streets of Singapore to pick up Indonesian and other Asian people whom we found starving along the streets. Frequently, a part of my load had died by the time I reached the Red Cross Camp. My wife, as a Red Cross Nurse, was elsewhere involved in the treatment of these poor souls. Just because we know how ugly hunger is and how hunger is not a respecter of persons or of faith, we desperately wanted to help. Yet, on the other hand, we only wanted to help in accordance with God’s revealed will. And because we did not fully understand God’s will, we struggled: “Lord, how and to what extent do you want us to help t hose poor starving nonChristian strangers in far away lands? Or shall we only feed the poor non-Christian within the borders of our country and help the poor Christians throughout the world? Please give us guidance, Lord.”

The CRC and World Hunger:

In turning to sources to enlighten me on God’s will, I also turned to a booklet published by the Christian Reformed Church entitled “And He Had Compassion On Them.” We are not told by whom this booklet was written, only that it was “based” on a report prepared for the Christian Reformed Church Synod, 1978. This statement is then followed by a list of the names of the Synodical Committee. The casual reader can easily mistake the list of the names as the persons responsible for this booklet; and perhaps they are.

I am sorry that I found the booklet to be of no help for my struggle in regard to the Christian’s responsibility in relation to world hunger. I found the booklet wanting in two areas.

The first area is the Biblical exegesis of different “proof texts” offered to prove that we must feed the hungry of the world indiscriminately. I found that in almost all cases the treatment of these Bible verses was slanted in order to prove that point. This is not meant as an indication of the author’s or authors’ personal faith or Biblical knowledge, but it shows his (their) enthusiasm for the cause. Let me cite some examples. In the treatment of THE LAW ON CHARGING INTEREST (page 26) the omission of Deut. 23:20 helps to make an easy transition from the words “If you lend money to any of my people, who is poor . . .” (page 26) to: “the prior concern of the Lord’s people must be to help the poor . . . ” (page 27). What does Deut. 23:20 say? “You may charge interest to a foreigner but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest.” By not mentioning Deut. 23:20 the reader may be left with the impression that in these passages God forbade the charging of interest to all the people of the whole world.

Another example can be found in the treatment of THE LAW CONCERNING THE SABBATH YEAR (page 27). Here we find the following sentence: “Even more remarkable, during the Sabbath year all charitable debts had to be cancelled (Deut. 15:1–6).” Verifying the context of this passage in the Bible, I read in verse 3: “from the foreigner you may extract it, but your hand shall release whatever of yours is with your brother.” This significant exception is not mentioned in the treatment of the subject; therefore, it will give any reader who does not verify the context of the passage the wrong impression. I cannot help but wonder why the author(s) passed over this discriminatory clause.

Other passages used to justify the indiscriminate feeding of the hungry of the world are: James 2:15–17, “If a brother or a sister is ill clad and in lack of daily food . . .” a little later becomes “God is concerned that the hungry be fed . . .” (page 36). Also. in the treatment of I Cor.16:1–4 (pages 35 and 36) no attempt is made to wrestle with verse 2 of that chapter: “now concerning the collections for the saints . . .” where God’s Word again limits itself to the help of the saints. All that the booklet tells us is that “Paul urged the church in Corinth to lay in store, regularly and in advance, gifts to be sent to Jerusalem;” no struggle whatsoever with the fact that the money was only to be used for the saints.

In the chapter on BEYOND THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH (page 58) the author(s) admit that “a number of passages above” speak about caring for the household of faith. The problem is that in my opinion, all the passages mentioned refer only to the household of faith, not just a number of them.

The second area in which I had problems with the booklet is that it is not written from a Reformed point of view. The first chapter WORLD HUNGER (pages 2 through 10) could have been written by any scientist (including an atheist), except by one who is committed to a Reformed world and life view. A statement like: “the basic cause of hunger, malnutrition and starvation is simply the inability to obtain food” (page 4); and “this brings us to a fundamental reason for hunger throughout the world, namely, the lack of money to buy food” (page 8) hardly can come from the pen of a scientist who totally believes in the sovereignty of God. Furthermore, the statement: “population growth concerns all of us because our spaceship Earth is finite” (page 5) one expects to find in an article published by Friends of the Earth; while a positive statement: “so although production of food is adequate at the present time, population growth will make supplies woefully inadequate in the future” (page 8) is what one would expect from the pen of a scientist who has never heard the expression “if the Lord tarries” or “D.V.,” a view against which the apostle James cautions us in his letter (James 4:13–17). Also, the booklet does not appear to be written with the Church Order in mind. Synod’s mandate was: “#9. That Synod instructs CRWRC with the assistance of other denominational agencies; along with local deacons and diaconal conferences to sponsor conferences and workshops on world hunger throughout the denomination” (page 85/appendix). In Chapter 9 of the booklet, the author(s) basically suggests to “Groups” and “SubGroups” to do the following: 1. “evaluate themselves, their families, their church, denomination and nation;” 2. “consider whether the issues raised are ones on which their own church ought to be challenged;” 3. “prepare a report” (page 73). Nowhere in the chapter is it suggested that all this is to take place under the supervision of the deacons. let alone the consistory. If the rest of the booklet had been written from a Reformed perspective. one could possibly have given the author(s) credit that such supervision was to be assumed; lacking that perspective, one can only wonder.

Another problem within this area which caused me not to accept the author’s or authors’ guidance in my struggle were sentences such as: “do we support corporations, organizations and institutions, which are built upon the backs of the poor and the hungry?” (page 72); and “by purchasing some alternative product, could we expedite the transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor?” (page 68; and “we have stated earlier that the change in lifestyle which is not accompanied by a transfer of money and/or goods to the hungry in poor nations will not relieve starvation” (page 69). These statements make me wonder as to how far the author(s) has (have) subconsciously been influenced by today’s culture, including the Marxist view promoting the desirability of the redistribution of all wealth. Where do such statements leave I Sam. 2:7, 8? “The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low and He exalts. He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap.” And in regard to Job: Were there no poor in the country when God restored Job’s fortunes and even gave him twofold? (Job 42:10); would a transfer of goods from Job to the poor to relieve starvation have been more compatible with today‘s reasoning? Statements promoting the indiscriminate redistribution of wealth make me . uneasy; they leave me with just one option: the Lord does not really work all things after the counsel of His will (Eph. 1:11); rather He has given us a world we must run ourselves and we had better roll up our sleeves and improve things by transferring money and goods from the rich to the poor.

One last point: in the Bibliography one will notice that members of the CRC are urged to become active in an organization called BREAD FOR THE WORLD (page 98). This is the organization that produced a sacrilegious and heretical litany called “Body and Bread,” which CRWRC reprinted and· published last fall in preparation for the annual day of fasting and prayer. T he publication of that litany led to an open apology by Mr. John DeHaan, Executive Director of CRWRC. in the January 1980 Outlook. Are we urged to become members of an organization capable of producing such a heresy? Actually. one really cannot blame the author(s) of the booklet; they were only following Synod 1978’s instructions: “#5. Join a national organization which will keep you informed of world hunger issues (e.g. CJL Foundation or Bread for the World)” (page 89/appendix).

(To be continued)