Freedom

1. My Brother’s Keeper: Doesn’t the Bible teach we are our “brother’s keeper”?

Consider: Genesis 4:9 “Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. “

Analysis: Cain had already killed his brother Abel when he gave this reply to God. Therefore, is it ridiculous to claim this statement focuses on charity!

2. Sermon on the Mount: Doesn’t Jesus teach aid to the poor here?

Consider: Matthew 5:7; 42 says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy;” and “Give to him that asks.”

Analysis: While the Sermon on the Mount expounds the Ten Commandments, Jesus extols personal responsibility for the needy, but never proposes any socialist, ie state delivered, answers to charity.

3. The Good Samaritan: Here, two Hebrews and a non-Jew Samaritan passed a man beaten by robbers. Only the Samaritan stopped to help. Doesn’t this establish biblical socialism?

Consider: Luke 10:36-37 Christ asked, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”…” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”“

Analysis: Here, Jesus urges his disciples to offer personal aid to the helpless. Does this task therefore become a responsibility for the government, despite Rome never being mentioned in context?

4. Believer’s Held a Socialist “Common Purse” in Acts, Right?: Doesn’t this passage prove the Apostles shared all goods and were therefore socialists?!

Consider: Acts 4:32-35 “All the believers were one in heart and mind. None claimed his possessions as his own, but shared all they had…There was none needy among them. When those owning lands or houses sold them, they brought sale money and put it at the apostles’ feet; distributed to any in need.”

Analysis: If the first Church’s generosity was private and voluntary, is this the same as by government fiat? Further, doesn’t socialism exist by only by government intervention?

Later in Acts, when Ananias sold property, yet lied about the price, to secretly horde some money, God killed him. Acts 5:3-4, Peter says, ““Ananias, how is it…you kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?”“

This passage shows the Apostles definitively practiced private charity of free will voluntary giving, based upon personal ownership. Is this not opposite the definition of socialism? And under socialism, isn’t it true individuals can’t decide what property to donate, but government confiscates what it decides to?!

5. Isn’t Biblical Charity a Kind of Socialism? Doesn’t historical Biblical charity reveal a model that any just government can follow?

Consider: Leviticus 19:9-10 ” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.”

Also: Jesus says in Luke 14:13-14, “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

And: 1 John 3:17 “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?”