Rich v. poor

I’ve been listening nonstop to a CD called “CompassionArt” and I’m loving it.  I read about it a long while ago in a Christianity Today magazine, but I finally got a hold of a copy.  To anyone who hasn’t yet heard about it, check out http://www.compassionart.tv/ and no, I have no idea why it’s a “.tv” ending, I don’t even really know what that means, to tell the truth.

The CD has made me consider why it is we love poor people so much.  I hope that doesn’t sound callous, but the truth is, I’m not poor.  I’m not obscenely wealthy, but I’m not destitute, either.  And I could mention all the times where we’re told to care for the sick and hungry (“When I was hungry, you fed Me…” etc.) but a huge part of being a Christian is ministering to the broken.  Not just the outwardly needy, but the inwardly needy.

But the outwardly needy are the most receptive to Christ’s power, it’s true.  Which is why I’ve never seen a CD or book dedicated to the wealthy, I suppose.  In fact, I recently was looking through a book called “The Message of the New Testament” by Mark Dever which spent a while discussing the wealthy and what that all means (and why Jesus didn’t come to minister to the wealthy).  Which is important, obviously, since the Bible does talk a great deal about the wealthy and camels and needles and the selling of possessions.

For all the places in the Bible where there are qualifiers (or non-qualifiers?) such as "neither bond nor free" "Jew nor Greek" "male nor female" I can't seem to think of very many equalizers about the rich.  In the Old Testament the rich and poor both had to give the same amount to the tresury, and in a day to come, the rich and poor will both get Beast-marks on their foreheads, but other than a few potential verses in Psalms or something, I can't really think of any further verses to that effect.

But it’s odd to me, how much we leave that corner of the world untouched.  It’s much easier for us to give a gospel tract to the hobo who will appreciate having something to read, but the wealthy person is usually going to reject you.  So we usually don’t even try to minister in that direction.  It’s much easier to go to the parts of the world where we feel we have something tangible to offer.

I’m not sure if this made sense.  And truth be told, I’m not exactly one to talk, since I don’t do much evangelizing on either end of the spectrum.  And I don’t want to be taken the wrong way, either—I love the CompassionArt CD, and I love what they’re doing in that regard.  I appreciate all the ministries to those who need it, and I’m not saying that nobody goes out to the wealthy.  What I am saying is that I find our gravitational tendencies curious.

Or maybe I’m just rambling and not saying anything at all.  Oh well.