How should Christians respond to global poverty and hunger?

Help go. Help by your encouragement, by your prayers, by your purse, as guided of the Master. It is a sin for any Christian to live in luxury. The richest is but a steward of his possessions to the Lord. Everywhere the need is great, at your very door, in the next street, town, country, or across the seas. Money is the smallest help in one way of all. Prayer, sympathy, encouragement greatly help, and if these are not lacking, neither will the means necessary for carrying on the work be wanting.

Help go . Help by your encouragement, by your prayers, by your purse, as guided of the Master. It is a sin for any Christian to live in luxury. The richest is but a steward of his possessions to the Lord. Everywhere the need is great, at your very door, in the next street, town, country, or across the seas. Money is the smallest help in one way of all. Prayer, sympathy, encouragement greatly help, and if these are not lacking, neither will the means necessary for carrying on the work be wanting.

(3) Help go. Help by your encouragement, by your prayers, by your purse, as guided of the Master. It is a sin for any Christian to live in luxury. The richest is but a steward of his possessions to the Lord. Everywhere the need is great, at your very door, in the next street, town, country, or across the seas. Money is the smallest help in one way of all. Prayer, sympathy, encouragement greatly help, and if these are not lacking, neither will the means necessary for carrying on the work be wanting.

Help in material need was a much greater necessity in former times when there were no social benefits, no unemployment benefits, no pensions, etc. But how much need is there still today, if we only open our eyes and hearts to it! How much good can be done even today, if only we are prepared to put our hands in our pockets! (see Gal. 2:10; Eph. 4:28; James 2:15-17; 1 John 3:17).

The Lord Jesus however does not say, "Ye shall do good to the poor," but: "when thou doest alms..." He does not give a commandment. As He mentions alms first of all He wants to tell us that He cares for the needy. Therefore we too ought to have open hearts for them.

Practical, very practical, fellowship this. It did not button up its pockets and say, “be ye warmed and filled,” but liberally distributed to them and to all, thus glorifying God and comforting His tried and suffering people in their extremity.

You should do likewise. Be ever ready to share what you have with others, especially with those who have need. This kind of division does not always result in leaving you with less than you had at first. "There is that scatters, and yet increases" (Prov. 11:24). As the Lord said, "There is no man that has left house or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God's sake who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting" (Luke 18:29-30).

On the one hand, the Word of God shows us that our giving can be done directly. A believer sees a need and helps there and then. We also think of 1 John 3:17: But whoso may have the world’s substance, and see his brother having need, and shut up his bowels from him, how abides the love of God in him?’ Another example is the woman in Proverbs 31 — verse 20 says of her: ‘She stretcheth out her hand to the afflicted, and she reacheth forth her hands to the needy’.

For whatever reason one might be poor, the Lord did not excuse Israel from the responsibility of helping with material support. Some have dared to say that if one is poor it is his own fault, but whether we think this way or not, it is our fault if we fail to give him help. This was true in Israel, and it is fully true in our dispensation of grace. The apostles were united in their urging this liberality (Gal.2:10), and Paul devotes two chapters to this important matter (2 Cor.8 and 9).

So, in verse 8 Israelites are told to "open your hand wide," without the least grudging, to willingly lend a poor person whatever he needs. This was under law, and the person was responsible to pay it back if he was able, though the debt would be released in the seventh year. In the New Testament believers are encouraged to give, not merely to lend, for if we give as to the Lord, the Lord will take full account, as is seen even in Proverbs 19:17: "He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and He will pay him back what he has given." Therefore, how good it is to gladly give with no strings attached. Faith can surely depend simply on the Lord.

The suggestion of the apostles was wise enough perhaps as a measure of purely human policy. Commonsense, that much vaunted factor in the affairs of life, could invent nothing better than self-help as a means of supplying the needed food under the exceptional circumstances. The proposed scheme relieved the disciples of any responsibility as to the welfare of the people, but it fell woefully short of the compassionate spirit inculcated in the law. "If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God gives thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: but thou shalt surely open thine hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth. … Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt surely open thine hand unto thy brother, to thy needy, and to thy poor, in thy land" (Deut. 15:7-11)

The communication to the need of others on the part of those who have ability to supply the need,