It is strange how normal it is for us 21^st century Christians to assume, just like the society around us, that if anybody needs help it is the duty of the government to provide that help. It’s hard to think about life in any other way. If people can not afford rent we expect government rent subsidies. If food is lacking that is what food stamps are for. Is college too expensive? You get the idea.  I was going to make a long list but I might start to sound like a guy that has a bone to pick (hmmm—USDA? just kidding). But I am not kidding when I ask about the morality of all this give away.

The concept of giving, in general, is not in question. God tells us to give to those in need. Consider though the morality of the government giving us all these many gifts. It sure is difficult to think of that killer Biblical example where God commands the government to be the provider of anything. Outside of defending the borders and keeping courts, and order in the streets, the Biblical examples or commands get pretty thin, even gossamer. I am searching here for a word that means so thin you can not see it.

One reason to call into question the morality of government giving is that the government does not have anything to give. All it can do is take by force from one voting block and pass off what it takes to another more favored voting block. Now that is hardly a Biblical definition of giving and you can see where it stretches the definition, well, maybe thinner than gossamer. Giving other people’s money is not giving at all. It is stealing and would be recognized as such in any other context. For instance, if I grabbed your wallet and threw the contents to a crowd you could have me arrested as a thief. The only real difference between me or the government doing that evil deed is that the government passed a law saying it is OK for them to do so. Then of course, there is also the little matter that they can shove the barrel of a rifle under your chin if you protest too hard and nobody arrests them for it. However, their ability to do the deed is not proof that what they are doing is virtuous. God still gets to define good and evil.

In the book of Ephesians Paul wrote, “Let the thief no longer steal but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.” Our government violates every phrase of this command when it practices its give-away programs. The thief is supposed to stop stealing and start laboring, meaning to produce something of value. You can labor by working at a soft hands trade but you cannot labor by sucking funds out of other people’s accounts and transferring them to your friends. The moral connotations of labor are more defining than the amount of sweat shed. Paul’s phrase was ‘doing honest work’ not doing hard work. God does tell us to work hard but working hard at stealing is a contradiction in terms.

Since we are all a bunch of sinners we are naturally tempted to steal rather than labor. When our government steals from one and gives to another it is doing what comes naturally.The natural man (group of men) steals because it yields to temptation not because it is driven by noble principle. We are tempted to believe that man’s ways are higher than God’s ways. If our hearts are hard God’s word will not convince us differently. We will have it and do it our way as a society even if it breaks us financially. We will end poverty in our time even if it forces us to throw God’s whole word to the wind. We know we are a nation of thieves but we don’t care. Even the church does not care. The church shows its implicit agreement with our godless society by its silence on this issue.

The thief is commanded to labor ‘so that he may be able to give to those in need’. The thief is supposed to stop stealing and start giving. He labors so that he has something to give. That is the very definition of noble principle. Robinhood was not noble but the reformed thief is. There is nothing high-minded or morally good about taking what is not yours and giving it away. On the other hand, the person who works and then gives away his hard- earned savings earns favor with God.

Another aspect of this whole discussion about government giving is what it does to the receiver of the ‘gift’. The Biblical direction is that we are to either labor for what we have or to receive from individuals, family, or the church. So what does it do to the receiver if the gift is given by government instead? Could it be that it fosters attitudes like laziness in the receiver since the appearance is that the gift cost nothing to anyone? Maybe it causes the receiver to relax since there is always more where that came from? “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and your poverty comes upon you as a vagabond” was how Solomon worded it. Maybe being able to receive a benefit from government releases the receiver from having to deal with those family and church members who know all too well the reason for the beggar’s condition, and thus demand life change before helping. Maybe the government take-over of needs fulfillment causes the family to become more miserly since its duties have been taken by another.

No one talks about these negative aspects of government gifting but they are real. As members of the church we need to reflect more on our duties to the brethren. We also need to stop putting our hands out to receive what is not ours. May we be given the moral strength to obey God in these things.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

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