The Poor Have Hope

But he saves the needy from the sword of their mouth and from the hand of the mighty. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.
Job 5:15-16
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The Poor Have Hope
In a world where so many people are struggling and so many live everyday below the poverty line it can be hard to reconcile God’s care and love for His people and the state of human deprivation.  In the explanation to fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer Luther explains that God gives daily bread to all people, even to evil people.  And this we certainly see.  Those who abuse others and their power, those who live on the wrong side of the law often are the wealthiest of all.  Yet we see many good and God-fearing people barely making ends meet.  How can this be?  What hope do the poor have in God?  In the eyes of Eliphaz it simply means these people have brought their poverty upon themselves.  Their sin has caused them to suffer and if they would only repent then their suffering would be gone.  This is often what passes for Christian theology today, with charlatans selling the prosperity gospel. And far too many have bought into it.  But God does not promise sunshine and rainbows because we are His followers.  In fact, it is just the opposite, “you will be hated by all for my name's sake” (Matthew 10:22b) and “if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:19) For the world there is no room for a theology of the cross.  Yet, though we do not have a promise of the avoidance of suffering, through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection we do have the promise He will see us through it.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
(2 Corinthians 1:3-4)