What is the True Poverty Line?
- Details
- Created: Friday, 01 November 1996 18:17
- Written by Tom Lipp
Zero degrees Celsius, the freezing point of water, is the universal benchmark for gauging temperature. The equator is the starting point for measuring latitude, just as the prime meridian is the standard for longitude. Altitude begins at sea level. And the :”A” note at 550 hertz is able to synchronize an entire orchestra.
All these are reference points for common measure. But is there any benchmark for personal finances?
Clearly God provides much more than the basic needs, yet Jesus defines these basic needs to be a daily provision of food and clothing.Some have suggested that a person is financially free when they have investments worth ten times their required annual income. But what is their required annual income?
Unless we identify an immovable benchmark in the area of personal finance, we will be easily confused and potentially never satisfied.
A few years ago, the newspapers contained stories about the poverty line being lowered by the federal government.
Critics said it was merely a trick -- an attempt to play with statistics -- so that fewer people would be found below the poverty line.
But does such a line really exist? If so, a more authoritative source is required than the whims of elected governments or ever-shifting public opinion.
In researching the Scriptures, I discovered to my surprise a universal, international and apolitical “poverty Line.”
It applies to all generations since the Scriptures are living, active and will never pass away.
What is this biblical poverty line?
When someone does not have sufficient food and clothing for a particular day, they are below the poverty line.
We read in 1 Timothy 6:8, “And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.”
Being above the poverty line is having one’s daily requirement of food and clothing satisfied.
I am NOT suggesting that we should all live at this “zero degree” level. But God has established this point as a benchmark for the measurement of our personal finances.
In Matthew 6, Jesus speaks about the birds which do not sow or reap, yet god feeds them daily, and the flowers which do not work, yet God decorates them. Christ identifies food and clothing as the basic needs which God provides to those who seek Him first.
Clearly God provides much more than the basic needs, yet Jesus defines these basic needs to be a daily provision of food and clothing.
In Proverbs 30:7-9, we are advised to ask for only enough food for the day. It warns against having too little, lest we be tempted to steal, or having too much, lest we lose our dependence on God.
This is echoed in the Lord’s Prayer, where the only material item Jesus instructs us to pray for is our daily provision of food (Matthew 6:11).
Being above the poverty line is simply having excess above daily food and clothing. The good news is that all of us in Alberta live above this level.
Sufficient food and clothing for the day as the baseline for financial need has enormous implications for personal strategy and for government policy.
If we can seek to be emotionally content at this level, we can obtain full freedom from consumerism. Sometimes we forget that compared with the rest of the world and past generations, even three meals a day is luxury.
Many nations would love to live just below what the Social Services department deems to be the poverty line.
Using God’s benchmark will make us more grateful for all that we have. We will become more generous and focused in our charitable donations. It will also give us the ability to resist the pressure to keep up with the Joneses.
Whenever we use society as a reference, we lose our distinctiveness as followers of Christ. We have no rest. And we end up building our foundation on shifting sand.
For example, nowadays a household without a phone or a TV would be deemed to be poor. But in the 1950s, this was not the case. Phones or TVs have nothing to do with real poverty.
Financial freedom is much more than just a numbers game. It begins with attitude.
There are millionaires who are less financially free than you or I . And nothing annoys a rich man more than to see a poor man genuinely happy.
If we can learn to be content with food and clothing, then we have enormous gain which, by the way, is non-taxable.
