Comments: The Good News is preached to the poor

In Jesus' day, religion was widely viewed as the purview of the rich. Wealth, it was taught, was a gift from God, given in return for special righteousness or favor. Thus, people were thought to be rich because they were especially religious, and were presumably religious because they were rich.

The poor, who made up an overwhelming majority of the population, were largely overlooked in the transaction. The religious leaders of the day catered to their wealthy constituents while ignoring the needs of their poorest.

Jesus came to change all of that. His mission, from the first, and by His own testimony (see Luke 7:22). His objective was to make salvation—eternal salvation, and the empowering grace of the Spirit—available not only to the privileged few, but to the oppressed many.

His work was to give common people a chance, to give the same spiritual experience to the pauper as to the prince. Therefore, He was always preaching the Good News "to the poor."

His was the first "equal opportunity" message, and the most enduring. Jesus wanted (and still wants) everyone to be saved for eternity, and to be energized by the creative, loving, empowering genius of the Holy Spirit.

It is an innate and essential part of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that He was available to common people. After all, as God incarnate, He certainly could have spent His time only in palaces, living easy among the rich.

However, not only did He not choose to live that way, He was exactly the opposite ("The Son of Man does not even have a place to lay His head.") and He strongly chastised those who did live that way (rebuking the Pharisees because they loved to be greeted in the market and to occupy the best seats at banquets).

He made Himself the equal of common people, even as He was the most uncommon Person ever.

Today, especially in affluent Western society, it is less apparent that the poor are excluded from religion. In fact, we may contend that everyone, or nearly everyone, in Western society has surely heard the Good News, no matter their socioeconomic status.

But beyond "preaching" the Good News, that is, verbally proclaiming, lies the matter of living out the Good News in our daily lives. Our work is to be about ministering to "the poor" in our lives, whether they have literally heard the Gospel or not, or whether they follow Jesus (yet) or not.

Before beginning this assignment, please review the following:
Good News for Bad People: The Message of Jesus

Assignments:

For this assignment, we will become better informed about the way the Good News is preached—and lived—among the poor in our own communities.

Using the Internet and resources available to you, please do the following:

Ministry Profiles: In nearly every area, there are groups, organizations, and ministries that work in relative obscurity to help those less fortunate than themselves.

Please develop short profiles of ministries and organizations in your area that seek to share the Good News—the empowering grace of Jesus—with the poor. You may designate as "the poor" any groups or individuals you choose. If you live in a large or metropolitan area where there are too many groups to develop individual profiles for each, feel free to limit your profiles to those groups whose missions are closest to your heart.

Your profiles may include church ministries, parachurch ministries, charities, outreaches, or informal networks. Please focus your profiles on organized efforts, unless you find out about especially notable individual efforts being made in your area.

Format : Your profile should include the organization's name, mission, and scope (how wide their operation reaches). It should also include your comments about the way their organization works, who it serves, why its work is important, and what about the group and its work touches your heart. Finally, be sure to observe and note how the organization carries out Jesus' priority for preaching—and living—the Good News to the poor.