The Poor Shall Always Be Among Us

Do we believe "taking care of the poor" is the greatest spiritual value, and vote for politicians who claim to support that agenda?  Elevating caring for the poor causes many to overlook that when a particular party is in power opponents of values that are in antithesis to what the Bible teaches find a political audience for their causes.  Thus we have a 40 year history of the Bible, the pledge of allegiance and patriotic songs being banned and expunged from the national conscience, as education and other problems of the poor continue to prevail and worsen.     

Both the Old and New Testaments indicate poor people always will be amongst us, and we are encouraged to share to help them. Deuteronomy 15:11, Matthew 26:11, Mark 14:7  and John 12:8. 

Properly Providing for the Poor

The Bible says properly caring for the poor includes giving them the opportunity to work to support themselves. Leviticus 19:10 says, “Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien.”   

The greatest virtue regarding how we treat the poor, however, is giving them the opportunity to hear the Gospel of Christ.  Thus, Matthew 11:5 and Luke 4:18  and 7:22 say, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.”  Jesus heals many of the disabilities that contribute to poverty. 

The greatest spiritual value is helping people from all walks-of-life to make good decisions by responding to Christ in repentance which eradicates other causes of poverty, such as alcohol and drug abuse and criminal behavior.  

While providing the poor is commendable, the Bible shows requiring their responsible participation is more productive than mere handouts.   While Jesus heals and sets people free from the causes of poverty, perverted government perpetuates enslavement to poverty programs to get votes from those who hope to support the poor.  

I teach a program called “Leadership To Renew America’s Biblical-Constitutional Values, a centerpiece of which includes an overview of what I call "The Divine Decalogue for Dynamic Decency," which explains the 10 Commandments in positive paraphrases that highlight the behavioral outcomes they are designed to produce.  For instance Command number 6 is "Mercy Mitigates Murder" and Command 8 is "Do not rip off others and yourself out of God's plan for both your material blessings."

The Biblical Basis for The Bill of Rights

America's Founding Fathers realized that through the Ten Commandments God was securing or inalienable rights.  They realized God was saying through 

Commands # 1-4 - "you have a right to worship God the way the Bible says to worship Him." 
Command #   5 - "you have a right to an honorable family." 
Command #   6 - "you have a right to defend your life and not be murdered. " 
Command #   7 - "you have a right to have sex only with your marriage partner," and  “you have a right not to be sexually assaulted." 
Command #   8 - "you have a right not to be stolen from - 
nor have your property improperly seized.” 
Command #   9 - "you have a right not to be lied to, slandered or falsely accused." 
Command # 10 - "you have a right not to have your belongings or property coveted.“

These God-given rights are “inalienable,” meaning since they come from God we can't be alienated from or deprived of them by other individuals or the government - even by democratic majority vote!

The Founding Fathers codified our God-given rights in the US Bill of Rights. Thus, amendment one protects our rights to obey commands one through four. Amendment two, the right to bear arms, protects our rights under commandment six.   

Dynamically Decent People and Politicians
The Divine Decalogue explains the objective standards of behavior people and government representatives need to adhere to, so as a society we have the capacity to enjoy the freedom to pursue the life, liberty and happiness America’s Founding Fathers envisioned.  

Does power corrupt leaders who lie, are petty and mismanage resources?  Or does power give them opportunity to demonstrate how misguided they already were?


Power Drunk People

The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context, asks: “What is the difference between someone who is intoxicated on power and someone who is on drugs or alcohol?  

You get erratic behaviors from both, including loss of mission focus, lying and mismanagement. (pages 223-227) 

Government Going Astray

Government officials who think, “It’s all about my political ideology,” pursue initiatives that are less effective than those who see themselves as managers of large organizations that should be operationally efficient.  One-dimensional politicians think the organization serves them.  Two-dimensional leaders ignore operations, believing their political ideology is the mission and an end in itself. Thus they pursue it, blinded to outcomes that fail to meet stated goals, unintended negative-consequences, and huge deficits that saddle future generations with insurmountable debt. 

Bad employee behavior is justified and gets a pass, as long as it is perceived as furthering the political ideology. By contrast, three-dimensional political leaders act as CEO’s who take responsibility for government programs to operate efficiently with employees who work competently with integrity.   

Big and powerful governments do great damage when their leaders go to war on false pretenses, or spend millions turning slogans into initiatives in the name of a “common good” that only favors a “sub-segment de jour.”  Such activities only satisfy the paternalism of politicians and/or the agendas of those whose money buys their initiaitve.  

Properly Presiding In Power  


Character is needed to handle power properly. Three-dimensional politicians work so that approximately eighty percent of constituents are satisfied with their initiatives. Keeping a long range view of fulfilling the mission by maintaining healthy working relationships that are disciplined and achieve effective operations avoids the Peter Principle and satisfies the most reasonable members of “We the People.”
 

The Three-Dimensional Leader: Negotiating Your Mission, Resources and Context gives us a scalable reference for understanding good and poor leadership.  Here’s how the template or paradigm applies to rating and assessing leaders in government.  

When government in America operates from a three-dimensional perspective: it sees its mission is to facilitate a set of circumstances that make it favorable for our nation’s chief resource, which is “We the People,” to use our talents, gifts and abilities to innovate goods and services that others find useful and beneficial and are willing to pay us a profitable price to obtain and enjoy.  The context that good government must keep in focus is the U.S. Constitution, which is based upon Biblical values.

A three-dimensional government leader keeps a long term focus on this mission, resources and context, or these MRC’s.  When government leaders operate from a two-dimensional perspective they only get a bearing on just one or two of these MRC concepts. Worse yet, one-dimensional government leaders think that everything that takes place within the American economy has to include them, their “input and/or control. One-dimensional leadership is all about “me” – not the mission of enabling “we the people.”  

One and Two-Dimensional leaders needlessly set up “us vs. them” dynamics. They appeal for votes by separating us into individual groups of hyphenated-Americans, divided by race, ethnicity, income and behavioral preferences.  They promise us “African-Americans” rights we already have  as Americans, and which undermine “we the people” seeing ourselves as “one nation under God.”  For instance, I do not need a special law saying you can’t hit me because I am black, because we already have laws that say you can’t assault me.  

Responsible and astute government leaders and citizens keep the big picture MRC’s in focus to promote the concept that "we the people" are one nation under God.