•And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

•Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

•And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

•Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

--- Luke 12:22-34

...And how much of all this financial crisis is just a bunch of man-made regulations that have no basis in nature?!? I think much of it is.

That it was caused by government manipulations and mismanagement and regulations is true. However, the crises is real-- and just changing the regulations now will not get rid of the crises. What was sown to the wind will be reaped by a whirl wind.

Those are excellent Bible verses, and ones we need to remember.

If you look at what was underscored in red, that we ought not to "seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things," it goes right against the heart of the American independent, individualistic, consumerist, capitalist society.

What Jesus is advocating is more of the Scandinavian and Singaporean socialist model where people do not worry about what would happen to them should they fall ill, and recently in Finland, should they become unemployed.

The same idea is encapsulated in Mal. 3:10:

• Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
  That there may be food in My house,
  
  And try Me now in this,
  Says the Lord of hosts,
  If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
  And pour out for you such blessing
  That there will not be room enough to receive it.

In other words, most of the money you earn you voluntarily return in taxes, tithes, offerings, charitable donations, and helping hands; so that no one is rich beyond measure, yet everyone is wealthy beyond all imagination. There are excellent schools, beautiful public parks, architectural wonders, quick and courteous services -- all the things that make for a healthy and prosperous society.

"Freely you receive, freely give."

Again, you are lying to the people! China has a centralized system of government and today is on course to become the largest economy in the world. Be careful of dragging God's name down into the pit of the "prosperity gospel".

God does NOT run an economy. We are taught to pray, "OUR FATHER who is in heaven ..." In Him, we move and have our being: and all that He has created has been given to us freely as an inheritance for which we neither work nor toil, but only discover and manage.

• And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
   
• Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
   
• And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
   
• Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
  
  --- Luke 12:22-34

See what is underlined in red? But you have become enraptured by Trumpian Economics and have set yourself up as the President's Evangelist among Christians deceptively endeavouring to secure their support as the Serpent in the Garden. It is a despicable work you do.

///

While assisting the truly poor is taught in scripture, the scriptures do NOT support giving handouts to encourage idleness or laziness. They do not really support a "socialist" type of government.

Would it not be useful to ask ourselves the question whether we are forgetting the true meaning of "charity" in the constant endeavour to take advantage of organized benevolent institutions, about the actual working of which we concern ourselves very little? As the years go on, and what we call civilisation advances, are we or are we not losing sight of "our neighbour" in a long vista of vicarious benefactions, bestowed through the medium of a subscription list, or casual contributions at an "anniversary festival?"

At the speeches that are made on such occasions, when the banquet is over, and the reading of the amounts subscribed is accompanied by the cracking of nuts and a crescendo or decrescendo of applause, in proportion to the liberality of the donors, we are so frequently reminded of "the good Samaritan," that we begin to feel that we may claim some kind of relationship to him; and may shake our heads with solemn sorrow at the inexcusable conduct of the priest and the Levite. It would be worth while, however, to ask ourselves whether we quite come up to the mark of him who, finding the man wounded and helpless by the wayside, dismounted that he might convey the sufferer to the nearest inn; poured out oil for his wounds and wine for his cheer; left him with money in hand for the supply of his immediate needs; and did not scruple—with a robust and secure honesty—even to get into debt on his behalf: since the crown of good-will would be the coming again to learn of the patient's welfare. The debt was a pledge of the intention.

That was the Lord Christ's way of looking at charitable responsibility, and at benevolent effort; and even granting that He illustrated the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbour?" by an extreme case of sudden distress, the longer we look at the peculiar needs of the man who was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho, the more perhaps we shall be convinced that there are greater, far greater evils, and more terrible accidents, than to fall among thieves, who temporarily rob, strip, and disable their victim.

The present fashion of dealing with such an unfortunate traveller would very much depend on which particular class of philanthropists the modern Samaritan who found him by the road-side happened to belong to.

Of course, it would be a scandal to our Christianity to follow either priest or Levite, although our cowardly sympathies might lie between the two; so, in order to make all safe, we hit on a compromise, and, according to our circumstances, try to find a medium line of conduct between Samaritan and Levite, or Samaritan and priest. We are ashamed to pass on without doing something, and so we call at the inn on our way, and leave the twopence there, in case anybody else should think fit to bring on the man who is lying, stunned and bleeding, in the roadway. Or else, having contrived to rouse the poor fellow to a little effort, we borrow an ass and take him back with us, to find some organised institution for the relief of those who fall among thieves, where the wine and oil are contracted for out of the funds. And there we leave him, without remembering anything whatever about the twopenny contribution which would represent our own share in the benefaction.

It is an awful thought, and one which it may be hoped will soon become intolerable, that, with the mechanical perfection of means for relieving the necessities of those who are afficted, there seems to grow upon us a deadly indifference to the very deepest need of all—that personal, human sympathy, without which all our boast of benevolence is but as the sounding of brass and the tinkling of a cymbal. Can it be possible that we are approaching a condition when, refusing to have the poor and the afficted, the widow and the orphan always with us, we shut them away out of our sight, leaving the whole duty of visiting them, of clothing them, of giving them meat and drink, to be done by an official committee; a charitable board, distributing doles, exactly calculated, on a carefully devised scale, and divided to the ounce or the inch, in supposed proportion to the individual need of each recipient? Will there ever come a time when we shall persuade ourselves that we fulfill the law of Christ by paying so much in the pound for a charity rate, and leaving all the actual "relief" to be effected by an official department. or a series of official committees?