Christianity and Buddhism: Should we Help the poor?
Christianity and buddism are very different in beliefs and cultures. For example, Buddhism is a philosophy of life while Christianity is a relationship with God, the creator of all things. But when it comes to helping the less fortunate, they have very similar values. They both believe that we (the rich) should be generous to the poor.
Woodbridge and Seemelink point out that in the Christian bible (Deutoronomy 15:11 GNT), Jesus says to his people “There will always be some israelites who are poor and in need and so I command you to be generous to them”. Jesus, talking to his diciples, the ones that follow him and look up to him, are being told to ‘be generous’ or in other words, give to the poor and essentially help the poor.
Now most of the diciples that followed Jesus were thought to be pretty wealthy, which is sometimes frowned upon. But of all of them ‘Abraham, Solomon, and Job indicate the connection between wealth and the blessing of God’ (Davids 1992;703). These three men were rich because they were generous with what they had. …show more content…
Lesa Engelthaler in the book “When Helping Hurts” brings up that it is different to help someone than it is to give in order to help. She uses and example of a dog. You can throw a ball and a dog will go and chase after it but all it will do is play with it on its own. You must teach the dog how to fetch in order for the ball to have a purpose with you. Sure the dog can play with it all it wants, but it will have no value to you if the dog does not bring it back for you to throw again. In the same way God taught his diciples the way through life and showed them how to do certain thing. He did not just gift them. So in the same way, Christians believe that not only should we give, but we must teach the poor aswell. There is no point in giving money to a poor person when he does not know how to spend
Christianity and buddism are very different in beliefs and cultures. For example, Buddhism is a philosophy of life while Christianity is a relationship with God, the creator of all things. But when it comes to helping the less fortunate, they have very similar values. They both believe that we (the rich) should be generous to the poor.
Woodbridge and Seemelink point out that in the Christian bible (Deutoronomy 15:11 GNT), Jesus says to his people “There will always be some israelites who are poor and in need and so I command you to be generous to them”. Jesus, talking to his diciples, the ones that follow him and look up to him, are being told to ‘be generous’ or in other words, give to the poor and essentially help the poor.
Now most of the diciples that followed Jesus were thought to be pretty wealthy, which is sometimes frowned upon. But of all of them ‘Abraham, Solomon, and Job indicate the connection between wealth and the blessing of God’ (Davids 1992;703). These three men were rich because they were generous with what they had. …show more content…
Lesa Engelthaler in the book “When Helping Hurts” brings up that it is different to help someone than it is to give in order to help. She uses and example of a dog. You can throw a ball and a dog will go and chase after it but all it will do is play with it on its own. You must teach the dog how to fetch in order for the ball to have a purpose with you. Sure the dog can play with it all it wants, but it will have no value to you if the dog does not bring it back for you to throw again. In the same way God taught his diciples the way through life and showed them how to do certain thing. He did not just gift them. So in the same way, Christians believe that not only should we give, but we must teach the poor aswell. There is no point in giving money to a poor person when he does not know how to spend