God’s Security for the Rich and the Poor

By Travis Jones

In the days in which the Bible was written, security was a common issue for most people, and the Bible records that it was especially problematic for the people of Israel (both in the OT and NT). Cities needed to have a wall built around them to provide protection from outside forces who might riad or destroy them. This is evident in the book of Nehemiah where Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem to help rebuild the wall so that the people would be safe from their powerful neighbors who sought their downfall.

During this time, it was also the norm for large extended families to stay together, because there is power and security in numbers. Then, if someone was injured, came on hard times, or encountered some other calamity, they would have the security of their family to fall back on.

But when God called out His people from Egypt and made them into His special people who would reveal Him to the world, they were both called to find their security in God, and to be the means in which others found security in God.

Many nations, such as Egypt, found security in their accumulation of horses, chariots, and large armies. But God set a rule for Israel that when they decide they want to appoint a king over them, the king, “…must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them…”¹ This command and the instructions following this in Deuteronomy 20 prohibit Israel from maintaining a standing army and from accumulating military resources, effectively prohibiting militarism from God’s people. God wanted Israel to be a people dependent upon Him for security and victory in battle.

Not only did God provide security to His people as a nation, He wanted their community to provide security for one another on an individual level as well; and not only for the well to do, upstanding citizens in their communities. God had a specific concern for the vulnerable, namely, the foreigner, widow, and fatherless, and how they were cared for among his people. God strongly warned His people never to oppress these vulnerable individuals (Exodus 22:21-24), and that if they did He would surely hear their cries to Him and repay those oppressing them with a vengeful wrath. He also created laws for the general populace to make space for the vulnerable to have the food, shelter, and protection they needed through the tithe offering (Deuteronomy 14:28-29), the Sabbath day (Exodus 23:12) the Sabbatical year (Deuteronomy 15:1-18), the year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-22), the Gleaning laws (Leviticus 19:9-10), and numerous other laws and warnings calling Israel as a whole to care for those among them that have little, even those who are not native Israelites.

Ultimately, the Bible makes clear that we are to find our security in God. But God also provides that security to us through one another, and we are called to be that security for others.

Jonathan Brooks describes his experience realizing this after moving to the Englewood community in Chicago. After a terrifying shooting just outside their house, he and his family finally got to meet their neighbors. He reflected on the experience, “Once I opened up and got to know my neighbors, I actually felt safer than when I built my home as my little fort. I learned what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Finding myself in community was the greatest gift I could ever receive, and it came on one of the scariest days of our lives, a day when we could have packed up and left out of fear.”²

When we are living interdependently in the Beloved Community, we find ourselves secure in God’s love with all of our day-to-day needs met by God through our brothers and sisters in the church.

¹Deuteronomy 17:16, New International Version.

²Jonathan Brooks, Church Forsaken: Practicing Presence in Neglected Neighborhoods (Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 2018), 55.