"The poor will always with be with you."

... and so will our opportunity and responsiblilty to respond to them!

I was just reading the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY site and read the about the difference the $4billion Howard promised to overseas aid over the next five years, a promise he made at the UN Summit in September, will actually make. Read the pdf by clicking on the purple words "boost in aid" on the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY site.

I am somewhat baffled by Christians who use the phrase "the poor will always be with you" as a cop-out to not doing anything about poverty (spiritual, physical, emotional, etc)!

From my understanding, Jesus said that as a response to an ignorant group of people that judged a woman's worship. The Jesus I read about in the Bible was revolutionary in the fact that He modelled actually doing something about poverty: HEALING people so that they could work and earn, EXCORSING people to release them from spiritual torment, FEEDING people spiritually and physically, RAISING people from the dead physically and emotionally.

Jesus talks about the kingdom of God being like a man holding a lavish banquet and sending his servant to gather people from the streets, the waysides, the lonely and outcast places, and bringing them in to eat, be accepted and valued, to be without want.

Yes, the poor (collective) will always be here. But what about the child the dies this moment, and the one that dies in three seconds time, and the one that dies in three seconds time, from poverty, that we can do something about???