What is good about Good News to the poor?

As you can see from this photo I took this week, Macedonia is home to Muslims. It is also home to the largest concentration of Roma (often called Gypsys) people anywhere in the world. Now we had gypsys in Russia when we lived there, but those gypsys were very different than the gypsys that live here in Macedonia. These people are the poorest of the poor. As I was working out along the river this morning, I saw once again that a small clan of gypsys had set up a rambling shamble of card-board buildings that they are living in. Come met a few of their children . . . it will break your heart and tear a hole in it.


Jesus defined His arrival as the Messiah by stating that Good News has come to the poor (see the last post "the ghost of pan-missionism"). But what is good about good news to the poor? If we could only define this, if we could only answer this question, then we may understand what is good about the Good News for all of us.

The Lausanne II conference in Manila stated "The good news is that God established his Kingdom of righteousness and peace through the incarnation, ministry, atoning death and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. The Kingdom fulfills God's purpose in creation by bring wholeness to humanity and the whole creation . . . Those who respond to this good news who are poor in the material sense or powerless are empowered by the Spirit and served by other members of the Kingdom community to experience full humanity . . . the non-poor who become poor-in-spirit receive true dignity replacing false pride in riches and are liberated to be truly human with a passion for justice for the poor."

This amazing statement ends with this kicker . . . "The task of evangelisation among the majority of the unreached who are poor will be carried out primarily by those who are poor, with appropriate support from those economically advantaged who are poor in spirit."

So unlike some North American preaching I have heard in my many years, that the good news means all things become new, e.g. no more mortgage, no more credit card debt, jobs with tenure, and never a financial worry ever again in life . . . that message just doesn't preach in Shutka, the Roma neighborhood. They are poor . . . poor in a such a manner that few can imagine in the West. Don't confuse poor with "a difficult time." The poor have no hope that it will ever get better or easier . . . ever.

So what is good about the Good News to the poor? Three things: dignity (identity), status and worth. Dignity literally means a sense of self-worth. This gives one identity, which answers the question "Who am I?" while dignity more answers the question "What am I worth?" (this is an argument that Christopher Sugden lays out). Look at those two questions! The Scriptures and a relationship with the living God, yells out the answers to those two questions. Look at Luke 15 and see Jesus being marginalized by the religious people because he was hanging with sinners. Then read the rest of the chapter and see WHO the lost are and WHAT VALUE the lost have . . . I am a son of the living God, that's who I am! And what am I worth? Well, everything.

Next time I will have to write about the second part of the kicker . . . about us economically advantaged folks.