Care for Needy
Leviticus provides a lot of laws for the people of Israel to obey. This chapter contains a number of laws regarding how poor people are to be treated. A poor person might sell his family’s land to someone to raise money, but the land has to eventually be returned. Loans are to be made interest-free, and slavery is not permitted. God expected poverty to happen when people suffered financial setbacks, but those with money were not to take advantage of the poor. The poor were always given a way out of their poverty without being given handouts.
Our economies today look very different, so we can’t follow these laws directly, but we can adopt the ideas. We need to treat the poor with dignity and provide them with a way out of their poverty. We shouldn’t take advantage of their desperate situation by putting them at a further disadvantage. How can you help a poor person today using the principles seen in this chapter?