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Make Poverty Personal: Taking the Poor as Seriously as the Bible Does
Poverty is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. But poverty is not new. And neither is God's deep concern for the poor--it is a theme deeply woven throughout the Bible. Yet sadly, churches and individual Christians have too often been blind to this emphasis, or they have been paralyzed into inaction by feelings of helplessness.
In this urgent, provocative book, Ash Barker offers both challenge and hope. Pulling out and reflecting on significant passages from both testaments, he reveals what the Bible says about both the nature of poverty and about how God calls his people to respond. These studies, ideal for either individual or small group use, are interlaced with personal reflections--first-hand accounts from fifteen years of ministry among the poor.
In this urgent, provocative book, Ash Barker offers both challenge and hope. Pulling out and reflecting on significant passages from both testaments, he reveals what the Bible says about both the nature of poverty and about how God calls his people to respond. These studies, ideal for either individual or small group use, are interlaced with personal reflections--first-hand accounts from fifteen years of ministry among the poor.
206 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2009
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163 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 10, 2015
Of the dozens and dozens of books I've read about poverty in the last few years, this is the only book I have ever read that is specifically designed as a group bible study. And it's phenomenal. Meaty enough for conservative evangelicals and hardline enough for the social-leaning Christ-freaks, it's a book I would recommend that every Christian who wants to please God reads.
October 24, 2021
I selected this book to conduct a virtual book club with some friends. The author certainly has a unique point of view, given his career choices and life choices to minister to people in a Thai slum... but none of us in the book club found much in the way of particularly profound new information during our study. He makes a lot of 'radical' claims, but does not do a great job of supporting the claims with sources or scripture in a clear or academic manner. With my book club members, that really hurt how much we could trust him pretty early in the book.
A lot of the value we found came in the form of info quoted from other authors and in specific chapters of the book (like that last chapter? That was what I wanted the whole book to be!). I also probably gave this book a harder time because I recently read one that I got more out of.
As with all things, there were some quotes and ideas that were worth highlighting. I have included them below for my reference.
Pg 9 - The Forward - "I grew up in a Christianity that tried to scare the hell out of us, literally. It had little hope to offer this world and just tried to pacify folks with the promise that there is life after death… while most of us were really asking, ‘Is there life before death?’”
Pg 10 – The Forward – “God is in the business of rescuing people from the hells they experience on earth, and God is asking us to love people out of those hells. God is asking us to taste the salt in the tears of the broken, to hunger for justice with the starving masses of our world, to gran with all of creation in the birth pains of the kingdom of God. God is asking us to make poverty personal.
I am convinced that the tragedy in the church is not that rock folks don’t care about poor folks, but that rich folks don’t know poor folks… (Cites Amos 5:21-24)… And lest we let the liberals off the hook, I’ve met plenty of progressive ‘social justice’ types who have shown that it is very easy to live a life of socially-conscious comfort that is compartmentalized and detached from any true relationships with the poor.
Mother Teresa once said, ‘It is very fashionable to talk about the poor… unfortunately it is not as fashionable to talk with the poor.’”
Pg 17 – Quoting Timothy C. Morgan, “Purpose Driven in Rwanda,” Christianity Today article Rick Warren’s experience with poverty in Africa:
"'I found those 2,000 verses on the poor. How did I miss that? I went to Bible college, two seminaries, and I got a doctorate. How did I miss God’s compassion for the poor? I was not seeing all the purposes of God. The church is the body of Christ. The hands and feet have been amputated and we’re just a big mouth, known more for what we’re against.’ Warren found himself praying, ‘God, would you use me to re-attach the hands and the feet to the body of Christ, so that the whole church cares about the whole gospel in a whole new way—through the local church?’”
Pg 20 – Quoting Bono – “We have the cash. We have the medicines. We have the technologies. But do we have the will? Do we have the will to make poverty history?”
Pg 23 – quoting Sachs, The End of Poverty, xiv – “We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies—but will we be that generation? Will we in the west realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears?”
Pg 35 – “Moses said to God ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ If you were a slave watching this conversation, couldn’t you have put your hands around Moses’s neck at this point? I mean, who are you, Moses? You’re the one who grew up in a palace. You know Pharaoh and his people personally. You are the only one of us who has lived out in this desert and knows how to survive and travel beyond slavery to the new land. Moses, everything in your life has been shaped for this. Now you have this awe-inspiring summons from the Almighty! Throw in your lot with us and you will be part of history! If you are not prepared to do this, then who can God use?”
Pg 36 – It can be too easy to look at ourselves and make excuses—not good enough, not spiritual enough, not young enough, not old enough, not smart enough, not enough time or energy. Yet, as we see in Mosses, the life of faith is not about our own deservedness, but about the goodness of the Lord. The Lord hears the cries of the oppressed, his heart breaks, and he picks people out—flawed people, like you and me and Moses—to be his response. Indeed, flawed people are the only kind of people God has to work with.”
Pg 48 – Moses’s 5 excuses, summarized: “In such a climate, the excuses Moses used not to get involved are often the default excuses we can use today. Who, me? Who are you really, Lord? What will people think? What skills do I really have? Can’t someone else do it? These voices are internalized and conspire to undermine our capacity to make our unique contributions to the miseries of the world.”
Pg 55 – Exploring the Jubilee Laws – “More than once this text says that the land belongs to the Lord and not humans—people are just looking after it for him. Just as people are not slaves and need rest, so the land must not be a slave and needs rest. Indeed, the land is not a servant of humans, but a part of the Lord’s created family.
Pg 56 – Describing De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital – “… 9.3 trillion of capital (‘more than all foreign aid put together’) is in fact owned by the poor in terms of property and businesses. Because these resources are “unauthorized”—and almost impossible for the poor to authorize without years of bureaucratic and legal red tape—the poor cannot use their own assets properly. For example, gaining a bank loan to expand a business using a slum home as collateral is impossible. De Soto argues that providing and protecting property ownership of slum communities today would change the face of poverty tomorrow. This could be done, but those who could change this injustice also benefit from this arrangement. This is the kind of poverty most of the world faces, stripping the poor of what is rightfully theirs by not recognizing it or giving them authority for it.”
Pg 66 – “to recognize truth in the Hebrew sense, then, means to step out and act in ways consistent with God’s character. Until then it is simply an idea or a thought or a fact that someone else considers important. “
Pg 74 – Proverbs 22:2 – Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.
Proverbs 22:16 – One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and one who gives gifts to the rich—both lead only to loss.
Pg 84 – “In a world of so much poverty, it’s time to put the old ‘culture wars’ aside and sincerely seek to be both radically faithful to God and radically relevant to our world.”
Pg 93 – Talking about King David and his advisor Nathan – “Nathan (and most Hebrew prophets) had the ability to be heard and create awareness, but this space to be heard was created by the king.”
Pg 119 – “Too much contemporary Christianity is more like magic than true faith. A wander down the aisles of most Christian bookstores will yield numerous books on attempts to manipulate spirit forces with the right formulas, too. These books are not about surrendering all to Jesus so that God can do through us what God wants. They are attempts to help consumers get what they want.”
Pg 122 – Reflecting on the verse “sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” – The point of Jesus’s command is not to make us wallow in guilt about possessions, but to force us to acknowledge our sin and seek restitution. That is why Jesus points out the need to ‘sell all you have and give it to the poor.’ We need to find personal responses to benefiting from unjust structures. There are limited resources on the earth. There is enough for all to live well. All should have enough food, clothes, and medicine, but there is not enough for all of us to live well-off.”
Pg 140 – Talking about the early church, they had these Evangelical disciplines:
• ‘the apostles’ teaching’ – they weren’t just trying to ‘master the text,’ but the Spirit enabled them to be mastered by it;
• ‘fellowship’ – they shared their lives together, and were with each other most days;
• ‘the breaking of bread’ – life was centered on what Jesus had done and continued to do among and through tem, including sacrificing their lives;
• ‘the prayers’ – they encountered the Lord personally together, and interceded for the valuable against demonic forces.
Pg 144 – Talking about the early church, they had these Radical practices:
• They were together --- the Spirit enabled them to share life together.
• They held all things in common – they share what they had, beyond egos and claims of ownership.
• They sold their possessions and goods – they surrendered all that gave false identities.
• They distributed [these possessions and goods] to all as any had need – they shared belongings and found a way to redistribute wealth to those most in need.
• No one was in need – poverty and injustice were defeated.
Pg 146/156 – Talking about the early church, WWJD about Poverty –
• Give fish – relief, as Jesus did, with direct healing and feeding the hungry: Feeding programs, emergency development, health care, prayer, providing accommodation, and visitation of those who are in jail or sick.
• Teach how to fish – education and training, as Jesus did, teaching truths for people like Zacchaeus to put into practice: Job creation, preventative medical care, teaching literacy and numeracy, and vocational training.
• Ask why there are no fish – Protest and advocacy, as Jesus did, turning the tables upside-down in the temple: Addressing political systems, campaigning, and changing laws that create poverty and oppression. Advocating population control and secure land tenure, and fighting unjust economic structures.
• Model a new way to fish – incarnation modeling, as Jesus did by becoming fully human, and living in solidarity with those he served: Christians relocating to live among needy neighborhoods, the starting of neighborhood churches of the people, and life-on-life discipleship with those in need.
• See a new way to fish – facilitating transformation, as Jesus did, empowering a movement and communities that can live on in the same way without us there: Neighborhood transformations, church planting movements of the poor, and grassroots Christian political cells.
If these responses are to be like those of Christ and the early church, they cannot just be ‘bait’ to catch fish. God wants to help restore the image of God in people, regardless of whether they acknowledge him or not. Responses to poverty, then, are not simply a means to the end of conversion or church growth. If our responses are not genuine, the poor will know it—they need to have finely tuned ‘B-S detectors’ just to survive! So the poor might play the game for a while – ‘rice Christians’ might even be made—but the deep-seated feelings of exploitation and resentment will be harder to shake. Credibility for Christ in the community might even be permanently damaged for some.
Pg 148 – Too often Christians are not prepared to go past relief. Why? Perhaps the call to live among the poor to see a liberating Christian neighborhood movement is simply more costly and less sexy. It is one thing to feed the hungry; it is another to go to jail defending people’s right to eat. With relief we can feel good about giving, but with transformation we have far more at stake than spare cash. It is hard to go past power as a motivation to stay in relief. In relief we are totally in control. But the time we see a transforming movement emerge, we who may initiate it are out of control.
Pg 149 – God has made these local leaders responsible for the project or church, after all, and not me. We have to trust that the Bible and Holy Spirit can guide them as they have guided us. This is not foolproof, but it does promote maturity and allows a true movement of the people to merge that can be God’s answer to the cries of their hearts.
The first thing that almost always happens to those who are being transformed is a kind of independence. Input soon comes from elsewhere. This kind of maturing process—not unlike adolescence—is crucial if we are to work ourselves out of a job. Sure, they will make wrong calls. Yet, it is better for them to make the wrong calls than for those non-indigenous to the community to make the wrong calls. Ultimately, non-indigenous people can choose to walk away. Indigenous people don’t have such power. It is crucial, therefore, that we aim to have the new way to fish be owned by the people.
Pg 151 – James 1:27-2:8 – How can we follow such teachings in a global age? What does it mean to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ when we can see our global neighbors suffering every night on our television sets and can make an instant response via the internet if we so choose? In such an age solidarity should be a key theme in following Jesus for those of us who are non-poor. It speaks of standing with the poor not just deciding what to do for them. It speaks of joining our lives together to fight injustice, to have a stake in a common future together.
A lot of the value we found came in the form of info quoted from other authors and in specific chapters of the book (like that last chapter? That was what I wanted the whole book to be!). I also probably gave this book a harder time because I recently read one that I got more out of.
As with all things, there were some quotes and ideas that were worth highlighting. I have included them below for my reference.
Pg 9 - The Forward - "I grew up in a Christianity that tried to scare the hell out of us, literally. It had little hope to offer this world and just tried to pacify folks with the promise that there is life after death… while most of us were really asking, ‘Is there life before death?’”
Pg 10 – The Forward – “God is in the business of rescuing people from the hells they experience on earth, and God is asking us to love people out of those hells. God is asking us to taste the salt in the tears of the broken, to hunger for justice with the starving masses of our world, to gran with all of creation in the birth pains of the kingdom of God. God is asking us to make poverty personal.
I am convinced that the tragedy in the church is not that rock folks don’t care about poor folks, but that rich folks don’t know poor folks… (Cites Amos 5:21-24)… And lest we let the liberals off the hook, I’ve met plenty of progressive ‘social justice’ types who have shown that it is very easy to live a life of socially-conscious comfort that is compartmentalized and detached from any true relationships with the poor.
Mother Teresa once said, ‘It is very fashionable to talk about the poor… unfortunately it is not as fashionable to talk with the poor.’”
Pg 17 – Quoting Timothy C. Morgan, “Purpose Driven in Rwanda,” Christianity Today article Rick Warren’s experience with poverty in Africa:
"'I found those 2,000 verses on the poor. How did I miss that? I went to Bible college, two seminaries, and I got a doctorate. How did I miss God’s compassion for the poor? I was not seeing all the purposes of God. The church is the body of Christ. The hands and feet have been amputated and we’re just a big mouth, known more for what we’re against.’ Warren found himself praying, ‘God, would you use me to re-attach the hands and the feet to the body of Christ, so that the whole church cares about the whole gospel in a whole new way—through the local church?’”
Pg 20 – Quoting Bono – “We have the cash. We have the medicines. We have the technologies. But do we have the will? Do we have the will to make poverty history?”
Pg 23 – quoting Sachs, The End of Poverty, xiv – “We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies—but will we be that generation? Will we in the west realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears?”
Pg 35 – “Moses said to God ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ If you were a slave watching this conversation, couldn’t you have put your hands around Moses’s neck at this point? I mean, who are you, Moses? You’re the one who grew up in a palace. You know Pharaoh and his people personally. You are the only one of us who has lived out in this desert and knows how to survive and travel beyond slavery to the new land. Moses, everything in your life has been shaped for this. Now you have this awe-inspiring summons from the Almighty! Throw in your lot with us and you will be part of history! If you are not prepared to do this, then who can God use?”
Pg 36 – It can be too easy to look at ourselves and make excuses—not good enough, not spiritual enough, not young enough, not old enough, not smart enough, not enough time or energy. Yet, as we see in Mosses, the life of faith is not about our own deservedness, but about the goodness of the Lord. The Lord hears the cries of the oppressed, his heart breaks, and he picks people out—flawed people, like you and me and Moses—to be his response. Indeed, flawed people are the only kind of people God has to work with.”
Pg 48 – Moses’s 5 excuses, summarized: “In such a climate, the excuses Moses used not to get involved are often the default excuses we can use today. Who, me? Who are you really, Lord? What will people think? What skills do I really have? Can’t someone else do it? These voices are internalized and conspire to undermine our capacity to make our unique contributions to the miseries of the world.”
Pg 55 – Exploring the Jubilee Laws – “More than once this text says that the land belongs to the Lord and not humans—people are just looking after it for him. Just as people are not slaves and need rest, so the land must not be a slave and needs rest. Indeed, the land is not a servant of humans, but a part of the Lord’s created family.
Pg 56 – Describing De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital – “… 9.3 trillion of capital (‘more than all foreign aid put together’) is in fact owned by the poor in terms of property and businesses. Because these resources are “unauthorized”—and almost impossible for the poor to authorize without years of bureaucratic and legal red tape—the poor cannot use their own assets properly. For example, gaining a bank loan to expand a business using a slum home as collateral is impossible. De Soto argues that providing and protecting property ownership of slum communities today would change the face of poverty tomorrow. This could be done, but those who could change this injustice also benefit from this arrangement. This is the kind of poverty most of the world faces, stripping the poor of what is rightfully theirs by not recognizing it or giving them authority for it.”
Pg 66 – “to recognize truth in the Hebrew sense, then, means to step out and act in ways consistent with God’s character. Until then it is simply an idea or a thought or a fact that someone else considers important. “
Pg 74 – Proverbs 22:2 – Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.
Proverbs 22:16 – One who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and one who gives gifts to the rich—both lead only to loss.
Pg 84 – “In a world of so much poverty, it’s time to put the old ‘culture wars’ aside and sincerely seek to be both radically faithful to God and radically relevant to our world.”
Pg 93 – Talking about King David and his advisor Nathan – “Nathan (and most Hebrew prophets) had the ability to be heard and create awareness, but this space to be heard was created by the king.”
Pg 119 – “Too much contemporary Christianity is more like magic than true faith. A wander down the aisles of most Christian bookstores will yield numerous books on attempts to manipulate spirit forces with the right formulas, too. These books are not about surrendering all to Jesus so that God can do through us what God wants. They are attempts to help consumers get what they want.”
Pg 122 – Reflecting on the verse “sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” – The point of Jesus’s command is not to make us wallow in guilt about possessions, but to force us to acknowledge our sin and seek restitution. That is why Jesus points out the need to ‘sell all you have and give it to the poor.’ We need to find personal responses to benefiting from unjust structures. There are limited resources on the earth. There is enough for all to live well. All should have enough food, clothes, and medicine, but there is not enough for all of us to live well-off.”
Pg 140 – Talking about the early church, they had these Evangelical disciplines:
• ‘the apostles’ teaching’ – they weren’t just trying to ‘master the text,’ but the Spirit enabled them to be mastered by it;
• ‘fellowship’ – they shared their lives together, and were with each other most days;
• ‘the breaking of bread’ – life was centered on what Jesus had done and continued to do among and through tem, including sacrificing their lives;
• ‘the prayers’ – they encountered the Lord personally together, and interceded for the valuable against demonic forces.
Pg 144 – Talking about the early church, they had these Radical practices:
• They were together --- the Spirit enabled them to share life together.
• They held all things in common – they share what they had, beyond egos and claims of ownership.
• They sold their possessions and goods – they surrendered all that gave false identities.
• They distributed [these possessions and goods] to all as any had need – they shared belongings and found a way to redistribute wealth to those most in need.
• No one was in need – poverty and injustice were defeated.
Pg 146/156 – Talking about the early church, WWJD about Poverty –
• Give fish – relief, as Jesus did, with direct healing and feeding the hungry: Feeding programs, emergency development, health care, prayer, providing accommodation, and visitation of those who are in jail or sick.
• Teach how to fish – education and training, as Jesus did, teaching truths for people like Zacchaeus to put into practice: Job creation, preventative medical care, teaching literacy and numeracy, and vocational training.
• Ask why there are no fish – Protest and advocacy, as Jesus did, turning the tables upside-down in the temple: Addressing political systems, campaigning, and changing laws that create poverty and oppression. Advocating population control and secure land tenure, and fighting unjust economic structures.
• Model a new way to fish – incarnation modeling, as Jesus did by becoming fully human, and living in solidarity with those he served: Christians relocating to live among needy neighborhoods, the starting of neighborhood churches of the people, and life-on-life discipleship with those in need.
• See a new way to fish – facilitating transformation, as Jesus did, empowering a movement and communities that can live on in the same way without us there: Neighborhood transformations, church planting movements of the poor, and grassroots Christian political cells.
If these responses are to be like those of Christ and the early church, they cannot just be ‘bait’ to catch fish. God wants to help restore the image of God in people, regardless of whether they acknowledge him or not. Responses to poverty, then, are not simply a means to the end of conversion or church growth. If our responses are not genuine, the poor will know it—they need to have finely tuned ‘B-S detectors’ just to survive! So the poor might play the game for a while – ‘rice Christians’ might even be made—but the deep-seated feelings of exploitation and resentment will be harder to shake. Credibility for Christ in the community might even be permanently damaged for some.
Pg 148 – Too often Christians are not prepared to go past relief. Why? Perhaps the call to live among the poor to see a liberating Christian neighborhood movement is simply more costly and less sexy. It is one thing to feed the hungry; it is another to go to jail defending people’s right to eat. With relief we can feel good about giving, but with transformation we have far more at stake than spare cash. It is hard to go past power as a motivation to stay in relief. In relief we are totally in control. But the time we see a transforming movement emerge, we who may initiate it are out of control.
Pg 149 – God has made these local leaders responsible for the project or church, after all, and not me. We have to trust that the Bible and Holy Spirit can guide them as they have guided us. This is not foolproof, but it does promote maturity and allows a true movement of the people to merge that can be God’s answer to the cries of their hearts.
The first thing that almost always happens to those who are being transformed is a kind of independence. Input soon comes from elsewhere. This kind of maturing process—not unlike adolescence—is crucial if we are to work ourselves out of a job. Sure, they will make wrong calls. Yet, it is better for them to make the wrong calls than for those non-indigenous to the community to make the wrong calls. Ultimately, non-indigenous people can choose to walk away. Indigenous people don’t have such power. It is crucial, therefore, that we aim to have the new way to fish be owned by the people.
Pg 151 – James 1:27-2:8 – How can we follow such teachings in a global age? What does it mean to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ when we can see our global neighbors suffering every night on our television sets and can make an instant response via the internet if we so choose? In such an age solidarity should be a key theme in following Jesus for those of us who are non-poor. It speaks of standing with the poor not just deciding what to do for them. It speaks of joining our lives together to fight injustice, to have a stake in a common future together.
August 7, 2012
Glad I own this book, as I will be digging into it for another round. Good questions to ponder/search Scriptures for ways to "make poverty personal." I appreciated the personal stories of living in a slum in Thailand. Very worthwhile book.
November 12, 2015
There was a lot of challenging material here, helped rethink my preconceptions of the poor and definitely of 'why poverty exists'. Worth a reread, because I'm sure it didn't all sink in well enough yet.
September 15, 2017
At the conclusion of Make Poverty Personal, author Ash Barker asks a good question: if we look closely at our lives, where have we invested our treasure? The questions follows upon Jesus’ statement calling on his followers to store up treasure in heaven, where neither nor thief can gain access (Luke 12:33b). Barker, who is an Australian evangelical serving as director of Urban Neighbors of Hope (UNOH) in Thailand, challenges western Christians to pay heed to the biblical teachings on the issue of poverty, an issue too often ignored by Christians – despite the significant biblical teaching on the subject.
Noting that there are some 2000 verses of scripture dealing with poverty, Barker takes the reader on an extended journey through these verses, or at least a significant portion of them, in the form of an extended Bible study that begins with the Exodus – because the Exodus speaks of the liberation of slaves -- and ends in the apocalyptic messages of Revelation and Daniel – where the people of God are called upon to resist the empire. He writes the book, he tells us, especially for those “who have a sneaking suspicion that the Christian faith is more than a cultural ornament, that it is a call to follow Jesus as he stands in solidarity with the poor” (p. 26).
If one takes up this study, then he or she will discover that there really is no portion of scripture that does not speak to this issue. Even the Song of Solomon wrestles with the topic. We discover that while the church may not have a “preferential option for the poor,” God does. Some sections of scripture, however, are more focused on this issue.
Continue reading here: http://www.bobcornwall.com/2009/04/ma...
Noting that there are some 2000 verses of scripture dealing with poverty, Barker takes the reader on an extended journey through these verses, or at least a significant portion of them, in the form of an extended Bible study that begins with the Exodus – because the Exodus speaks of the liberation of slaves -- and ends in the apocalyptic messages of Revelation and Daniel – where the people of God are called upon to resist the empire. He writes the book, he tells us, especially for those “who have a sneaking suspicion that the Christian faith is more than a cultural ornament, that it is a call to follow Jesus as he stands in solidarity with the poor” (p. 26).
If one takes up this study, then he or she will discover that there really is no portion of scripture that does not speak to this issue. Even the Song of Solomon wrestles with the topic. We discover that while the church may not have a “preferential option for the poor,” God does. Some sections of scripture, however, are more focused on this issue.
Continue reading here: http://www.bobcornwall.com/2009/04/ma...
July 8, 2022
This book was surprisingly robust and contained a fair amount of depth in both theological exploration as well as real world exposition. It is unfortunate that the author decided to begin the text with a made up example, as when it is revealed his story isn't true, that sets a tone in the book which it took a while to recover from.
The author is clearly earnest in his exploration of the topic, and managed to avoid presenting a particularly "preachy" voice. Where this book lacks is the limitations in scope. It is a good reminder of our collective and individual responsibilities towards the poor. But it does not explore exactly how to fulfill these responsibilities, nor the potential perils of certain well-meaning responses, as pointed out by Dambisa Moya (Dead Aid), Gary Miller (the Other Side of the Wall), and others.
The author is clearly earnest in his exploration of the topic, and managed to avoid presenting a particularly "preachy" voice. Where this book lacks is the limitations in scope. It is a good reminder of our collective and individual responsibilities towards the poor. But it does not explore exactly how to fulfill these responsibilities, nor the potential perils of certain well-meaning responses, as pointed out by Dambisa Moya (Dead Aid), Gary Miller (the Other Side of the Wall), and others.
March 7, 2021
The author, Ash Barker, does a very good job I feel at detailing ways to help the poor. His study questions at the end of each chapter gets you to really interact with the book and using your imagination to help find solutions. The Lord has used this mans book to really open my eyes to how important it is to help the poor and this book helped me learn there are different levels and meanings to poverty.
January 19, 2020
Barker has some good things to say but his exegesis is very poor.
I will still recommend this book to anyone to read.
I will still recommend this book to anyone to read.
March 20, 2020
This was a 2013 United Methodist Women's Reading Program. I thought it was okay, but I'm not in poverty; and may in our area are not as impoverished.
July 25, 2021
Enjoyed this review of how Christians can do their bit to end poverty in a gospel-focused way.
January 13, 2013
In Make Poverty Personal, Ash Barker overviews the entire Bible for an understanding of how God would have us handle poverty. Mr. Barker looks at Exodus, the Law, the books of poetry, and the Old Testament prophets. He then looks at the gospels, the early church, the apostles’ letters and Revelation. Although I did not agree with all his interpretations, his respect for and love of the scripture was clear throughout the book. In addition, he does not see poverty as being solved apart from Christ; a Christian’s main mission is still the spread of good news of the Lordship of Christ.
October 11, 2013
This is a topic I am interested in. Very good look at poverty in Scripture, and I think a good look at how the Western Church misses the point in dealing with the poor. I especially like how he looks at each type of literature in the Bible and finds how poverty is treated within each genre. Barker looks at History, Law, Poetry, Wisdom, Prophets, Gospels, Epistles and Apocalyptic views of poverty. Perhaps the ultimate praise for this book is the fact that the author lives the principles he extols. I would love to go through this with a group of 7-10 believers as a study.
November 7, 2014
Not sure liking a book is appropriate for something that is as challenging to my life as a book like this. How should I live my life and care for the poor? How do I make poverty personal rather than just a cause for my spare change? Barker makes us think about our lives in this world from a Bibical view.
December 31, 2010
I like Ash and I like the service he is doing. And I think that books like this should be written. But something about the book didn't connect with me...I could often see what he was getting at, but I wasn't quite sure how he got there. It felt a little rushed and I'm not sure that it would say much to someone who wasn't already on board with the message that he was preaching.
June 10, 2013
Ash Barker is a good man. Makes such a difference reading a challenging book from someone who lives it everyday. Thank you Ash & Anji, and the amazing people of Urban Neighbors of Hope. You have challenged me to reconsider what the next leg of my journey might be, which is painful, intimidating, and right.
February 8, 2014
Important read for those who are serious about understanding the impact that poverty has on everyone.
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