Words to Live By
A Guide for the Merely Christian
Chapter One
Almsgiving
Charity—giving to the poor—is an essential part of Christian morality. . . . Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce that kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.
Mere Christianity
On the duty of alms-giving, and even on the subtle corruptions of alms-giving, few men have written better than Calvin himself. The limit of giving is to be the limit of our ability to give. We must not consider ourselves free to refuse because those who ask us are undeserving, "for Scripture here cometh to our aide with this excellent reason, that we respect not what men merit of themse ... read full excerpt from Words to Live By ebook
