What did Jesus mean when he said “The poor you will always have with you”?
My understanding of this verse has undergone a progression over the years. I’d like to discuss some common interpretations along with a new insight that I discovered recently.
This saying is found in an interaction recorded in three of the four gospels – Matthew (chapter 26), Mark (chapter 14) and John (chapter 12). I’ll focus on Matthew’s version for reasons which will become evident soon. Jesus was with his disciples on the last day of his life when a woman approached and poured out expensive perfume on his head. This upset some of his disciples who thought such an action extravagant when the valuable perfume could be sold for money to give to the poor. Jesus told them that this was a beautiful thing which will be remembered by all his followers, and in the middle of this statement says, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”
Interpretations of this saying can sometimes pull it out of its context a bit, but nevertheless, they are… interesting. I remember once hearing a politically conservative personality use this verse to show that there will always be poor people, so efforts to eradicate poverty will all ultimately fail. On face value, that seems true, until you remember that Jesus was all about spending time with poor people and alleviating their suffering. He himself could even be considered poor. Not only that, but when we look at Matthew’s version, we find that immediately before this incident, Jesus had told the parable of the sheep and the goats. So, he had literally just finished saying “whatever you did for the poor people around you, you did for me.” Clearly, this interpretation is flawed.
A second way of understanding this saying, which I have leaned toward for a while, is that the poor will always be with you because even sincere followers of Jesus are inherently flawed and will sometimes fail and neglect poor people and their needs. For me, this understanding stems from Jesus’s teaching about divorce. In Matthew 19:8, Jesus said that divorce was allowed in the Law of Moses “because your hearts were hard.” God knows our hearts and that He is working with poor building materials, so perfection will be tough to attain.
It’s important in looking at this passage that we also bring in where the Old Testament law speaks to the matter. In Deuteronomy 15, in a longer instruction about debt-canceling, it’s written, “There should be no poor among you” (Deut. 15:4). Later, it says, “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need” (15:7-8). And then verse 11 says, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” The beginning of verse 11 is pretty much identical with what Jesus said in the encounter with the woman and discussion with the disciples. It was common in those times to use the first few words of a teaching as short-hand for the whole teaching. Was Jesus implying that they were to follow all of Deuteronomy 15 and be generous with the poor? I believe he was.
Additionally, if we dig into Deuteronomy 15 a bit more, we see the following: Among the commands for building a society that helps people who are poor (and helps them become less poor), there are some principles being taught. One is that there should not be poor people. God’s people should obey the Law’s economic teaching in such a way that nobody is truly destitute. They should set up their lifestyles so that poor people have a chance and are helped in improving their situation. Second, God’s people should be generous toward the poor, giving feely and lending freely. Remember, charging interest was completely forbidden to the Israelites. Third, because sinful patterns will remain, and the world is a harsh place, there will continue to be people who fall into poverty. Therefore, God’s people should be generous to them.
So, what happened later? The early church was obedient in its generosity to the poor, even at personal loss.
Acts 4:32-35 says the following: “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” I love how the new version of the NIV puts it – grace worked in them in such a way that nobody was needy. This early manifestation of the Way of following Jesus was so obedient that the needs of everyone were met. That did not last long, so that already in chapter 6 of Acts there were widows whose needs were neglected. But this summary of the life of the early church gives us hope – by generosity poverty can be diminished and perhaps even eradicated. Jesus knows we will fail frequently, but we are never to close our hearts and hands and stop trying to improve the situation of poor people.
The third interpretation of this saying of Jesus is one I recently saw on Twitter and the reason why this saying has been on my mind lately. The idea is that “the poor will always be with us” because we as followers of Jesus will live such radically attractive lives that poor people will be powerfully drawn to us. They will want to join their lives with the lives of our community, not to “get stuff” in a patronizing way, but as true members of one family. This is the vision we should be working toward in our churches.
For more on these ideas, check out the following posts others have written:
https://www.craiggreenfield.com/blog/thepooryouwillalwayshave
https://www.fh.org/blog/poor-you-will-always-have-with-you-meaning
HIS WORDS, HIS WORKS, HIS WAYS 