In the Old Testament passage about Daniel’s friends getting thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel chapter 3, check it out in context), I’d like to point out an important detail that we can’t miss, because of how relevant it is to the brand of Christianity that’s popular here in comfortable Southern California. Nebuchadnezzar had set up an image of gold 90 feet tall for all of the officials and leaders to come worship, and he commanded that whoever didn’t worship his image would be immediately tossed into a burning fire. Daniel’s friends from Babylon–Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (renamed to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego which erased from their original names the references to Israel’s true God)–were accused of refusing to serve the king’s gods and the image he set up. That’s the key–that they refused to serve and worship what they were expected to, though everyone else had gone along. These guys knew that it was not possible to simultaneously serve both their God and the current object of worship in their day and time. Notice that the king didn’t stop them from worshiping their own God. That wasn’t the reason they were looked down upon, that wasn’t the reason they stood out. No harm done to them if they merely paid tribute to what was expected of them by their culture…

Now to apply it in just one area for a Christian, I’ll start off by saying that if the God of the Bible was important, then certainly the things Jesus commanded his followers to do are important. Over and over the focus of his ministry was on the destitute poor, the hurting, the disabled, the orphans, the hopeless widows… but if today’s American Christians continue blocking out the cries of these people, then who is left to care? Well, why should anyone else care? Certainly when we pick apart the current framework of our culture, there isn’t a good reason for these non-contributing consumers to be a vital function to society, because what are they doing for ME? They aren’t marketable, they don’t sell products, they don’t look good in advertisements, they don’t buy up the latest trends.

Instead, it’s the true Christian who wants to help these people, these images of God (Genesis 1:26; as Dustin Kensrue of the band Thrice quotes, “we are the image of the invisible,” relating to Colossians 1:15), because the follower of Christ has come to grips with the fact I personally, regardless of my social status, was and is the helpless poor in front of a perfect God who should have destroyed me long ago, but for his mercy did not. True Christianity changes everything when it’s actually put into practice. Now let’s stop arguing from our silence.

(further Christian perspective on the poor: Psalm 10:14, 140:12, Isaiah 25:4, 41:17, Luke 6:20-21, 14:12-14, James 2:5,  Deuteronomy 15:7, Jeremiah 7:5-7, 22:3, Matthew 5:42,  Ezekiel 22:29,31, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 19:17, etc)