Are We Not All Beggars?

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Elder Holland, in his address titled “Are We Not All Beggars?”, said –

“In what would be the most startling moment of His early ministry, Jesus stood up in His home synagogue in Nazareth and read these words prophesied by Isaiah and recorded in the Gospel of Luke: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and … set at liberty them that are bruised.’

Thus the Savior made the first public announcement of His messianic ministry. But this verse also made clear that on the way to His ultimate atoning sacrifice and Resurrection, Jesus’s first and foremost messianic duty would be to bless the poor, including the poor in spirit.

From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus loved the impoverished and the disadvantaged in an extraordinary way. He was born into the home of two of them and grew up among many more of them. We don’t know all the details of His temporal life, but He once said, ‘Foxes have holes, and … birds … have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.’ Apparently the Creator of heaven and earth ‘and all things that in them are’ was, at least in His adult life, homeless.

Down through history, poverty has been one of humankind’s greatest and most widespread challenges. Its obvious toll is usually physical, but the spiritual and emotional damage it can bring may be even more debilitating. In any case, the great Redeemer has issued no more persistent call than for us to join Him in lifting this burden from the people. As Jehovah, He said He would judge the house of Israel harshly because ‘the spoil of the [needy] is in your houses.’

‘What mean ye,” He cried, “that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?'”

Isaiah 3:14-15

14 The Lord will enter into ^ajudgment with the ^bancients of his people, and the ^cprinces thereof: for ye have ^deaten up the vineyard; the ^espoil of the ^fpoor is in your houses.

15 What mean ye that ye ^abeat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.

Isaiah 10:1-2

1 ^aWoe unto them that decree ^bunrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

2 To turn aside the needy from ^ajudgment, and to take away the right from the ^bpoor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!

Read more of Elder Hollands “Are We Not All Beggars”