Helping others comes in a variety of ways, including the poor and needy or even the poor in spirit, which are both addressed in the Bible.
Here’s what the Bible has to say about helping those in need.
New Testament verses about helping others
- Matthew 5:42 reads, “Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”
- Luke 6:30 advises to “give to every man that asketh thee” and “of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.”
- Acts 20:35 quotes Jesus Christ when he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” It reads, “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus.”
- 1 Timothy 6:1 17-18 warns the “rich in this world” against highmindedness. Rather the scripture read, we should trust in the “living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.” It reads that one should be “rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate.”
- James 1:27 is a powerful verse that says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Old Testament verses about helping others
- Proverbs 14:21 promises happiness for “he that hath mercy on the poor.”
- Proverbs 19:17 reads, “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.”
- Isaiah 58:10 says,“And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day.”
- Zechariah 7:9-10 advises that one “not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart,” calling it “true judgment,” “mercy” and “compassions every man to his brother.”
- Micah 6:8 asks, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”