{"id":616,"date":"2006-10-04T17:28:44","date_gmt":"2006-10-04T17:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res-1.html"},"modified":"2006-10-04T17:28:44","modified_gmt":"2006-10-04T17:28:44","slug":"the-churchs-res-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res-1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Church’s Responsibility to Orphans Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bible clearly states that God’s people are responsible to care for the orphan. A ‘portion’ of our ‘fields’ belong to the widow and orphan. Read Deuteronomy 24:18-21<\/a>– the Israelites were to leave the second harvest and the extra for those who were in need. <\/p>\n

There were even more provisions made for them earlier in Deuteronomy 14:28-29<\/a>. Because the orphan and widow had no inheritance – they were alone, abandoned, and had nobody to care for them – a portion of the tithe belonged to them.<\/p>\n

\"Wheat20field20cropped20and20smaller_2\"<\/a> You see this principle lived out in the New Testament in Acts 6<\/a> when the apostles were feeding widows with their own hands. Why did they take the time to do what many today would consider a menial task? Because they knew God had a special place in his heart for the disenfranchised. If it was important to God, it was important to them. No questions asked.<\/p>\n

Those of us who are Christ-followers today should give thought to how the fields of the fatherless principle applies to our lives. If a portion of our fields belongs to the widow, the stranger, and the orphan how can we apply that to our lives? How can we give a portion of what we have in terms of talent, time, and treasure to those who are suffering the most in our society and around the world?\"Vincentvangogh2371\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The other interesting part of this principle is that God promises to bless all the works of our hands if we care for the orphan. I can’t tell you how this will happen, but what I can say with confidence is that God is faithful. If we take care of the things on His heart, He will bless us and fulfill the secret desires of our hearts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bible clearly states that God’s people are responsible to care for the orphan. A ‘portion’ of our ‘fields’ belong to the widow and orphan. Read Deuteronomy 24:18-21– the Israelites were to leave the second harvest and the extra for those who were in need. There were even more provisions made for them earlier in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Church's Responsibility to Orphans Part 2 - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/10\/the-churchs-res-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Church's Responsibility to Orphans Part 2 - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Bible clearly states that God’s people are responsible to care for the orphan. 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A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}