poor

172:1.6Je­sus, know­ing what they thought and hear­ing what they said, put his hand upon Mary’s head as she knelt by his side and, with a kindly ex­pres­sion upon his face, said: “Let her alone, ev­ery one of you. Why do you trou­ble her about this, see­ing that she has done a good thing in her heart? To you who mur­mur and say that this oint­ment should have been sold and the money given to the poor, let me say that you have the poor al­ways with you so that you may min­is­ter to them at any time it seems good to you; but I shall not al­ways be with you; I go soon to my Fa­ther. This woman has long saved this oint­ment for my body at its burial, and now that it has seemed good to her to make this anoint­ing in an­tic­i­pa­tion of my death, she shall not be de­nied such sat­is­fac­tion. In the do­ing of this, Mary has re­proved all of you in that by this act she evinces faith in what I have said about my death and as­cen­sion to my Fa­ther in heaven. This woman shall not be re­proved for that which she has this night done; rather do I say to you that in the ages to come, wher­ever this gospel shall be preached through­out the whole world, what she has done will be spo­ken of in mem­ory of her.”

143:1.5“But who told you that my gospel was in­tended only for slaves and weak­lings? Do you, my cho­sen apos­tles, re­sem­ble weak­lings? Did John look like a weak­ling? Do you ob­serve that I am en­slaved by fear? True, the poor and op­pressed of this gen­er­a­tion have the gospel preached to them. The re­li­gions of this world have ne­glected the poor, but my Fa­ther is no re­specter of per­sons. Be­sides, the poor of this day are the first to heed the call to re­pen­tance and ac­cep­tance of son­ship. The gospel of the king­dom is to be preached to all men—Jew and gen­tile, Greek and Ro­man, rich and poor, free and bond—and equally to young and old, male and fe­male.

166:4.3“All too long have your fa­thers be­lieved that pros­per­ity was the to­ken of di­vine ap­proval; that ad­ver­sity was the proof of God’s dis­plea­sure. I de­clare that such be­liefs are su­per­sti­tions. Do you not ob­serve that far greater num­bers of the poor joy­fully re­ceive the gospel and im­me­di­ately en­ter the king­dom? If riches ev­i­dence di­vine fa­vor, why do the rich so many times refuse to be­lieve this good news from heaven?

196:2.8Je­sus blessed the poor be­cause they were usu­ally sin­cere and pi­ous; he con­demned the rich be­cause they were usu­ally wan­ton and ir­re­li­gious. He would equally con­demn the ir­re­li­gious pau­per and com­mend the con­se­crated and wor­ship­ful man of wealth.

147:8.3“‘Is it such a fast that I have cho­sen—a day for a man to af­flict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bul­rush, to grovel in sack­cloth and ashes? Will you dare to call this a fast and an ac­cept­able day in the sight of the Lord? Is not this the fast I should choose: to loose the bonds of wicked­ness, to undo the knots of heavy bur­dens, to let the op­pressed go free, and to break ev­ery yoke? Is it not to share my bread with the hun­gry and to bring those who are home­less and poor to my house? And when I see those who are naked, I will clothe them.

167:1.5Then went Je­sus over to where the sick man sat and, tak­ing him by the hand, said: “Arise and go your way. You have not asked to be healed, but I know the de­sire of your heart and the faith of your soul.” Be­fore the man left the room, Je­sus re­turned to his seat and, ad­dress­ing those at the ta­ble, said: “Such works my Fa­ther does, not to tempt you into the king­dom, but to re­veal him­self to those who are al­ready in the king­dom. You can per­ceive that it would be like the Fa­ther to do just such things be­cause which one of you, hav­ing a fa­vorite an­i­mal that fell in the well on the Sab­bath day, would not go right out and draw him up?” And since no one would an­swer him, and inas­much as his host ev­i­dently ap­proved of what was go­ing on, Je­sus stood up and spoke to all pres­ent: “My breth­ren, when you are bid­den to a mar­riage feast, sit not down in the chief seat, lest, per­chance, a more hon­ored man than you has been in­vited, and the host will have to come to you and re­quest that you give your place to this other and hon­ored guest. In this event, with shame you will be re­quired to take a lower place at the ta­ble. When you are bid­den to a feast, it would be the part of wis­dom, on ar­riv­ing at the fes­tive ta­ble, to seek for the low­est place and take your seat therein, so that, when the host looks over the guests, he may say to you: ‘My friend, why sit in the seat of the least? come up higher’; and thus will such a one have glory in the pres­ence of his fel­low guests. For­get not, ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, while he who truly hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted. There­fore, when you en­ter­tain at din­ner or give a sup­per, in­vite not al­ways your friends, your breth­ren, your kins­men, or your rich neigh­bors that they in re­turn may bid you to their feasts, and thus will you be rec­om­pensed. When you give a ban­quet, some­times bid the poor, the maimed, and the blind. In this way you shall be blessed in your heart, for you well know that the lame and the halt can­not re­pay you for your lov­ing min­istry.”

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”