Christian Mission and Poverty

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Christian Mission and Poverty

Lo, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

All of this is spoken in typical Hebrew fashion. “Heritage from the Lord” and “reward” are one and the same thing, just as “children” and “fruit of the womb” are one and the same thing. Thus it means to say: What good does it do you to be so deeply concerned and anxious about how to procure and protect your possessions? Why even children, and whatever is born of woman, are not within your power; although they are a part of household and city alike, for if there were no children and “fruit of the womb” neither household nor city would endure. So the very reward and “heritage from the Lord,” about which you are so terribly anxious, are actually the gift and boon of God. (Even if all the whole world were to combine forces, they could not bring about the conception of a single child in any woman’s womb nor cause it to be born; that is wholly the work of God alone.) Why, then, are you concerned and anxious about acquiring and securing goods, when you do not even possess that for which you seek them? A lord, then, and the head of a household ought rightfully to say to himself: I will labor and perform my allotted tasks; but He who creates children in the home and inhabitants in the city (all of whom are “fruit of the womb”) will also sustain and preserve them. Lo, this one’s labor and that one’s watching would then not be bitter to him, but would proceed aright in faith. Christ touched upon this (to which virtually the whole psalm is devoted) when he said in Matthew 8[:25],