Luke's Teaching on Poverty in his Gospel and Acts.
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Date
1999-02-12
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
The intention of my work is to demonstrate that the disciples' obligation to
help the materially poor is based on God's care for them expressed through Jesus'
attitude according to the Luke's Gospel, and the commitment of the Early Christian
Community according to Acts of the Apostles.
1 intend to follow the exegetical approach. First of all, I have to tried to
familiarize myself with the texts of Luke-Acts pertaining to my topic by referring to
various commentaries and relevant authors. And then, I have developed the material
in three parts.
In the first part, I have outlined God's attitude to the poor as revealed through
the person of Jesus. Here, there is a message to the world which God wants to
communicate through the presence of the poor, I have emphasized this. I have
referred to the various passages from the Gospel of Saint Luke and the heart of this
chapter is the Year of Favor (Lk. 4:18), where Jesus announces his mission as that of
proclaiming the good news to the poor. This part of my work develops the theme of
God's attitude towards the poor, as revealed in the person of Jesus.
In the second chapter I talk about the disciples' fulfillment of the obligation
to help the poor. Here, I have analyzed the lifestyle of the Early Christian Community
vis a vis the poor, according to the Acts of the Apostles. The lifestyle of the Early
Christian Community, according to Luke-Acts, will help us to understand the
obligation of disciples to help the materially poor. Their concern for the needy
brother and sister reflects the divine concern for the poor.
The present day application is contained in the third chapter of my work. My
concern in this final part is the challenge which the poor give to the religious who are to be today's disciples of Jesus in a special way. How are we going to face the
challenges given to us as people consecrated to God by those who are oppressed,
persecuted and suffering because of hunger and other-itijuitices? This is the burden of
this chapter.
The main guiding question of my work is: What message does Luke-Acts
communicate to the Christian disciples concerning their attitude toward the poor? I
hope my work answers this question as we go through the text of Luke-Acts from the
perspective of the situation of the materially poor in relation to God, and the Early
Christian Community's attitude towards them.
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Keywords
Poverty, Gospel, Luke's Teaching, God