I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
Job spoke these words to describe his own righteous life while he was suffering affliction under unjust accusation. To be a father to the poor is to care for the needy as a father cares for his children, with humble and self-sacrificing love that takes their needs seriously. To search out the unknown cause is to diligently investigate needs, cases and questions of justice that have not been brought forward, in order to help sufferers, defend the wronged and find practical ways to meet the need. This seeking must be active and impartial, not waiting to be urged and then refusing, but bringing comfort and relief to all who mourn and all who ask for help, not only to a favored few. Searching out unknown needs in this way is the duty and privilege of every Christian, especially those entrusted with responsibility, as tangible proof that Christ abides within, burning away selfishness and preparing for eternal life.
Job's Righteous Example
This is Job's own account of his righteous conduct, given while suffering affliction and answering unjust accusations. To be a father to the poor is to care for the needy as a father cares for his children, taking their needs seriously. That fatherhood is humble, self-sacrificing love that does not wait to be asked or turn away any who seek relief, but actively seeks out need. To search out the cause not known is to diligently investigate needs, cases, and questions of justice that have not already been brought forward. It includes taking up the cases of sufferers whose circumstances are not already known, defending those who have been wronged, and finding how to meet the need with practical help. Such seeking extends even to justice for people the helper did not personally know, whether their cases were brought forward or still hidden. Job's success and honor were joined to such compassionate and impartial justice, and such humble, self-sacrificing labor brings blessing and joy.
Christlike Duty to Seek
True help is to search out the needy and investigate causes not yet known, rather than waiting to be urged and then refusing to help. To be a father to the poor is not to limit comfort and relief to the few regarded with favor, but to seek for those who need help and to give help and relief to all who apply for it and to comfort all who mourn. The verse is gratitude to God expressed by doing the work Christ did on earth in partnership with Him, with the Saviour abiding in the heart, possessing His attributes, working as He worked, with the heart touched by human woe. It means actively investigating suffering and need that has not been directly brought to notice, seeking out the troubles of the poor and needy, and relieving poverty, hunger, nakedness, and oppression, especially among those who love and fear God and among the household of faith. It rebukes gathering means for self while leaving Christ in the person of His saints to suffer, seeing the needy bearing the yoke of poverty and, like the priest and Levite, passing by on the other side without resolute effort to help.
Searching out causes and needs not yet known is the duty and privilege of all Christians, and especially of those entrusted with God's institutions. It shows kindly interest in helpers and benefactors who have become impoverished, embarrassed, or fallen into decay, not leaving them to struggle alone but judiciously using means invested in institutions for their relief. This searching work does not wait to be urged but flows from Christ abiding within, gives tangible proof of justice and judgment, cherishes and practices the attributes of heaven while in the world, and reveals the fruits of righteousness in every branch grafted into the true vine. It burns away selfishness, restores the favor of God, makes partakers of the divine nature, and prepares for the city God has built for the pure and holy and for eternal life. The verse gives work for God to every truly converted church member, pictured as searching out needs and causes not yet known and doing the same kind of ministry Christ did when in the world. Whether rich or poor, each is to wear His yoke and learn meekness and lowliness of heart, studying what service to God means and ministering as Christ did, living not to please self but to glorify God and using every entrusted talent in love for the Master.
That ministry includes preaching Christ and opening God's word, yet not secluding from personal labor of visiting families, talking with them, praying with them, exhorting and encouraging those who need it, and bringing God's word to meet every deficiency. Such missionary labor saves many souls and causes the worker to lose sight of self. The verse also describes co-workers with God who fill their place in the world with the love of Jesus and plant seeds of truth in every heart. To say this is to search out unknown needs and causes while living in prayer for the grace and peace of Christ as the breath of the soul, with the heart constantly reaching after God and watching for opportunities to do good and to speak to souls who are ready to die.
Practical Works of Mercy
To be a father to the poor is to go to fatherless families such as widows and their children, inquire into their condition, find what their youth need in order to help themselves, give them work and a place to learn discipline, and act as fathers and mothers in Israel to plan, advise, counsel, and keep them in the path of obedience to God unto eternal life. Practical charity means giving food and clothing to the suffering poor, with sanctified judgment directing aid wisely so that recipients are enabled to help others, for help given to the least of Christ's brethren is done to Christ Himself. When many distressed cases press upon notice and demand charity, including fellow believers lacking food and clothing, the known needs alone can exceed what purses can supply so that no hunting up of cases is needed.
Searching out hidden troubles is a personal responsibility that must not be left to others, because others may fail to see the need or be held back by a prudence and caution that is not from heaven, and this applies especially to those who would suffer for accepting truth. Where suffering is on every hand the searching is less needed because the needs are open, yet workers must still have means in hand to help sufferers at the right time, and God does not require them to labor barehanded. Appeals in behalf of the needy are to be answered with lively personal interest in relieving suffering humanity as the Master's work, feeding hungry children, clothing the destitute, making the widow's heart sing for joy, and reviving those ready to perish. Doing this Godlike enterprise with zeal brings blessing to the workers themselves, giving life from the dead to the indolent, selfish, and self-centered, and bringing a revival of heavenly charity and wisdom and zeal with new spiritual power to overcome difficulties and obstacles. Neglecting the poor, widows, and fatherless, and failing to labor for fairness between people, is failure to search out the cause and is neglect of Christ in His people.
The minister's duty to watch for souls as one that must give an account means interesting himself in the souls for whom he labors and searching out the unknown cause by finding out all that perplexes and troubles them and hinders them from walking in the light. This searching is home missionary work through personal intercourse, in no case to be neglected because eternal interests are involved, even when it demands much painstaking effort and inconvenience. To choose not to do it is to neglect souls for whom Christ died and God-given responsibility, and to be registered as an unfaithful servant shut away from those who need help instead of being a strength and blessing, while doing it keeps the minister from becoming self-centered, lets him understand spiritual condition, and teaches him how to feed the flock, giving to each his portion in due season. Diligent inquiry into the unknown cause requires learning skill in ministry as well-trained physicians of the soul under the direction of the great Physician, healing bruised souls, binding up the wounds that sin, trial, and hardship have made, and setting the fallen once more on their feet. It requires helping one another, never doing anything to send a soul into discouragement, refusing selfish exacting principles, and actively helping a brother struggling under debt, ill health, poverty, and distress, doing good to all and especially to those of the household of faith.
Such searching keeps before workers the hard cases of missionary laborers who must support their own families and help distressed, needy people on half the means others receive. It rebukes careless, self-indulgent workers who overvalue their own work and place a money value on their services, for the Lord knows every case, keeps a record in His books, and in the day when every work is made manifest each man's work shall be revealed. Toward neglected mission work it calls for finding out how little help England has had, considering how one stands before God regarding that field, opening the long-closed door in London, providing means for its organization, and setting the work in operation so that God can cooperate for its advancement. Those with abundant facilities must on their own discern principle without pressing or urging, divide what they have, and help establish the work in a new field where there is great dearth instead of continually creating buildings where the work is already established, as in seeing Australia's need and aiding its sanitarium as a helping arm years before. True medical missionary work fulfills the verse by taking the sick and suffering into one's own home when there is no hospital to restore them, being instrumental in saving whole families, and using everything of one's own and advancing money to help them obtain homes and land. The same care required investigating a brother's financial distress, as in Brother Leininger's case, before it became severe and securing help for him.
Job spoke these words to describe his own righteous life while he was suffering affliction under unjust accusation. To be a father to the poor is to care for the needy as a father cares for his children, with humble and self-sacrificing love that takes their needs seriously. To search out the unknown cause is to diligently investigate needs, cases and questions of justice that have not been brought forward, in order to help sufferers, defend the wronged and find practical ways to meet the need. This seeking must be active and impartial, not waiting to be urged and then refusing, but bringing comfort and relief to all who mourn and all who ask for help, not only to a favored few. Searching out unknown needs in this way is the duty and privilege of every Christian, especially those entrusted with responsibility, as tangible proof that Christ abides within, burning away selfishness and preparing for eternal life.
Job's Righteous Example
This is Job's own account of his righteous conduct, given while suffering affliction and answering unjust accusations. To be a father to the poor is to care for the needy as a father cares for his children, taking their needs seriously. That fatherhood is humble, self-sacrificing love that does not wait to be asked or turn away any who seek relief, but actively seeks out need. To search out the cause not known is to diligently investigate needs, cases, and questions of justice that have not already been brought forward. It includes taking up the cases of sufferers whose circumstances are not already known, defending those who have been wronged, and finding how to meet the need with practical help. Such seeking extends even to justice for people the helper did not personally know, whether their cases were brought forward or still hidden. Job's success and honor were joined to such compassionate and impartial justice, and such humble, self-sacrificing labor brings blessing and joy.
Christlike Duty to Seek
True help is to search out the needy and investigate causes not yet known, rather than waiting to be urged and then refusing to help. To be a father to the poor is not to limit comfort and relief to the few regarded with favor, but to seek for those who need help and to give help and relief to all who apply for it and to comfort all who mourn. The verse is gratitude to God expressed by doing the work Christ did on earth in partnership with Him, with the Saviour abiding in the heart, possessing His attributes, working as He worked, with the heart touched by human woe. It means actively investigating suffering and need that has not been directly brought to notice, seeking out the troubles of the poor and needy, and relieving poverty, hunger, nakedness, and oppression, especially among those who love and fear God and among the household of faith. It rebukes gathering means for self while leaving Christ in the person of His saints to suffer, seeing the needy bearing the yoke of poverty and, like the priest and Levite, passing by on the other side without resolute effort to help.
Searching out causes and needs not yet known is the duty and privilege of all Christians, and especially of those entrusted with God's institutions. It shows kindly interest in helpers and benefactors who have become impoverished, embarrassed, or fallen into decay, not leaving them to struggle alone but judiciously using means invested in institutions for their relief. This searching work does not wait to be urged but flows from Christ abiding within, gives tangible proof of justice and judgment, cherishes and practices the attributes of heaven while in the world, and reveals the fruits of righteousness in every branch grafted into the true vine. It burns away selfishness, restores the favor of God, makes partakers of the divine nature, and prepares for the city God has built for the pure and holy and for eternal life. The verse gives work for God to every truly converted church member, pictured as searching out needs and causes not yet known and doing the same kind of ministry Christ did when in the world. Whether rich or poor, each is to wear His yoke and learn meekness and lowliness of heart, studying what service to God means and ministering as Christ did, living not to please self but to glorify God and using every entrusted talent in love for the Master.
That ministry includes preaching Christ and opening God's word, yet not secluding from personal labor of visiting families, talking with them, praying with them, exhorting and encouraging those who need it, and bringing God's word to meet every deficiency. Such missionary labor saves many souls and causes the worker to lose sight of self. The verse also describes co-workers with God who fill their place in the world with the love of Jesus and plant seeds of truth in every heart. To say this is to search out unknown needs and causes while living in prayer for the grace and peace of Christ as the breath of the soul, with the heart constantly reaching after God and watching for opportunities to do good and to speak to souls who are ready to die.
Practical Works of Mercy
To be a father to the poor is to go to fatherless families such as widows and their children, inquire into their condition, find what their youth need in order to help themselves, give them work and a place to learn discipline, and act as fathers and mothers in Israel to plan, advise, counsel, and keep them in the path of obedience to God unto eternal life. Practical charity means giving food and clothing to the suffering poor, with sanctified judgment directing aid wisely so that recipients are enabled to help others, for help given to the least of Christ's brethren is done to Christ Himself. When many distressed cases press upon notice and demand charity, including fellow believers lacking food and clothing, the known needs alone can exceed what purses can supply so that no hunting up of cases is needed.
Searching out hidden troubles is a personal responsibility that must not be left to others, because others may fail to see the need or be held back by a prudence and caution that is not from heaven, and this applies especially to those who would suffer for accepting truth. Where suffering is on every hand the searching is less needed because the needs are open, yet workers must still have means in hand to help sufferers at the right time, and God does not require them to labor barehanded. Appeals in behalf of the needy are to be answered with lively personal interest in relieving suffering humanity as the Master's work, feeding hungry children, clothing the destitute, making the widow's heart sing for joy, and reviving those ready to perish. Doing this Godlike enterprise with zeal brings blessing to the workers themselves, giving life from the dead to the indolent, selfish, and self-centered, and bringing a revival of heavenly charity and wisdom and zeal with new spiritual power to overcome difficulties and obstacles. Neglecting the poor, widows, and fatherless, and failing to labor for fairness between people, is failure to search out the cause and is neglect of Christ in His people.
The minister's duty to watch for souls as one that must give an account means interesting himself in the souls for whom he labors and searching out the unknown cause by finding out all that perplexes and troubles them and hinders them from walking in the light. This searching is home missionary work through personal intercourse, in no case to be neglected because eternal interests are involved, even when it demands much painstaking effort and inconvenience. To choose not to do it is to neglect souls for whom Christ died and God-given responsibility, and to be registered as an unfaithful servant shut away from those who need help instead of being a strength and blessing, while doing it keeps the minister from becoming self-centered, lets him understand spiritual condition, and teaches him how to feed the flock, giving to each his portion in due season. Diligent inquiry into the unknown cause requires learning skill in ministry as well-trained physicians of the soul under the direction of the great Physician, healing bruised souls, binding up the wounds that sin, trial, and hardship have made, and setting the fallen once more on their feet. It requires helping one another, never doing anything to send a soul into discouragement, refusing selfish exacting principles, and actively helping a brother struggling under debt, ill health, poverty, and distress, doing good to all and especially to those of the household of faith.
Such searching keeps before workers the hard cases of missionary laborers who must support their own families and help distressed, needy people on half the means others receive. It rebukes careless, self-indulgent workers who overvalue their own work and place a money value on their services, for the Lord knows every case, keeps a record in His books, and in the day when every work is made manifest each man's work shall be revealed. Toward neglected mission work it calls for finding out how little help England has had, considering how one stands before God regarding that field, opening the long-closed door in London, providing means for its organization, and setting the work in operation so that God can cooperate for its advancement. Those with abundant facilities must on their own discern principle without pressing or urging, divide what they have, and help establish the work in a new field where there is great dearth instead of continually creating buildings where the work is already established, as in seeing Australia's need and aiding its sanitarium as a helping arm years before. True medical missionary work fulfills the verse by taking the sick and suffering into one's own home when there is no hospital to restore them, being instrumental in saving whole families, and using everything of one's own and advancing money to help them obtain homes and land. The same care required investigating a brother's financial distress, as in Brother Leininger's case, before it became severe and securing help for him.