Deuteronomy 15:4,11

Deuteronomy 15:4 "However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you..."

Deuteronomy 15:11 "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land."

These two scriptures are not contradicting each other. The word that explains it all is "should" in verse four. It's not God's best for people to be poor. He is a good God that wants his children to be well taken care of, and not go hungry.

That said, the earth is under the power(right now) of Satan. In Corinthians he is called the "god of this world", the greek bears it out as the god of this world system. If you remember, Satan was the one that offered Jesus all of the kingdoms of this world if he would bow down and worship him.

This is actually a much larger subject than can be covered in one post, so I will not go into more detail. I believe that there are three reasons people are poor even though it's not God's best for their lives.

1. Not knowing how to deal with finances.
2. Satan's influence in their lives keeping them from being blessed financially.
3. People were supposed to bless them, and help them, and did not-could have been fellow Christians or bad employers, or bad politicians.

Being poor is not a sin. Poor people should not be marginalized or made to feel guilty. Everybody bears some of blame for poverty. So everybody should make some effort to fix it.

AC