Counsels on Social Issue

Counsel #5 — Exploiting The Poor

Picture: Counsel #5 — Exploiting The Poor CSI 110.1

Climate change is not a belief system, nor a political system. Our motivation to reduce carbon emissions, conserve water and transition to renewable energy should not be based on where we fall on the political spectrum but should rather be an expression of our Christian values. CSI 110.2

Issues like pollution, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity loss have the most impact on the poor, exploited and oppressed, exacerbating hunger, refugee displacement and political instability. Yet the poor are the very group Christ enjoins us to serve and protect! (Proverbs 31:8, 9)^[160] CSI 110.3

“The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5 CSI 110.4

NKJV CSI 110.5

“The world is cursed today by the miserly greed and the self-indulgent vices of the worshipers of mammon [materialism]. Ellen White in Counsels on Stewardship, p. 139 CSI 110.6

Reflect: What are some ways you could improve the environment by helping the poor? CSI 110.7