Discussions of who needs our benevolence frequently contrast the honorably poor (poor because of injustice, misfortune, disability, etc.) with the dishonorably poor (poor because of laziness, lack of discipline, foolishness, etc.).
Most people prefer to help those who are honorably poor, and I count myself as one of those people. Who doesn’t want to help the family man who just lost his job? Who really wants to help the thief who’s never worked hard in his life?
The question, though, is “Who is really poor?” The upstanding guy down on his luck, or the lazy drunk? Isn’t it the lazy drunk whose laziness and drunkenness is hardly more than self-perpetuating evidence of his spiritual poverty? When we consider his spiritual poverty, isn’t he poorer than the guy down on his luck who, although he may not have God, has a sense of shame and decorum and morality that could become Godliness?