Why Poverty and Oppression?

Jesus Christ once said:  "You always have the poor with you, and whenever you want to you can always do them good, but me, you do not always have always.  (Mark 14:7)  Did Jesus mean that poverty and oppression would never end?  Like some people, did he believe that such suffering is part 0f a plan of God to give compassionate ones the opportunity to show how much they care?  No!  Jesus did not believe that.  He was simply making  the point that poverty  would be part of life as long as this system of things exists.  But Jesus also knew this:  "It was not his heavenly Father's original purpose to have such conditions on the earth.

Jehovah God created the earth to be a paradise, not a place plagued with poverty,injustice, and oppression.  He showed how much he cared for the human family by making wonder provisions that would add to the enjoyment of life.  Why, consider the very name of the garden in which our first parents, Adam and Eve, found themselves!  It was called Eden, meaning "Pleasure."  (Genesis 2:8, 9)  Jehovah did not limit humans to the bare necessities for survival in some drab, oppressive environment. At the conclusion of his creative work, Jehovah surveyed what he had made and declared that it was "very good." -Genesis 1:31.

Well, then, why are poverty, oppression and other causses of suffering rampant eath wide today?  The present wicked system of things exists because our original  parents chose to rebel against God.  (Genesis 3:1-5)  This raised the question of whether  it was right for God to demand obedience from his creatures.  So Jeh0vah has allowed Adam's  descendants a limited period of independence.  God still cared about what happened to the human family.  He made provision for undoing all the harm  that rebellion against him would produce.  And very soon, Jehovah will end poverty and oppression - in fact, all suffering. -Ephesians 1:8-10.

Next time: A Problem Beyond Human Solution

The Watchtower, 1999