Ramesh Ponnuru

Had an interesting post in Thursday’s Corner related to whether or not the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves”. As is usual in the corner, this generated about a kazillion emails. See Ramesh’s follow-up post here.

I skimmed over the noted piece in Harper’s. Now, we can all deplore the lack of knowledge of the Bible, and the fact that the US is only nominally Christian. However, the article lost me when he equated forced redistribution with Charity. Should Americans give more to missionaries and the poor? Certainly. I’m not sure that this translates into a Biblical injunction to support the “Dollars for Dictators” programs the author favors.

The point of this is not to indulge in the vulgar Fisking this piece of tripe deserves, since Ramesh’s correspondents have already beaten that mule pretty thouroughly. So, laying aside the rubes from Harper’s, the point is to set up the following story.

Several years ago, Dr. Joseph Stowell (then President of Moody Bible Institute) came to speak at our church. After the service, there was a book signing / sale in the atrium, as is pretty typical. A friend, who I’ll call “John”, even though that’s real his name * , purchased a book and had Dr. Stowell sign it. John showed me the autograph. The inscription read something like, To John:, II Cor x.xx (I forget the verse number).

While we were looking over the book, John said, “I wonder what that verse says?”. My reply: “Oh, that’s ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’”. John blinked a couple of times, and then “heyyyyyy, that’s not in the Bible….”

* Joke shamelessly stolen from the master, S.J. Perelman

Update: Welcome St.Maximos' readers. Thanks for the link, Andy.