The Twenty-Piece Shuffle: Why the Poor and Rich Need Each Other
In the dark corners of the inner city, the most destitute people in society are searching for anything to numb their hurting souls. And there are some who display the most extreme mix of need and anticipation: the twenty-piece shuffle, a jittery walk marked by wide-eyed desperation, named after the street tag for a piece of crack cocaine.
But the addiction to whatever will numb a troubled spirit is not confined to the streets. Suffering is not bound by social class, and pain is not held at bay by white-picket fences. In a wealthy society that equates money with happiness, we often remain unaware of our own addictions -- the things we chase to sooth our spirits. And while our need may not be as visible, it is no less real.
Greg Paul believes that the rich, the impoverished, and everyone in between can learn much from each other if they're willing to walk together. Join Greg as he takes a look at a remarkable paradox, where the poor can miss their blessedness while the wealthy overlook their own desperate needs, and reveals why God has always called the wealthy and powerful to care for people who are poor or excluded.
Top Highlights
“Biblical justice is a matter of neither moral piety nor retribution, but of treating people rightly in the first place and making sure that those whose opportunities to live well have been restricted or removed are restored to spiritual, physical, economic, and political health and freedom.” (source)
“More careful students than I tell me that there are more than 2,000 references in more than four hundred different passages of Scripture that speak of God’s passion for the poor. My own studies reveal to me that, in the Hebrew alone, biblical writers use more than forty different words to describe conditions of poverty. These roughly sort into four primary categories, indicating destitution or dispossession, oppression, affliction (suffering, depression, helplessness), and sickness (diminished strength, disease). Beyond that, there are terms that describe the people and conditions that are likely to indicate poverty or exclusion: the widow, orphan, foreigner, hungry, weak, naked, homeless, etc.” (source)
“I realize that my urge to help others is often rooted in a desire to avoid facing the things I need help with;” (source)
“He learned that we grow only by letting go of those things that protect us, or confirm our importance, or justify to ourselves our attitudes and actions, and moving forward into the shadows, where faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.” (source)
“The reality, of course, is that the rich are usually, because of their riches, barely conscious of their deep poverty and the consequent invitation to embrace their true identity in relationship with their Maker that can be found only in those depths.” (source)
Product Details
- Title : The Twenty-Piece Shuffle: Why the Poor and Rich Need Each Other
- Author: Paul, Greg
- Publisher: David C Cook
- Publication Date: 2010
- ISBN: 9781434765789