The Bible and the Headlines: News You Can Use

By Editor | March 13, 2024

Old Age Blues

By David Bachelor, PhD

Press coverage of recent primaries and the upcoming presidential elections have spilled a lot of ink on the subject of gerontology. Since both of these aged presidential candidates are in the upper income brackets, there is one aspect of aging that neither the Republican or the Democrat is likely to experience. The missing facet is poverty. This prospect for multitudes of seniors is making headlines this week.

CBS News’ MoneyWatch on March 11th featured, “Retiring in America Increasingly Means Working into Old Age, New Book Finds.” The book, “ Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy” by Terry Ghilarducci, claims that only one in ten seniors in the first decade of their retirement are “. . . both retired and financially secure.” The author found the majority of seniors eligible for retirement will have less income than in their working years, and thus many cannot afford to stop working.

Senior poverty is an international phenomenon. The March 11th edition of The Korea Herald had the story, “ S. Korea’s Sky-high Elderly Poverty Edges Even Higher to 38.1%.” The survey at the heart of this article defined poverty as “… income lower than 50 percent of median, …after-tax income for each resident.” The poverty benchmark for the general population in South Korea is only 14.9 per cent. Nearly one in two elderly South Korean women are poor, while for elderly men the rate is one in three. These statistics were contrasted with a poverty rate for elderly in Iceland of 3.1 percent and in Norway with 3.8 percent.

The most distressing article was “China: The Old Age Home of The World” in the March 11th edition of the Financial Express. In China it is not merely the percentage of the senior population in poverty that is dreadful, but the sheer numbers of the people involved. The article noted, “[B]y the end of 2022 itself, the Chinese population who were aged 65 and above, outnumbered the combined populations of France, the United Kingdom and Thailand.” Future numbers yield even less hope. The article states, “China has been sleepwalking into a situation where it will have an elderly population equal to that of all developed countries combined by 2030.”

God is also concerned about senior poverty and He speaks a lot about this topic in the Bible. His care is centered on the fifth commandment which is, “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex 20:12). Throughout the Old and New Covenant God returns to this ordinance. In the Gospels, Jesus chastised the religious leaders who took from pension money to build the temple. Jesus accused them, “You say, ‘Even if your parents are in need, you may give their support money to the church instead.’ And so, by your man-made rule, you nullify the direct command of God to honor and care for your parents” (Matt 15:5-6). The plight of the elderly features prominently in the first letter to Timothy. In one example Timothy is instructed, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).

These writings make clear that in 2024 it won’t be enough to vote for a senior citizen, or to expect whichever senior wins to take care of our nation’s elderly. We are the ones God expects to take care of the seniors He has entrusted to us.

Posted in Lifestyles