Week 3: Chapter 2 — What Is Poverty and Why Is It So Hard to Eliminate?

1.The authors argue that poverty cannot be properly understood without the four-chapter 'big story' of Scripture: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Why is this narrative framework essential? What goes wrong when we try to address poverty without it?

2.Corbett and Fikkert describe human beings as 'image-bearers' (imago Dei) created for four key relationships: with God, self, others, and the rest of creation. Poverty, they argue, is the result of brokenness in one or more of these relationships. Which of these four broken relationships do you see most visibly in the forms of poverty you have encountered?

3.The authors boldly claim that materially wealthy North American Christians often suffer from a 'poverty of being' — broken relationships with God, self, and others — even while being materially prosperous. Does this resonate with you? What might your own relational poverty look like?