Out of balance

I heard on the news recently that Muhammad Ali’s world heavyweight championship belt was sold for $8.9M. When I looked it up online, the figure appears to have actually been $6.18M. Either way, that’s a lot of money to spend on a piece of memorabilia!

I couldn’t help wondering how many homeless and/or hungry people that money would have helped?

Here’s a quote regarding wealth distribution in our world: “While the richest 10% of adults in the world own 85% of global household wealth, the bottom half collectively owns barely 1%. Even more strikingly, the average person in the top 10% owns nearly 3,000 times the wealth of the average person in the bottom 10%.” (United Nations University 2006)

Human nature combined with current government systems around the world ensure that there will always be a big divide between rich and poor.

God has promised to fix this inequality and make the world a much better place. If you read your Bible, Micah chapter 4, verses 1-3 speak of a transformed world and then in verse 4 we read this: “Everyone will live in peace and prosperity, enjoying their own grapevines and fig trees, for there will be nothing to fear. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has made this promise!” (Micah 4:4, NLT)

“Peace and prosperity… nothing to fear” – sounds good to me!

Reference:

“The Global Distribution of Household Wealth” UNU WiderAngle 2006 https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/global-distribution-household-wealth (18 October 2022)