Curtis Hinshaw argues that we must make a concerted effort to give to the poor, though not for the reasons you may think.

As a lifelong conservative himself, he expects some conservatives may think he's selling out-or even that he's a closet liberal trying to pilfer everyone out of money by selling a book. There could be nothing further from the truth.

The reality is he's concluded that we need to do more for the least of these. The Bible tells us so and is downright serious about it.

The Bible doesn't say it's the government's job to give to the poor and needy-it says it's our job. Since government programs help our less privileged quite a bit, it makes our job easier because there aren't as many desperately poor, like Lazarus, or at least they aren't as obvious as Lazarus with all his sores laying at the gate. However, we must help them.

The rich man in this book is more like you than you'd like to believe. He, like many of us, thinks he can ignore the poor without consequence.