ok so i recently encounterd a man, down on his luck. a doctor from new york, passing through my small southern town lost all his credit cards, money id… still had the suit on his back so he looked presentable. got picked up by the cops for hitchiking through town, asked some of the local churches for help and was turned down because he was too well off.
I’m looking for stories in the bible that may apply to this situation.
Not a story as such, but bits of the Bible (Pentateuch) that enjoin us not to treat the “rich” any worse than the poor (injunctions, if you like, against inverted snobbery, or, as some sociologists refer to the phenomenon today, the tendency to “fake it”):
Exodus 23: 2-3 “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.”
Leviticus 19:15 “Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”
Why couldn’t he call the 1-800 number for his credit card companies and get the lost cards replaced?
Why couldn’t he call the NY state Dept. of Morot Vehicles and get his Drivers License replaced? Or the NY New York State Board for Medicine? (They have an online and phone based system to allow immediate verification of current licensure of NY doctors.)
Or call the SSA to get a new copy of his Social Security card?
And if the cops picked him up, how did they identify him? If he had actually had some valid NY State ID, surely they could get copies of that faxed to the police station.
Ditto. This is actually a fairly common panhandling scam. All you need is a suit and a story. Typically they try to wheedle their marks into giving them a “loan” just until they can get back home and get their stuff straightened out. They’ll even write down the mark’s addres and stuff like they’re really going to follow through on anything.
I find it hard to believe that a doctor wouldn’t know how to call his credit card companies or that he wouldn’t be able to prove his identity to the police. The OP better hang on to his wallet.
A scam was my first thought as well. That doesn’t mean the churches shouldn’t help him if he truly needs help; but I would be wary of taking his story at face value. (Ironically the churches would probably be quicker to help him if he was a regular panhandler and was not trying to con people, if that’s what he’s doing).
didnt ask me for nothin so i dont suspect its a scam… and the storys just what the guy told me. though it does sound realistic given the type of people around here…