Mark Twain liked to say there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Let’s look at three well-cited statistics…
- 27 million slaves
- 145 million orphans
- 1.1 billion without clean drinking water
These statistics are paradoxically important and meaningless. Important because there is a staggering breadth, depth, and inter-connectivity between these issues.
Meaningless because we do not solve problems, or change lives, by the millions and billions.
Eradicating polio happened one inoculation at a time. It was, however, sped along by organized and well funded campaigns to wipe out the disease for good.
It can be done. It happens one person at a time. And when thousands work together in concert–they will heal and help millions.
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posted July 19, 2010 at 12:20 pm
One of my “pet peeve” stats is that there are over 2000 verses that relate to poverty. Other topics like justice (which often has nothing to do with poverty) are added to attain that number. So I did a study with some friends and we came up with a total of 564 verses in Scripture on God’s concern for the poor and His desire for us to do something about it: 236 verses in NT, and 328 in OT. That’s no small number… why can’t we live with that? Just as Wess Stafford’s autobigrpahy is titled “Too Small to Ignore”… ONE person is too small to ignore… and changes usually happen ONE act at a time… So, well said, Tom… well said!
posted July 19, 2010 at 1:33 pm
The statistics don’t motivate me, the lives do. Statistics are numbers that represent real people made in God’s image. 50 million, 27 million, 200, 5. . . no matter the number – slaves, orphans, and widows need God’s help and God chooses to use us. Let’s re-abolish slavery, care for the least and the lost, and speak words of love and hope.