General Chat

Funny thing -- after seeing this maxim solemnly affirmed here a few times lately, I'd had it in mind to make it a thread. And now it's just popped up again. So here's the thread.

What does "charity begins at home" mean? That is the question.

If you google "charity begins at home means" you get the predictable results:

"Charity begins at home means that family members are more important than anyone else, and should be the focus of a person's efforts"
“Charity begins at home means that before you give to others, to strangers, you should first take care of your own family"
"Charity begins at home means you take care of your family and loved ones before you go out to help strangers."
"Charity Begins at Home means that you support your home environment first rather than that further afield. i.e. Say your local hospital required funding for ..."

Well, that's certainly how people in threads hereabouts are using the expression.

I've never thought that was what it meant at all, though. I've always thought it meants something along the lines of these other results in my google list.

"Charity begins at home means that one should set an example by being more liberal in offering charity by his initiative from his own resources."

It begins at home - it begins with *you*, doing your part --

"The phrase 'charity begins at home' means that it begins in your mind outward."

Like this:

"The adage that “Charity begins at home” means that as a parent you're the chief executor of good values. Train your children with the love, morality and ..."
“charity begins at home means building a charitable culture within your own family and within your community."

If you happen to be religious:

"Charity begins at home means this: that there is no charity in the man who does not first pervade his own home with the love of God and his neighbor; ..."

And this comment on one website mentions the rather narrower view of the idea put in what I would call plain language:

"I feel it is also important that all texts are understood outside the particular religion which 'owns' them. The arguments around interpretation will continue - I know Christians who think 'Charity begins at home' means you should look after only your own nearest and dearest - the rest of the world can go hang."

Comments from members of a different religious/cultural group on another site:

"It does not mean word to word. Charity begins at home means first you start giving charity."
"Yes, but not in the form of pocket money from parents. When they give alms to beggars through your hands as a child."

From a UK discussion board:

"People who say 'Charity begins at home' either don't want to give to charity, or in particular don't want to give to any charities who work in other countries. Saying 'Charity begins at home' doesn't actually mean anything and is just an excuse. ...
Why use excuses? If you don't want to donate to a charity, just don't do it. No need for excuses, if you're in the right about it."



Anybody remember Sunday school, or confirmation classes, or wherever we learned our theology?

I do. We learned that there are three kinds of love, as expressed in the Latin words (okay, I had to google to remember the third) eros, agape and caritas. (There are variations on this theme, and we won't go into the faith vs. faith+works debate.)

CARITAS
is the one we are talking about here. Altruistic love. The word that gives us ours:
CHARITY

Faith, hope and charity.

And which of those was the greatest? To quote a well-known fellow whom I'm not particularly fond of myself, but who got this one right:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

It's a term that is open to interpretation and perception really. It can mean one thing to one person and another to the other person. Or it can mean whatever you want it to mean in the circumstances.

Faith , hope and charity...or faith , hope and love?
I have read both versions... maybe the second is less open to misinterpretation :) now that words no longer mean what they meant 'back in the day' ....

Rose! You missed the important bit (like ... the point ;) ) -- the word "charity" comes directly from the Latin word "caritas" -- which does indeed mean "love", one form of it, neighbourly love. I do agree, sticking with the basic word itself, "love", makes the whole thing clearer today.

Teresa, indeed, that's a point I and some of the random people I quoted were making: "it can mean whatever you want it to mean in the circumstances". And what a lot of people want it to mean is: "you should look after only your own nearest and dearest - the rest of the world can go hang"!

If it's convenient to think so, then yes they certainly can LOL

Janey - where is "home" is it my street, my estate, my country or "my world"?

How many others, like us, had that piece as the reading at their wedding. Only 'love' was used instead of 'charity?

And do you know, with the phrase, 'charity begins at home' it never occurred to me to substitute the word 'love' for 'charity.

Or, Julia May - is it your own heart -- and your own actions?

That's what I think the saying means.

Charity - love of others, neighbourly love - begins with the individual. If it is true charity, it can't just go nowhere, because then it wouldn't be love of others, it wouldn't be charity at all.

Charity is the impulse, what I believe in the inborn need to act for other people's benefit, not just our own.

If we all acted purely in our own interests, the human race would have died before it was born.

Of course it is natural to care for (care -- the word that also comes from "caritas") those very close to us as a priority. If people didn't care for their own children, well, once again, the human race would be long gone. ;)

But other people's children, and other people, are equally important to the human race, and we really do all know that. So we really do all know we have an obligation, simply because we are human, to all the rest of us.

Of course we can't care for everyone in the world. We have to make our own decisions and choices about how much we can help, and whom we will help.

But to offer the tired "charity begins at home" as a reason for not helping people we can't see -- that isn't charity -- love, caring. That's just pretending that there's some authority for one's choices when there isn't. There are just different ideas about what choices are better than others.

A good point - where is my home? and who is my neighbour?

Ann -- me neither, really -- substitute "love begins at home" -- but then I don't think or say "charity begins at home" much, or rather ever. Just because of the way it is almost always meant / understood.

But "love begins at home" does put a different slant on it, doesn't it?

If it "begins" there, it kind of has to keep going beyond ... and if it's real, it can't really help but do.

Good thought Janey. I am sure I will come back to it too, thank you.

Good point Janey...the word 'begins' whether you're talking of love or charity, is often (usually) (always) forgotten in the interpretation. But Begins, as you say, implies on it's own that home is the starting point, not the finishing point.

Where is home, who is neighbour?

Haven't you folks listened to as many Sunday sermons about that as I did in my youth? ;)

Now granted, mine was a church of the "social gospel", a church that for nearly a century has made social justice a priority. But with "love thy neighbour as thyself" being the new first or second commandment and all, I think we all know who our neighbours are. ;)

lol Janey I didn't have time to actually read it ! ;) I was looking for relatives :)

I went to a Baptist Church and the text across the front of the church was Love never faileth. many is the Sunday I have sat and looked at that.

My neighbour is here, is next door, is the person across the road, in the next country, he / she is anywhere and everywhere :-)

Yes, I have led prayers at work about my neighbour :-)

Rose -- I'm sure you mean you're looking for *other people's* relatives!! haha.

"Love never faileth" -- from the same passage from St Paul I quoted up top.

Can't stand old Paul for what he did to centuries of women. Strange how he didn't notice that women were his neighbours too ... Oh well. He certainly never said he was perfect. ;)

I've always taken " charity begins at home " to mean that " home " in this instance is ones self .

That's where I was going, Joy. ;)

That was *the* big thing drummed into us United Church of Canada kiddies: yr neighbour is everybody and anybody, everywhere and anywhere.

Our minister let me through the communion classes even when I informed him I didn't believe in that h3ll business. Not knowing who my neighbour was, that would have got me bounced!