SAVAGE POVERTY AND OPTION FOR THE POOR: A STUDY OF LUKE 14,12-14 FROM THE BACKDROP OF IFEOMA OKOYE’S ‘FOURTH WORLD’

Abstract

One does not need to travel outside Nigeria to Europe to see the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. The Western world talks of developed, developing and under-developed nations of the world. The under-developed countries, mainly African countries are so called because of chronic lack of infrastructure, basic human amenities and abject poverty of majority of her citizenry who live below the poverty level. Ifeoma Okoye in her awardwinning novel, ‘The Fourth World’ has so careful conjectured a better name for the reality of wide gap between the rich and the poor even in the so-called third world or underdeveloped nations. The truth stares one on the face very conspicuously as one moves from North to Southern part of Nigeria; from Government Reserved Areas where the rich live to ghettos in the same state in Nigeria; from some estates equipped with Federal Special Line for constant electricity to immediate buildings in the same vicinity but covered with darkness and epileptic power supply. This paper believes that Luke 14,12-14 captures a necessary option for the poor as a solution to Ifeoma Okoye’s concern. Studying the text from the prism of exegetical lens, the researchers demonstrate care and altruistic concern for others as the hope of the poor. The paper adopts exegesis of Luke 14,12-14; a review of Ifeoma Okoye’s Fourth World; and a hermeneutic application of Luke’s text to pave a way through trackless way of the world’s first enemy, namely, poverty.