Is "God helps those who help themselves" in the Bible? Where the saying comes from

No. "God helps those who help themselves" is not in the Bible. The earliest known use of the exact wording is by the English political writer Algernon Sidney in 1698, and Benjamin Franklin made it famous in Poor Richard's Almanack in 1736. The idea itself goes back to ancient Greece. The Bible's central message is closer to the opposite: God helps people who can't help themselves.

That doesn't make it all wrong. Scripture also has plenty to say in favor of hard work.

Where does "God helps those who help themselves" come from?

The idea is older than Christianity. Lines of Greek drama attributed to Sophocles and Euripides, from the 5th century BC, say heaven helps people who act. A fable credited to Aesop, Hercules and the Wagoner, first written down by the Greek poet Babrius, probably in the 1st or 2nd century AD, tells the same story: a man whose cart is stuck calls on Hercules and is told to put his own shoulder to the wheel.

The earliest known appearance of the exact modern wording is in Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government, published in 1698, fifteen years after Sidney was beheaded on a charge of plotting against King Charles II. It sits in a section titled "That is the best Government, which best provides for War." His point was political: a nation that defends itself with industry and courage can expect help from God and allies, while one that neglects its defense is left on its own. Close variants were already in circulation. The poet George Herbert's collection Outlandish Proverbs, printed in 1640, includes "Help thyself, and God will help thee."

Benjamin Franklin printed "God helps them that help themselves" in Poor Richard's almanac for 1736 and repeated it in his 1758 essay The Way to Wealth. He never claimed it as original. In that essay, Poor Richard admits that not a tenth of the wisdom credited to him was his own.

Because it sounds like something from Proverbs, many people assume it's Scripture. In a January 2013 survey that Barna Group ran for the American Bible Society, 52% of practicing Christians strongly agreed that the Bible teaches it. The same thing happened to a line John Wesley helped make famous, "cleanliness is next to godliness".

What the Bible says instead: God helps the helpless

The heart of the Christian message is that God rescues people who could not rescue themselves.

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

"Without strength" means helpless, unable to fix our own situation. Two verses later, Paul says Christ died for us while we were still sinners. God didn't wait for people to clean themselves up first.

⁸For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: ⁹Not of works, lest any man should boast. ¹⁰For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Salvation is a gift, not a reward for effort, so nobody can boast about earning it. Verse 10 adds that people saved by grace are made for good works. Work comes after grace as its fruit, not before it as the price.

¹I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. ²My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

This is one of the Songs of Ascents, often read as pilgrim songs for the walk up to Jerusalem. The KJV punctuates the first line as a statement, but most modern translations render it as a question: where does my help come from? The answer isn't the hills. It's the Lord who made them, and heaven and earth besides.

The saying implies God is waiting for you to get it together first. Scripture says he comes to the helpless. The same problem shows up in another line that isn't in the Bible, "God won't give you more than you can handle."

But the Bible does value hard work

The saying lasts because it's half true. The Bible has little patience for laziness.

⁶Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: ⁷Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, ⁸Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. ⁹How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? ¹⁰Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: ¹¹So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

A sluggard is a lazy person, and "meat" simply means food. The ant works with no boss standing over it and stores food while it can. The last lines warn that poverty comes "as one that travelleth," meaning a prowler, and "want," meaning need, comes like an armed robber: suddenly and uninvited.

For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

Paul was writing about church members who were able to work but chose not to, and were meddling in other people's business instead (verses 11-12). He and his companions had worked night and day so they wouldn't be a burden on anyone (verse 8). The rule is about people who won't work, not people who can't. It's no reason to turn away someone who is sick, disabled, or out of a job.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

Paul first wrote this to slaves (the KJV's "servants," verse 22), people with no say at all over their work. He tells them to work "heartily," with their whole heart, because the one they ultimately serve is Christ. That gives dignity to any honest work.

How grace and effort fit together

The Bible rarely sets prayer and effort against each other. It usually puts them side by side.

Nevertheless we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.

When enemies plotted to attack Jerusalem's half-rebuilt walls, Nehemiah's people prayed and posted guards around the clock. They didn't choose one or the other.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the Lord.

Get the horse ready for battle, but "safety," meaning deliverance or victory, comes from the Lord. It's close to Sidney's point about war, with the weight shifted: you prepare, and God decides the outcome. The same goes for a smaller battle like a job interview: prepare well and pray.

¹²Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. ¹³For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Here both halves appear together. Believers are told to work out their salvation, living it out seriously, because God is already at work in them, shaping both what they want and what they do. Paul described his own ministry the same way: he worked harder than all the other apostles, yet it was God's grace at work in him (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Christians disagree about exactly how grace and human effort relate. Catholic and Orthodox teaching often speaks of cooperating with God's grace. Lutheran and Reformed Protestants stress that salvation is God's work from start to finish, with good works as its fruit. Wesleyan and Arminian Protestants teach that God's prevenient grace, the grace that goes before, comes first and frees people to respond. None of these traditions teaches that God's help is a prize for helping yourself first. In the Western church, the idea that people must take the first step toward God on their own, later called Semi-Pelagianism, was rejected at the Second Council of Orange in 529.

Where the saying can go wrong

• When you have nothing left. If you're grieving, sick, or overwhelmed, it can sound like God's help has to be earned. Psalm 34:18 says he is near the brokenhearted. Doing your part can simply mean asking for help from a pastor, a friend, a doctor, or a counselor, and that isn't a lack of faith (see Is it a sin to go to therapy?).
• When it's aimed at someone else. It's easy to use the phrase to write off a person who is struggling. Proverbs 19:17 treats kindness to the poor as a loan to the Lord himself.
• When it turns grace into wages. Romans 4:4-5 contrasts pay you earn with righteousness God gives to the person who trusts him.

Like manifesting or "everything happens for a reason," it's a neat formula that can put too much on your shoulders.

The bottom line

"God helps those who help themselves" isn't in the Bible. A version closer to Scripture might be: God helps those who can't help themselves, and then gives them good work to do. Pray honestly, do your part, and trust God with the result.

When someone quotes a line as Scripture, it's worth looking it up. Our guide to checking a Bible verse someone sends you shows how.