PeonForHer
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Joined: 9/27/2008
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I've often heard that this has come to mean roughly the opposite of what it used to mean. These days it means, for most, something like 'We need to look after ourselves (our family; people in our own country) first - until they're sorted out, we should devote no time/money/energy to those outside our own family/country.
In fact, it appears that the line 'charity begins at home' meant, roughly, 'If you've learned how to be charitable* at home, you'll later go out into the world with a charitable nature coming naturally to you.
[*i.e. kind, loving - 'charity' meant something different when it was first used in that phrase]
It's not a Biblical saying - it was first used in Thomas Browne’s 1642 book 'Religio Medici'. However, it sounds kind of Biblical which, I reckon, is why so many people trot it out - using it nearly always in its modern sense - in a tone of 'that morally trumps everything you've just said, mate!'.
Anyway, here are some other proverbs that are, apparently, commonly misused these days:
http://www.cracked.com/article_20251_the-5-most-frequently-misused-proverbs.html
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Charity Begins At Home - 
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