Mr. President, forget the Olympics!
I recently posted a comment about our President and social justice in this country on Facebook after watching a video on CNN about our homeless people in many cities.This issue has been skirted for years.
Tent cities similar to those during the great depression are growing in a number of communities.
Christians have an obligation to be at the forefront of social justice issues. I don’t mean this in a political sense or that if we are truly bible believing Christians that we mimic the “liberal” brand of Christianity and preach a social gospel rather than one that makes the idea of sin, repentance, God’s wrath and God’s forgiveness through the Gospel of Jesus Christ very clear.
Books can be, have been and are being written on this subject.
It needs to be in the forefront of a truly Christian witness.
When mega-churches are spending thousands to provide Starbucks like coffee bars in their lounges and multi-media experience centers in their sanctuaries and false evangelists, TV or otherwise, are raking in millions of dollars and spending it on planes, mansions and other assets, some smaller churches with little resources are attempting to do more for the poor and the hurting.
The government should not take the place of the church and we should not be advocating a theocracy but both the government and the church have an obligation to be engaged in the issue.
Let’s look at an often misused verse of Scripture that for some, advocates a Christian Theocracy in the US.
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34
While v. 34 makes righteousness the key to a nation’s greatness, a recipe that has nowhere been majoritively evidenced, its converse (34b) has often been proven. For such a society, mercy and justice would be an ideal foundation, Legal justice will also be of key importance to it if you read 14:25).
Leaders are only as significant as their people; v 28 points to the pressures on leadership in society. That explains something of the high stakes involved in working for them and the need to know how to handle the relationship wisely.
In a multitude of people is the glory of a king, but without people a prince is ruined. Prov. 14:28
America is not a Christian nation. What a misnomer. It never was. Yes, Christianity’s influence was a strong one but we were never a Christocentric Theocracy nor will we ever be.
That is not the goal established for us by Christ in the Gospel.
I am not embarking on a lengthy tome about the Sermon on The Mount, and the Kingdom of God ( I do have a series on it on our website in the Sermons section and we addressed some aspects at our think tank this year, also on our website on the Conferences page) but I would like to point out a few ideas about righteousness and what I believe it means in regards to this issue of social justice from a biblical view.
Proverbs was written during the Golden Age of Israel under Solomon’s reign.
Proverbs must be understood in the context of creation, the fall and redemption. The creation narratives in Genesis 1–2 depict Adam and Eve’s being addressed by God, whose word sets the boundaries of their existence (Gen. 1:28–30). Being created in the image of God and having dominion over the rest of the creation implies the use of rational faculties, as does the task of naming the animals (Gen. 2:19). The serpent tempts the couple to reject the authority of God’s word and thus to dismiss his interpretation of reality. Human rationality and intelligence are misused when humans interpret the world of experience apart from the revelation of God. The result is a different and erroneous view which may work well at the mundane and pragmatic level of human wisdom but which is ultimately self-destructive.
Proverbs points to the redemptive revelation of God to which humans must respond with ‘fear’, i.e. awe, reverence and faith. Within this framework of revelation they are able to learn from experience about the good life. When Solomon the wise forsook the fear of the Lord, the ultimate result of his apostasy was the destruction of the nation, Jerusalem and the temple. During the period of decline the prophets predicted another son of David who would be filled with wisdom. The vocabulary associated with wisdom in Proverbs 1:1–7 and 8:12–15 is similar to that used in Isaiah 11:1–5. In Israel wisdom was limited; in the new Israel it is established fully by the one who is greater than Solomon. Luke sees Proverbs 3:4 as being fulfilled in the boy Jesus (Luke 2:52). As an adult, Jesus uses the wisdom forms of proverb and parable for much of his teaching. He is not only the truly wise man, but he is the wisdom of God itself. The framework for true human empirical wisdom is the revealed wisdom of God in the gospel (1 Cor. 1:18–2:7). The fear of the Lord now includes faith in and intellectual apprehension of the gospel.
Proverbs, and the wisdom literature in general, counter the idea that being spiritual means handing all decisions over to the “leading” of the Lord. The opposite is true. Proverbs reveals that God does not make all people’s decisions for them, but rather expects them to use his gift of reason to interpret the circumstances and events of life within the framework of revelation that he has given. Yet when they have exercised their responsibility in decision-making, they can look back and see that the sovereign God has guided. Ultimately, to learn wisdom is to choose life, while a life of folly is a deliberate choice of destruction.
So how does righteousness exalt a nation?
All through the Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, righteousness has embedded in it’s meaning the ideas of mercy and justice.
Any nation will be exalted when these two attributes are predominant.
Why?
Righteousness is ultimately a revealing of the very nature of God and it can as a shared attribute of Creation be expressed in those whom He has created.
As God gave man dominion over the earth, this is expected of man, regardless of the fall into sin. God sets up and brings down nations as He so wills. He has demands that are to be met because in the non-spiritual aspect they can be.
For the New Covenant Church this takes on an added dimension.
Jesus said if you want to be his disciple then your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, the religious hypocrites, and any others who are engaged in the theater of piety. In our natural state of sin this is impossible. The only way it can be accomplished is in Christ for we are the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, we represent the mercy and justice of God in all of its aspects because we are salt and light according to Jesus’ own words.
What we should and can do should exceed what the government can do at least in principle, with honest effort.
So Mr. President, as I wrote on my Facebook wall, forget the Olympics and put some resources towards social justice and mercy. Regardless of what you say your “faith” view is, as the leader of a nation you can urge others with proverbial wisdom and practical decisions to care for the poor.
(Note: It looks like I will have to write a bit more……)
[new covenant theology]