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Thinking and Responding Biblically on Justice Issues

Part of the call of the church is to stand for justice as an expression of God's kingdom, of his hatred of injustice, and in particular of his concern for the poor and needy.

The righteous care about justice for the poor (Prov 29:7)

A God of Justice
God is a God of love, a xenophilic God who is committed to doing good to the outsider. He is also a God of Justice. He hates injustice. God knows no compromise or reconciliation with evil. His kingdom is the realm where justice rules, and his mission is to bring his love and justice to all. God's love for justice and his love for the outsider come together particularly in his concern for the poor and his commitment to justice for them. He hears the cry of the oppressed and reaches down to set them free.

Throughout Scripture, we see God's particular concern for the poor, the needy, the widow, the alien, the oppressed - for all those marginalised in society. God speaks of his concern that they should receive justice. From the Mosaic Law (Ex 22:21-24) to the Psalms (Ps 103:6) to Proverbs (Pr 22:22-23) to Nehemiah (5:1-11) to the prophets (Is 10:1-2; Jer 22:13-17; Amos 2:6-7; 5:11-15, 21-24; 8:4-6; Zec 7:8-10) to James (5:1-6) God makes clear his concern for justice for the poor and weak.

Learning from Jesus
Jesus expressed God's concern for the weak by making them a focus of his life and teaching. He himself became weak, living with the poor and oppressed, reaching out to them and bringing them God's blessing. He not only saved people from sin. He also healed the sick, fed the hungry, set people free from demonic powers, and taught people how to live in the new kingdom that had arrived. He sat with the prostitutes, embraced the lepers, welcomed the refugees, blessed the children, and feasted with the poor. He did this whether or not those people chose to follow him and join his little community. In this way, he proclaimed and demonstrated the arrival of the kingdom of God, and welcomed all who would come to feast with him in it. In this way too, he set the example of how the church should live as the people of God. The xenophilic heart of God is the motivation of God's mission in the world to do good to all people.

Jesus' zeal for the justice of God and his love for the poor and weak also led him to speak out against abusive use of power, drive out the money changers from the temple, and teach about the evil of serving money and about the need to help the poor and needy. His identification with and honouring of the poor and outcast was a counter-cultural declaration of the kingdom of God's siding with the poor and a challenge to the wrongness of the values of the world's system.

God requires Justice

Now what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly, to seek mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.(Micah 6:8)

God requires that people act justly. He condemns the injustice which is often the cause of others' poverty.

A poor man's field may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away. (Prov 13:23)

The selfish and unrestrained pursuit of prosperity, power, or pleasure is incompatible with following God and opposed to his kingdom and its rules of justice and love.

You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matt 6:24)

Through prophets such as Amos, God rebuked his people when they neglected justice for the poor in the pursuit of their own prosperity:

For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. (Amos 2:6,7)

True worship of God includes a commitment to justice for the poor (Jer 22:16), and is incomplete without it. Love for God is not possible without it being expressed in love for your neighbour. Treating the poor, weak, and vulnerable with respect is to honour God (Pr 14:31). Religion without this concern for justice for the poor is meaningless. Amongst other things, Scripture speaks of this in regard to prayer (Pr 21:13), tithing (Lk11:42), worship (Amos 5:21-24), and fasting (Is 58:6).

The People of God
God's kingdom is the way things ought to be. His people are to express the love and justice of his kingdom. As a sign and mediator of the kingdom of God, the church is not only the place where his justice and love should be experienced, but also the agent by which God continues to speak and act for the poor and oppressed. It is God's love and desire to do good to all that drives the concern for justice for the weak.

The mission of the church is therefore necessarily holistic, touching every area of human existence, seeking to promote justice, peace, healing, freedom and goodness, and to oppose injustice, oppression, suffering, and wickedness as well as preaching the kingdom of God. To limit the mission of the church to the proclamation of a personal spiritual salvation alone is to deny the validity of the whole-life ministry of Christ, and to quench the love and compassion of God that reaches out to a lost and hurting world.

What should we do?
Firstly we need to examine our own lives. Are we living out God's concern for the poor and oppressed? Are we acting justly and loving mercy and walking humbly with our God? Or are we pursuing our own prosperity and pleasure and success with little concern for the poor and needy who cry out? God says that worship that does not include justice for the poor is an offence to him. Do we as the church express the love and justice of the kingdom of God?

But we also need to be the mouthpiece of God, calling for justice. Such concerns will of course bring us into the political arena. Prophets such as Amos raised their voice for God to call the nation to account for oppressing the poor while wallowing in self-indulgence. In the same way, we have a responsibility to call our own nations to act justly for the weak and poor. In general, evangelical churches have been strong on action for family life issues, but weak in the area of social justice. While called to respect authority, we also have to hold it accountable to a higher authority, especially in the treatment of the poor, weak, and alien. In this we have a calling to challenge political authority.

Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Pr 31:9)

We need to:

  • Love our neighbour. Open our hearts and homes to the outsider, identify with the weak, party with the poor, share generously with those in need, welcome the refugee, love mercy, allow ourselves to be moved by compassion for those in need around us, get rid of judging and prejudice, embrace the hurt and rejected, and stand with the oppressed.
  • Act justly. We are called to live an alternative - Christ-like - lifestyle. To get rid of the selfish pursuit of prosperity, success, and pleasure. We should be prepared to live more simply, to give more, to change our buying habits, to find ways of incorporating concern for justice into what we buy and how we live. Our churches should be places where people find equality and justice.
  • Speak prophetically. We must allow God's priorities to inform our political choices and involvement too. We should speak up, campaigning for justice for the poor and oppressed as Christian priorities. We should raise our voices on decisions and practices that touch on these, making social concern and trade justice and environmental issues significant in how we vote. We should challenge and call for restraint on the single-minded pursuit of economic prosperity. We should expose and oppose corruption and the abuse of power, and the supposed freedom of choice that is only possible for the powerful at the expense of the weak.
  • Pray persistently. Pray for God's will to be done and his kingdom to come. Pray for justice. Pray for leaders to make right decisions. Ask God what he requires of us.
Some of the changes that we need to make in our lives will cost us - in our time, money, lifestyle, security, and comfort. But this is part of what it means to be a Christian and to take the cross to follow Jesus. It means denying ourselves for the will of God. This is totally opposed to the pursuit of "economic prosperity" which is the selfish goal at the heart of western political agenda today.

Find out more about how you can get involved by following some of the links here.