I got an offer from a credit card company the other day.
For some reason I looked at it—I usually tear them in half and round file them—and what I noticed was appalling: once the initial offer of 0% interest expires the annual APR was 29%. WHAT? That is criminal!
Not only that but, this ridiculously excessive interest rate flagrantly violates the biblical injunction against charging interest: “If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest” (Exod 22:25; see also Deut 23:19-20).
Yet, somehow I suspect that most Christians are not grieved when they received such offers and that many do not see the problem. After all, if you don’t want to pay such a high rate of interest, then either don’t sign up for the card or don’t charge anything. Right? Well, maybe not.
Why do we still debate the role of justice in the Bible and the church?
As I noted in my post last week, we watch Les Miserable and we root for Jean Valjean to be free—even though he stole from the priest and lied to the authorities—and we cheer for Robin Hood and his band of merry men, even though they are thieves.
It seems that deep down we have an innate sense of what is just and we long for a just society.
We shouldn’t be surprised that we long for justice. After all,
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8).
What does biblical justice look like?
You may have noticed that in this series of posts, I am attempting to lay a foundation as to what biblical justice looks like.
The problem within evangelicalism (and I am sure that the problem extends well beyond evangelicalism but that is the tribe with which I am most familiar) is that we not only fail to consistently aim for justice but we often find ways to justify injustice.
Our debates are not over what is just and what isn’t. Instead, we are debating whether justice is even a biblical concept or if it is part of a liberal agenda designed to undermine Jesus and the Gospel commission.
Evangelicals and Justice
As you may have recognized, I am taking some time to build a case here. First, I want to establish that justice is indeed biblical and not a sell-out to liberalism.
Sorry, but I find it incredulous that I have to argue this point. The Bible is full of the call for justice (see my post from Dec 2020 for a list of dozens of verses speaking to the issue of Justice).
Second, the question becomes: “What does justice look like in the NT and today?” (see my previous post from Dec 2020).
My goal in this series of posts is 2-fold:
- To discern what biblical justice looks like today
- To discern what living in the kingdom of God looks like today
(Of course, in many ways these are 2 ways of saying the same thing)
My first main argument then, is that justice is not merely biblical it is absolutely foundational to the biblical text and to human existence. We cannot read Jesus well unless we understand the nature of the OT commands—which were centered on creating a just society and how Jesus came to “fulfill” (Matt 5:17) them. Only then can we ask what it means for us today.
As Chris Marshall notes, “We all have a strong intuitive sense of what justice is. We appeal to the criterion of justice all the time. We instinctively recognize when it has been violated. Even very young children have a powerful, innate sense of justice” (Justice, 4).
This is why, in my last post, I appealed to the examples of Robin Hood and Jean Valjean (Les Miserable)—both of whom are characters that we cheer for even though they are technically lawbreakers. This shows that God has wired us with a heart toward justice.
What then does justice look like?
The question then becomes not is justice biblical but what does biblical justice look like. I have intentionally begun with the OT notion of justice for 2 reasons.
For one, I wish to establish that justice is foundational to the Bible and the biblical story.
In addition, if we want to know what it means for the Christian to work towards justice then we must understand Jesus’ call to justice and to do that we must recognize that He came to fulfill the Law not abolish it (Matt 5:17). This leads to my second point.
My second main argument is that biblical justice is the fulfillment of the OT ethic. Unfortunately, most Christians have little understanding of the OT and its laws.
In my last post, I mentioned 2 stories in which Jesus and the disciples broke the 10 commandments, yet, the text approves of it.
- In Mark 2:23-28, the disciples plucked heads of grain on the Sabbath.
- And in Mark 3:1-6, Jesus healed a man with the withered hand on the Sabbath.
Now we might try to work our way around the difficulty by arguing that neither Jesus nor the disciples broke the Sabbath, they only broke the Pharisees’ interpretation of the Sabbath. This, of course, brings to the fore the age-old question, “What is work?”
NB: interestingly, many Christians have a poor understanding of the Sabbath and have defined “work” in such a way that they seemingly can do anything they want on the Sabbath—in reality, it is not their definition of “work” that is the problem, it is there lack of concern for Sabbath keeping that is the problem.
As I briefly noted in my last post, neither Jesus nor the later biblical writers defend the accusations against the disciples or Jesus by arguing that the Pharisees’ understanding of the Sabbath law was the problem.
What I noted in my last post is that in order to understand why Jesus and the disciples did not violate the 10 Commandments we must understand what the laws mean. And, we must recognize the purpose of the Laws.
With regard to the latter point, I would note that one of the primary objectives of the Law was to provide a safeguard for the poor and the oppressed. (I will build on this in upcoming posts: for now, think of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah: 1 Sam 11-12).
That the Law was meant to protect the poor and the marginalized from being exploited is clearly indicated in that the Law was given to the Israelites who had just come out of Egyptian slavery. The laws were meant in part to inform the Israelites that they were not to be like the Egyptians.
This is why the Laws are introduced with the reminder that “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod 20:2). Note: that the first commandment is in Exod 20:3. Exod 20:2, therefore, is part of the introduction to the 10 Commandments!!
With this context in mind, we ask: “Who is it that wants there to be a day of rest on the 7th day?”: the Israelite slaves or Pharaoh? The answer is clear: Pharaoh certainly wants to extract as much labor from the Israelites as was possible. It was the Israelites who needed a day off to rest and worship YHVH.
Did Jesus break the commandments when He healed on the Sabbath?
The answer here is “Yes” and “No.” When we observe the line of argumentation that Jesus took with the religious leaders for His own acts on the Sabbath and for those of His followers we see that He did not engage them as to whether or not He and His disciples were actually working. The question, in other words, was not, What is work?” Instead, Jesus inquires: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4).
Jesus similarly answers the Pharisees’ accusations with regard to the disciples plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath: “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” (Mark 2:25-26).
In other words, Jesus and the disciples were indeed “working” on the Sabbath. Yet, Jesus contends, He didn’t break the Sabbath when He healed the man because the Sabbath was a day for doing good. Or, it might be better said, the Sabbath was a day for doing justice.
One could, of course, do “good” any day of the week. If Jesus was merely “doing good” then why didn’t He wait until the next day to heal the man? Because each day the man’s hand was withered was another day the man would have to go without working. By healing the man on the Sabbath, Jesus enabled the man to return to work the next day and to provide for himself and his family again.
Jesus was not merely doing “good,” He was doing justice. That is, Jesus was not merely helping the poor and the needy, but He was doing so in a way that they would no longer be poor and needy. The man is not only healed, he can now work and provide for his own needs.
Did the disciples break the Law when they plucked heads of grain on the Sabbath?
Again the answer is “Yes” and “No.”
Again we observe that Jesus didn’t dispute with the Pharisees with regard to whether or not the plucking of a few heads of grain constituted work. Jesus instead replied: “They are hungry”—this is what the appeal to David and His men who entered the temple and ate what “is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests” (Mark 2:26)—means. David and his men were hungry and they ate bread that only the priests were permitted to eat. Similarly, Jesus and the disciples were hungry and so they plucked the heads of grain and ate.
We break the Sabbath today when we forbid others to work on it
Understanding the Sabbath and the principles behind the Law are critical.
Once we do so, we realize that we may well be acting like Pharisees when we tell the poor within our churches that they can’t work on the Sabbath.
I believe that Jesus would say that if a person’s job requires them to work on the Sabbath, and if they need that job in order to provide for their well-being, then we should let them work. Sure it is disappointing that they miss Church and the community it provides. But they need to eat.
Why most credit card offers are criminal and in violation of the biblical notion of justice
This leads back to my opening remark about the 29% interest rates on some credit cards. The problem with such offers is that they most often exploit the poor and the vulnerable, the very ones the law is meant to protect!
After all, it is the poor and the vulnerable who often have no choice but to charge a medical expense, or to buy food, or books for their child’s education. When a medical emergency arises among the poor, it not only comes with a bill but it includes missed time at work, which means that they may not be paid. As a result, they are unable to pay off their card in full at the end of the month.
The rich, of course, charge emergencies on a credit card only as a matter of convenience. They don’t need to worry about time spent in the hospital and its effect on their paycheck (sure they worry about such matters, but not in the same way as the poor. Worrying about lost revenues and how one will pay a mortgage payment on a $750,000 home is not the same as worrying about paying rent and being evicted).
In other words, the reason why the Bible forbids interest on loans is because those in need of loans are already vulnerable. Paying interest only makes their plight worse.
NB: This raises the question of healthcare for all. Sadly, too many evangelicals oppose this also. This can only happen when we have a poor understanding of what biblical justice looks like.
to be continued . . .
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