“Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.'” (ESV)
Do you want to know what one of the most natural expressions to come out of the mouths of humans is? The very one the writer of this proverb tells us not to say. This declaration of human justice is totally natural. It does not need to be taught at all. And, it begins to manifest itself from a pretty young age. Read the rest…
“Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Over and over again in the prophets we see that God’s chief concern for the people was not that they got religion right, but that they got justice right. He complained about their offerings and sacrifices not because they weren’t done strictly according to the guidelines set out in the law, but because they pursued them without the accompanying set of behaviors (namely, a generous pursuit of justice for the least, last, and lost in their midst). Read the rest…
“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is a powerful call to righteousness and justice in its own right, but its context makes it even more powerful. Take a minute to read again what comes just before this. God essentially tells the people to stop worshiping Him. Well, not exactly that, but close enough as far as they were concerned.
For the people of Israel, the worship of God was found in the rituals. Having rituals be a part of our worship isn’t a bad thing. In fact, where those rituals help focus our hearts and minds on the God to whom we are directing our attention they can be a very good thing. But, it is easy to begin thinking that the rituals are valuable in and of themselves. As a point of fact, they’re not. Read the rest…
“Do not say, ‘I will repay evil’; wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.” (ESV)
When we have been affronted by some evil, or when we see someone else who has been affected by it, our natural response is to want to repay it.
Throughout the whole of human history, our natural response has been to repay in kind when we have been dealt an offense. And this is right, isn’t it? If something is wrong, we need to act to set it right. For someone who doesn’t believe in a just god, this is obviously necessary, because who else is going to do it? But even for those who believe in a God who is perfect in justice this should be something that is good and right, yes? After all, this would be our participating in His character of justice. Read the rest…
“O Lord our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
One of the things that can be so frustrating about the Scriptures is that over and over they take two ideas which seem to be contradictory, declare them both to be true, and, rather than resolving the tension, simply leave it in place.
Some examples of this would be divine sovereignty and human responsibility, Jesus’ full humanity and full divinity, and the three-persons and one-person nature of the Trinity. Right here we see another tension. The psalmist declares God to be both a forgiver of sins, but also an avenger of wrongdoings. Read the rest…
The Nexus 