BibleProject - Justice Part 3: Jesus and His Mission of Justice

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

This is part 3 in our Justice series where we discuss Jesus and his mission for justice. Tim and Jon begin the episode (0-12:30) discussing why its a big deal to think of humanity being made in the ���image of God.” Tim and Jon speculate on what separates man from animals. And whether there were vegetarians in the ancient world. In the second part of the show (12:30-23:40), Jon ponders the juxtaposition of viewing life as a competition vs viewing it as an opportunity to do social justice. Tim discusses the social justice themes of Jesus in the gospel of Luke. Tim also outlines, the unique justice of Jesus dying on the cross. The final act of the show (23:40-end) the guys discuss what the Christian response is after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Tim says the people of Jesus should be at the forefront of creating and doing social justice to create a better society in which all people are honored as sacred and divine images of God. Thank you to our supporters! If you would like to participate in our Justice Q+R episode next week, record your question (keep it less than 15 seconds) and email it to us [e-mail] . Deadline: Weds October 25th, 2017. Don’t forget to include your first name and where you’re from. Show Resources: Bruce Waltke: Proverbs Commentary Show Music: Rosasharn Music: Defender Instrumental Hang Massive: Once Again Beautiful Euology: Blessed are the Merciful

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John from the Bible Project. Today, we're going to continue a conversation on biblical justice. There are two terms in the Bible, justice and righteousness, and they're coupled together when talking about the Bible's view of a just society. And what it looks like is pretty clear, it's a society that takes care of the vulnerable, specifically the widow, the orphan, the poor, and the immigrant, or what theologians have called the quartets of the vulnerable. In this episode, we're going to look at Jesus and how he carries this rich tradition of

biblical justice forward. Jesus comes on to the scene, embodies this prophetic vision of Mishpat. He's constantly moving towards the vulnerable, and including them first, this what the Gospel of Luke intentionally turns up the volume on that part of Jesus' mission. This is good news for the poor. It's Mishpat for the poor. So we're going to talk about Jesus, his mission of justice,

and why it's crucial for us to think of humans as being made in the image of God. Here we go. How does this come to its climax in Jesus? Yeah, that's what we haven't talked about. No, no, we haven't even talked about Jesus. We haven't talked about Jesus. So maybe I can just do a quick breeze through what I think the story line could be like. All of this is rooted in the way the Bible works as a unified story.

All of this is rooted in humans as the image of God. The ones who are supposed to be ruling the world and God's beings. Yeah, what makes a human different from praying mantis in any Dillard terms? Many things. Well, many, yeah, there's a lot of things. But in terms of the Bible's vision of what humans are, humans uniquely are the divine image, representations of God,

appointed to be responsible and steward and rule over the world and its resources in a way that no other species has proofed capable. Even though many other species of creatures are more powerful than we are. They don't have the intelligence. Yeah, they don't have the brain. The prefrontal cortex. That's right. So the biblical vision of justice and right relationship, underneath it all, is what's going on on pages one and two of the Bible with humans, have a,

are how we treat each other is supposed to be different than how praying mantises treat each other. And it's because of the image. And so you have the, you have Genesis one. Pregnances are the ones where the female eats the hungry. No, it's because of the image. So you have the you have Genesis one Metz is are the ones where the female eats the Just thinking about this. Yeah, so after After mating mating So so where this comes out in page one is

Let us make humanity our image let them rule over the creatures and that kind of thing So humans are God's image, they represent God and are responsible. But where this comes out actually is in chapter 9 of Genesis, this thing about the sacred value of life in chapter 9, where after getting off the boat, Noah and his family, God recommissions Noah as a new Adam. It's like creation's been washed and renewed, and Noah is blessed and gets the same commission as humanity on page one.

Except there's a couple things different, and one of them is the ideal humanity from Noah onward doesn't have to be vegan. Ideal humanity is vegan on pages one and two. And it's the vision, again, of a world where for me to exist, another creature doesn't have to die. Another animal, you just eat plants on pages one and two. But, but from now on, bacteria, viruses, and But, but from now on, without bacteria and viruses and... Yeah, yeah, whatever.

I'm just telling the story. Okay. Tell the story where. But Genesis 1 and 2 doesn't say don't eat animals. Yes, yes, as I've given you every plant and seed bearing. Tree. Uh-huh. Yeah.

So, so by excluding animals from that list. Correct. Okay. That's correct. Yeah. The ideal vision is, yeah, if you can diet. Okay. Where you live off what the land produces. You got to make sure you get a whole protein out of those fruits.

That's nuts. No, nuts. Complete protein. That's right. But when Noah gets recommissioned as the new humanity, there's a provision made for eating animals. And then there's a clarification made saying, but not humans. Not humans. And then this is a little poetic line. That's interesting.

Whoever sheds a human's blood, by humans his blood shall be shed for in the image of God he made humanity. I want to look this up. Genesis 9. Genesis 9 verses 5 and 6. He says, don't eat humans. No, no, no, no. No, he says, I give you, he repeats what he gives to humans on page 1. Okay.

All of the things. So God bless Noah and his son, saying, be fruitful and peace never and for the earth. Yeah. So that's repeating Genesis 2. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky and every creature that moves along the ground and all the fish and sea, they are given to your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be your food for you. So this is the new thing.

Yeah, I give it all to you just as I gave you the plants. Just as I gave you the plants. Now, cool. Now you can eat the animals. Yeah, wow, I never it all to you, just as I gave you the plants. Just as I gave you the plants, now, cool. Now you can eat the animals. Yeah, wow, I never really noticed that. Yeah. So now, yeah, you're off your vegan diet. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it, which is like a kosher thing, right?

Yep, yep. And your lifeblood will surely demand an accounting. What does that mean? Oh, and for your lifeblood, I will surely demand an accounting. What does that mean? Oh, and for your lifeblood, I will surely demand an accounting. Yeah. So for humans, so if a human dies, there better someone's gonna be held responsible. And then you get a little poem on packet

whoever sheds human blood by a human, their blood shall be shed. Why? Why is killing an animal to eat it different than killing a human? For in the image of God, he made humans. So animal rights activists who seek mishpot for vulnerable animals will have had a difficult time. This isn't a great passage.

And what he's saying isn't, Therefore go like destroy all living creatures. That's ridiculous. He does say that they will fear and dread you. Yeah, like a deer. Deer doesn't want to eat. Yeah, he's fears and treads you. Yeah, he runs away. But you have cattle and they like you.

They're hanging out. It's a good point. Your pig becomes afraid. I did not grow up on a farm, me neither. But I hear pigs are very intelligent animals. So the point is, in Genesis 9, the value of human life is seen as having a sacred, transcended dignity, that a human being who takes the life of another human is very different than squishing a praying mantis. And that you are actually wrong in God. And you're wrong in God when you harm your

animal. Remember that proverb about the wise man takes care of his animal. So because that's a part of God's creation and good world. However, there's never a moment where you can kill a person for your own sustenance or preservation, but you can with an animal. This seems to be the point here. And why is it? What's the rationale underneath that? Because of the image of God.

So here's what's important is that this is a uniquely Jewish Christian tradition and idea that is not derived from nature. It's also unique in the history of human civilization. You can go to the great author, the great ethical thinkers of ancient Greece, Aristotle, author, the great ethical thinkers of ancient Greece, Aristotle, and his whole argument is, there are some humans who are more valuable than others, and by nature, some humans are meant to be slaves and be ruled by the reasonable and the rational. That's not even just an ancient thing, everyone is founding of America. You got this totally.

Yeah, all humans are created equal, except the ones who aren't white, your peons. Exactly. And women. And women, yes. Exactly. Even societies that say that they honor the Bible have found this a difficult vision to live up to, or have just straight up not actually been consistent. They've been inconsistent. At least a radical contribution of the Hebrew Bible to human history

is the concept of a mishpot, a right, the inherent possession of every single human. Regardless of, I mean, it's page one, by my will. Regardless of gender. So that's easy to take. Yeah. That's easy to take for granted. That all humans deserve. Yes, yeah, that's right. In our culture, it's now easy to take for granted

because of our cultural amnesia. But yeah, like that's why should you care about every human the same? Yeah. And in reality, we don't. I mean, I can't. I can't care as much for an orphanage full of kids in Romania as I do care about my own kids.

I just can't, but maybe that's not what we're talking about. Because I'm not going to go and kill them. No, I don't think that's necessarily what it's talking about. But it is saying this is the rationale underneath all of this, Mishpat and Sareka, and it's that human life is sacred and precious, every single human life. And so within my community and realms of influence that, you know, under the wise administration of my life and resources, there are going to be people,

however, whose mishpot is neglected, their image bearing value is neglected. And I, God, a follower of Jesus who takes it seriously will notice, like try and notice that and be a part of whatever is at their disposal to change that for the people. And it's really like you don't learn this. Oh, so there's one other time, the image of God's explicitly drawn on in the same way. In the New Testament, it's in the letter of James, where he talks about the way we talk with people,

talk to people in James chapter 3. And yet, that great line, where he says, with the same mouth, you know, we say, praise God and thank you God for everything. And then we go and speak poorly of somebody we don't like. And he says, so with, yeah, with the same tongue, we bless God, and with it, we curse humans who have been made in the image of God. This should not be happening.

He says. So it's the same rationale. There's actually no human who deserves to be cursed. You can say what somebody's doing is wrong, but to slander and devalue to them, treat them as less than human. That's a violation of their dignity. Even people that you don't like. That's a really uniquely biblical idea. Okay, image of God. Okay, image of God.

So that's the idea where every human has a mishpat before God, a right and a you. From here, then, it's kind of a familiar territory. When human beings redefine good and evil, they take the knowledge of good and evil into their own hands. They tend to create societies where I assert the rights of me and the mishpot of me and my group at the expense of the mishpot of you and your group, whether and whatever. That's just human history. That's Genesis 1 to 11. So God singles out a family. And there's a line in the Abraham stories that haven't got the attention they deserve.

It's in chapter 18. Where God says about Abraham, surely Abraham will become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed, won't they? For I have chosen him so that he may command his children and household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing, Zedaka and Mishpat, righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he's spoken about him. So what's the premise? That all nations will be restored to divine blessing.

How? Through this family, living among the nations by a different value system than Egypt or Babylon, and its righteousness and justice. And so here the definition is assumed, all this broad meaning that we've talked about, and so that's, and then they experienced themselves God's own righteousness and justice when he redeemed them out of slavery in Egypt. They became the vulnerable and God showed righteousness and justice for the oppressed on their behalf. Therefore, he revealed to them the laws of the Torah that were embodiments of Mishpah and Siddhaka to create the family of Abraham that does Mishpah and Siddhaka,

to create the family of Abraham that does Mishpah and Siddhaka, and that all the nations would look and say, well, what an incredibly wise nation that does Mishpah and Siddhaka. Israel doesn't do it. Here's where the prophets come into play. And then here's what I thought was interesting, when we get to the prophets and the wisdom literature, is that the prophets are pointing out all these ways that is really, are perpetrating injustice. And they talk about the new messianic leaders, going to come and so on. But I thought this was, this quote from Bruce Waltke, this is from his commentary on Proverbs. He's incredible Hebrew Bible scholar, wrote two fat volumes on Proverbs that are So legit

But the whole the first volume begins how you this the excitement you get about large books I'm just in a time. It's like you you actually show me the size of them with your hands And then your and then your eyes kind of glaze over and your mouth drops a little bit. It's wow pretty funny Okay plays over and your mouth drops a little bit. It's, wow, pretty funny. Okay. Um, the first hundred pages, it's just these really cool essays on all these biblical vocabulary words, of like wisdom, foolishness, and he has these two great essays on righteousness

and justice in the book of Proverbs. Anyway, he summarizes it with this great line. He says, if you read the Book of Proverbs, here's what the common denominator you see about the righteous, the Sadik. The righteous are those who are willing to disadvantage themselves to the advantage of their community.

We call those suckers. Right? No. The wicked in proper. The rasha wicked. Those are who are willing to disadvantage the community to advance themselves. So funny like I was really into poker for a while. And I remember that. You remember that? Well, I remember I was living in Wisconsin. Oh, in that period. You know, I probably was playing a little bit when you moved back to.

I don't know what point it stopped. But you know, poker night with your friends. No, I would go and play like tournaments. Oh, what? Oh, I did not know that. I thought you would, poker night with your friends, like, no, I would go and play like tournaments. Oh, what? Yeah. I did not know that. I thought you would do poker nights. No, poker nights got boring because my friends don't like

to really play poker, you know? Like it just becomes a social thing, which I should care about, I should care about it. But what I was really loving was just the competition. The competition, the game of poker. And in the game of poker, it's all about taking advantage of people when they make mistakes. You have to. Like that's how you win. That's how you win. Someone makes a mistake. Yeah. You take advantage of that

person. Wow. And you get some of their chips. And it's all about collecting your chip, the chips over time. And it's not necessarily the cards you get dealt. It's about finding the opportunities to take advantage of someone. You can lie. It's bluffing. You're supposed to. You're supposed to pretend you have a better hand than you do. And the person who comes and doesn't know what they're doing, you call them the fish. They're the fish, they're the sucker. And every table, you don't know where the fish is, you're the fish. And so it's always being aware of who can I take advantage of and how am I gonna take advantage of them.

And then when people are strong and you know it's gonna be hard to take advantage of, then you try to find their weaknesses. You're like, okay, what's this person's weakness? Do they have a tell? Yeah. Where they can, you know, you know what they might have by their body language or by their actions.

Do they have a certain habit, just in the way that they bet or different things? And take advantage of that. It's like, hmm, hmm, so interesting. Yeah. It's like the opposite of Mishpoth. That's why I bring it up. Yeah, that's like the opposite of Mishpoth. That's why I bring it up. Yeah, that's interesting.

Do you think that that's different than any other sport? Do you feel like the... Oh, yeah, it's very different. Okay. Yeah. It's very... It's very... It's like when you're playing basketball, you're also trying to exploit your opponent's weaknesses

and advantage, right? Mm. Yeah. There's a different, because it's just you as opposed to a team. It is true. It's very individual. There's no teamwork. It's usually for money as opposed to...

I don't know. There's something ruthless about it. Yeah. I can... It feels different. I'm just trying to understand what the difference is. Between that and basketball. Because the basketball, yeah, you want to fool your opponent,

you want to be thinking, you're dribbled left, and you're gonna dribble right, and you wanna fake them out and realize, oh, they don't have a good jump shot, so I'm gonna make them have to take the jump shot. Yeah, I don't know, but for whatever reason, reading that, the righteous are those who are willing to disadvantage themselves to the advantage of their community.

If you go into a poker room with that mentality, you're gonna lose. You're gonna lose. Everyone else can take advantage of you. I think that's the mentality that maybe, when that gets applied then to life, like life is the poker room. And I've got to, I've got to take the chips that I can

and I can't show weakness or I'm going to get taken advantage of. To tell someone, to go into the situation and be willing to disadvantage yourself for the advantage of the community is just so backwards. Yeah, that's true. And here, the reason why I included that is because I think this is kind of our ticket to the way this video works, and the way it connects to Jesus. Yeah.

I mean, really, it's like the perfect takeaway. Because Jesus comes on to the scene, and he first of all embodies this prophetic vision of Mishpah. He's constantly moving towards the vulnerable and including them first within this, what the gospel of Luke intentionally turns up the volume on that part of Jesus' mission. This is good news for the poor. It's Mishpoth for the poor. Like, think of this parable where like a few throw a luncheon. If you're a part of the king of God and you throw a dinner. Yeah, don't invite people that can pay you back. Yes, invite the people who actually can't benefit you at all. Which means it actually is all for your disadvantage because you're paying for the meal.

Yeah. And you're going to, and Jesus says that's what it is. Yeah. When Jesus confronts the Pharisees in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 11. He says, you know, you're really precise that paying a tithe, not just your produce, but love your mint plants. You have that front in your hand. Yet you risk, you disregard justice and the love of God. These are things you should be doing without neglecting the others. So justice and love are two sides of the same coin for Jesus.

But that's what we already knew that from Micah to do justice and to love mercy in terms of looking for those who are the vulnerable. So that's the Jesus part. And then, so it's both he embodied that vision of Mishpah in his kingdom of God mission. And then what the cross, the moment of the cross is precisely the moment where God disadvantages himself. God, yeah, in Jesus, God disadvantages himself, while he also accomplishes recompense. So the cross becomes this moment where the judge becomes the judge. And it's where you could say it's where both definitions of justice perfectly meet together at the cross,

where God brings a just recompense on human evil. But he provides it by embodying Mishpah for the poor. By taking it himself, and so the cross is where God's love and justice meet together, I think that's really compelling, interesting, and beautiful idea. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. And then where you go from there, since our goal was to think about response in some way, is followers of Jesus find themselves as people who have received this loving mishpot, where our plight has been, our plight of frail mortal, mortal, morally corrupt humans has been recognized. It's been addressed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It's our Exodus.

It's our Exodus. Yeah. He looked on us in our slavery to ourselves and to even deeper mysterious evil powers that I don't claim to understand. And he provided a way forward himself. And so the people of Jesus should be at the forefront of creating this kind of mishpot, especially for the vulnerable. You can see how the ark goes there. So it's the image of God. Every human has inherent sacred right and value. The way human history works, we disregard that.

God singled out a family. I mean, this has the arc of many of our theme videos. Yeah. I wonder when these are going to get like tiring to people. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. It's a good question. Part of it is just, this is the biblical story. Yeah. So we're just trying to think about it from different angles. Yeah. But yeah, I thought about that as I was writing in this. Oh, did you? I don't think we're there, but it is something that came to both our minds. Yeah. No, that's cool. And then, yeah, what I like is that if we can build these two senses of justice, and then the Jesus and his death and resurrection, or were both

of them come together, were God's way of confronting evil and stopping it, is also his means of showing generous attention to the whole world. Yeah, the two ideas are very stitched together. Yeah. Almost so much so that, like like is it essentially the same thing? Like does, does our evil always result in oppression? Is that just a natural result? Yeah, interesting. Or is there a kind of evil that wouldn't, you know? Well it's interesting. Yeah, when you were talking about like the Bernie Madoff example interview. Yeah. Even the person at the center of all that wasn't just like the embodiment of evil.

Right. Yeah. So somehow our own insecurities, mistakes, even noble efforts can all get twisted and turned into create great injustice. Yeah. Totally. That's a part of, yeah, the great injustice. Yeah, totally. That's a part of the human condition. That we need help, we need to figure that out.

Somebody needs to figure that out. And the story of the Bible is that Jesus is the one who is the only way out of that plight. the one who is the only way out of that plight, by what he did on our behalf, but also by the new way of living that he embodied. And here we're, I mean, we're talking about what he did on our behalf is an example, but then in also some way releases us from whatever the draw is, whatever that spiritual evil is,

that traps us in that. This video really isn't going to get into that. No. No. Which is interesting. What's the... Oh, you said we might do this video. It would be the chaos monster.

The chaos monster. Chaos monster. But like, yeah, like that's the connecting piece to like, what's the salvation? Like, what am I being freed from? And so that now I can live a life more of righteousness and justice. Because I could think of how I might be able to do it without Jesus. Like, I'd be like, well, I'm just going to care more about the poor. And I'm going to care more about my consumer habits and the climate and all these different things

that might all affect things and that's going to make my life all about that. And I don't need Jesus in that equation. So maybe I'll be like, yeah, I's a cool moral example of having done that. But, yeah, what's the actual like, empowerment, but that's a different video, it seems like. Yeah, it is. Okay. I think this is mostly about painting this biblical definition of justice as being primarily oriented towards the vulnerable. How that's rooted in the image of God

and then violated and that God's on a mission to create a people who live differently and that Jesus is the one who perfectly leading the way. The bodies and trailblazes the way forward into that. By taking the ultimate consequences of injustice, therefore rendering recompense on human injustice, but then also in that same act,

seeking out the mishpot of the Bible Project Podcast. We're going to do a question and response episode next on Biblical Justice. So we need your questions. What you can do is you can record your question on your phone or computer and then email it to us support at jointhebibleproject.com. Try to keep the question to, I don't know, 15, 20 seconds or less. Don't forget to give us your name and where you're from. And again, the email is support at jointhebibleproject.com.

We need these questions by Wednesday, October 25th. So send them on over and we'll get as many as we can into that next episode of the podcast. Our video on justice is releasing next Thursday, the 26th, so keep a lookout for that. We're really proud of it. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you you