#STRask - Is Matthew 23:23 an Argument for Social Justice?

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Questions about how to respond to someone who uses Matthew 23:23 as an argument for social justice and what to say to a family member who argues that Christians are not being persecuted but are only losing their privilege. How would you respond to someone who uses Matthew 23:23 as an argument for social justice? What should I say to a family member who argues that Christians are not being persecuted but are only losing their privilege?

Welcome. We're glad you're here for the Hashtag STR Ask podcast. We are. This is Amy Holland. I'm here with Greg Kokel. And Greg, you ready for your first question? Amy, we'll see when you ask the question. Okay. This one comes from Andrew. How would you respond to someone who uses Matthew 23, 23 as an argument for so-called social justice? I'm glad he said so-called. Let me read the verse, and then I have some comments about the phrase social justice. This is a famous passage of woes that starts in verse 13 and continues until verse 29 or 30, where I have my woes kind of—what I do here is I

overwrote them with a pen so they stand out. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And for people who think Jesus was meek and mild and conciliatory and nice and friendly, they ought to read Matthew 23. In any event, verse 23 of Matthew 23 reads like this, Whoa to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, which are spices. In other words, they're giving one-tenth of their spices. They're being so particular about their spices, but you neglect the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness, but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. So the things they should have done was with weightier provisions of the law, justice, mercy, and faithfulness, and they also should have done the other, done the tithing. Now, just as a side here, so people aren't confused,

in Matthew 23, the very first line of the chapter says, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. Therefore, all that they tell you to do, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds. And then he describes their misdeeds and the woes. I'm just saying this because there's confusion in many people's minds because Jesus seems to be affirming tithing as a New Testament practice, and he is not. He is affirming tithing as a provision of the Mosaic covenant, and for those under the law, which they were at that time, they should do what Moses tells them to do. In the New Covenant, it's a different circumstance. But nevertheless, there's a

comparison here, and this is kind of like Jesus is saying, look it, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, you are straining at a gnat and you're swallowing the camel. You're straining at the gnat of the tenth thing of your spices, but you're ignoring the things that are really important, justice and mercy and faithfulness. Now, the question is, is this an exhortation by Jesus to do social justice? And the answer is no. Next question. It's because the term social justice is a term of art that fits in a very precise way and a specific way with a very particular definition into a larger worldview called critical theory. And I think it was Dennis Prager who made the observation, Amy, that whenever you add an adjective to the word justice, you corrupt it. So you got social

justice, you got sexual justice, you got reproductive justice, you've got environmental justice. You have all of these leftist causes that are ennobled by the word justice. Even though some of these causes, like reproductive justice, what is that? That is injustice to the unborn child. That's abortion. That's not an example of justice, but it's just a rhetorical move. All right? What Jesus is talking about here is not environmental justice or sexual justice, which is homosexuality and transgenderism, or reproductive justice, which is abortion, or social justice, which is paybacks. When you look at critical theory, the antidote, the salvation message of critical theory,

given that all cultures are always divided up into oppressors and the oppressed, is to give the oppressed what they want, and that's called social justice. We're going to take from the oppressors now, and we're going to redistribute it and give it to the so-called oppressed. So social justice fits in as the salvation plan for a foreign worldview that competes with Christianity, and it amounts to paybacks and a violation of the Old Testament law, which says, and a violation of the Old Testament law, which says do not favor the poor in your judgment. Thank you. So don't favor the rich, don't favor the poor.

Do justice is what the law says. Social justice is not justice. It's not even a distortion of justice. It's a misleading phrase that capitalizes on an emotional, moral term to make it feel like what they're doing is something good. And since Christians believe in justice because of verses like this, they are sucked in to all of these perversions of justice that use the word justice modified by some other word, like social. Okay, what Jesus says, let's go to it again. He says, but you have neglected the weightier provisions of the law. You are to do justice. In other words, give people their proper due. That's what justice is. If they are due praise or reward or compensation for work that they have accomplished,

they have done, then you should give them that. That's why the Scripture speaks against abusing the poor by taking advantage of them because they're weak. Why the Scripture says that you should not use varying balances and weights. So you use light weights to weigh out something that you're giving someone else. So you're not giving them a pound of something, you're giving them half a pound, but it looks like a pound. Okay, that's unjust. And you're taking advantage of people, you're distorting things, you're deceiving them. He says, do justice, but it also means giving what's due punishment to those who deserve punishment. That's what justice is biblically, okay? And mercy and faithfulness, these are all part of what's required. Those are the weightier provisions

of the law. Or as Jesus said, love God and love your neighbor. Everything's connected. of your neighbor. Everything's connected. All the law is captured in these two basic commandments. So, there is nothing in this verse that justifies the current ideology of critical theory, which is what social justice is tied to, and the social justice, which is the rectification of the problem. Critical theory is a worldview, and every worldview has an assessment of the problem, creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Well, what's redemption restoration for the worldview of critical theory? Social justice, which isn't justice at all, because it's a distortion of genuine justice. And this is the problem, Greg. If somebody says this is an argument for social justice, the problem here is an equivocation.

I mean, that's the fallacy that's happening here. Explain that. Well, this means they're using a different definition for the word than the Bible is using. That's right. So you can make up any definition you want of justice and then say, look, the Bible is advocating my definition of justice. But of course, that makes no sense. So what I would do if somebody said this, I would say, well, what is your how do you define justice? What is your definition? Maybe they will come up with some sort of equity type thing where everyone ends up with the same amount and the, you know, the pressers reimburse those who they've oppressed and that sort of thing. And so maybe that's what they'll say. And this is the maybe you could make up some ridiculous definition of justice and say, no, this means that everyone who is who has dark hair gets to take 50 percent of anyone who's shorter from them. Well, that's ridiculous. And then you can point out, yes, it is ridiculous

because we can't just make up our own definitions. We have to use the definition that Jesus was using in order to know what he was advocating here. So what does justice mean? Luckily, we have an entire mosaic law to explain what justice is. There are so many laws. If you borrow somebody's animal and then it dies, there are certain laws about how to fairly compensate the person who owned the animal. Or if an animal kills someone and he had hurt someone before and the owner did nothing to contain him, like there's all sorts of laws about what is just and what is right. And you explained this, Greg, it was what is due a person and don't cheat them and don't lie to them and don't withhold the wages that they've earned and

all those sorts of things are involved with justice. But what's happened now is everybody, as you pointed out, they use the term justice to mean anything they like. It has nothing to do with justice anymore. So if somebody says this, you can explain. Here's how the Bible describes justice. And the Bible does not mix up justice with mercy. As you pointed out, it says you will not favor a rich man in the judgment, but you will also not favor a poor man. However, I mean, because that's not justice, but it also says mercy, and that means giving and

being generous and helping people. So Jesus mentions both of those things. Which, by the way, is not deserved. It isn't like people are owed. Yes, right. Because it's an act of mercy. It's an act of charity. It's over and above, so to speak. It's when somebody is due. It's over and above, so to speak. It's when somebody is due something like a punishment, and instead you decide to forgive and release them of that punishment, and you show them mercy instead. And this is where a lot of Christians get confused because, yes, we are required to be merciful and to be giving and to be generous.

That is on us. It doesn't mean the person is owed those things. It doesn't make it a form of justice. Justice isn't just everything that's good. Justice is a particular thing, and it really matters how we define justice. Because if you start defining mercy as justice, now you get really confused when God gives you mercy because now you think you're owed it because it's justice. We don't want to mix those terms up as Christians. So you have to define your terms and you have to define how the Bible defines justice. That's the key, right. And finally, I will say, here's something you need to hopefully communicate to them. Christians are 100% for justice and mercy.

But the problem is you, who are saying this to me, are assuming that justice looks the way you think it looks with these different principles on the left usually and different ways you use the government or whatever it is, you're assuming that if I disagree with that, that I don't like justice. But that is not the case. That is not the case. So don't be confused by, don't confuse justice with, I guess, what our culture considers it to be, something like reproductive justice or whatever it is. This guideline that Dennis mentioned, you know, these adjectives corrupted. If you just get rid of the adjective and ask what is just or say, OK, so you have reproductive justice.

What is that? That's abortion. That's abortion on demand. That's what it is. on demand. That's what it is. Okay, get rid of the reproductive part and just ask, is it just to take the life of your unborn child because that human being is inconvenient? No, that's not justice. So it doesn't become justice by adding the word reproductive to it. And I just heard some more variations of justice that have come out. But I also wanted to just make the observation, when you were going through examples of justice in the Old Testament, notice that all of these acts of justice, or possibly injustice, of justice, or possibly injustice, has to do with the nature of the circumstances, not and never the social standing of the people in question. The social standing is irrelevant to justice, which is why the law says, do not favor the rich in judgment and do not favor the poor. The social standing is irrelevant

to justice. It is the actions that are in question. And then one last thing on this from me, Greg. Again, you have to ask what definition they're using, because a lot of people use the term social justice just to mean charity. A lot of people just use it that way. And so if they say this means that we're supposed to be charitable people, then you could say, I absolutely agree. We're not supposed to neglect mercy. I absolutely 100% agree. But you're using a different term. And I think there are that people use that term in other ways that maybe you're not aware of. And you're saying things that other people are hearing that you're not saying. So you really have to understand what this particular person is

saying because people use this term in all sorts of different ways. Yeah, words matter in communication and they can be used to easily manipulate people who are not paying attention to the words. And that's exactly what is going on with critical theory. All right, let's go on to a question from Linda Baker. I have a family member that argued with me that Christians are not being persecuted, we're only losing our privilege, that a good follower is a scared follower. What should I say? our privilege that a good follower is a scared follower. What should I say?

Well, first of all, I'm curious what this person thinks Christian privilege amounts to in our culture. What are the advantages that Christians have in our culture, in virtue of being Christians, that people who are not Christians have, don't have, rather. Okay? I'm not clear on that. Okay? And when churches are told they have to close, say, for instance, a couple of years ago, but all kinds of other establishments were allowed to stay open. And by no, it seemed, rhyme or reason, that was tied to the issues itself, like the so-called pandemic. Why was it Christian churches that suffered the most? Why is it that Christian churches were the one that were prosecuted for staying open. I mean, it just seems like an odd thing to say. When you look at the details, you see that people have—and this is characteristically Christian. Sometimes—I just read an article or a case just recently about if you homeschool,

recently about if you homeschool, you get benefits, financial benefits, under the charter school kind of guidelines in the state of California, or whatever state is in mind here. Maybe it wasn't California. Unless you're a Christian school, you're a Christian family who homeschools with Christian principles, or at least religious principles. So I guess it would apply to others, but most homeschoolers are Christians, communicating Christians. Then they say, you can't have this money. In other words, they're saying, the reason we will not give you the money, we will give everyone else in exactly the same situation, which, by the way, was your money that we took and we earmarked for education? You can't have it because you're talking about spiritual things. When you look at all these instances of—and maybe this is the thing to point out.

The first question was, what are the Christian privileges that non-Christians don't have in this country that are now being taken away from Christians who have privilege. This is kind of like a white privilege variation, which is very, very general. People throw it out there, doesn't have any detail to it, and therefore it's easy to get away with it. So you have to ask the question, what do you mean by that? What is the so-called privilege that's being taken away? Then when you look at ADF, the Alliance for Defending Freedom, or the ACLJ, the Christian Legal Group, or you look at First Liberty, it's another group, virtually all of the cases they're adjudicating or that they're litigating have to do with

Christians who are being told no with regards to their genuine constitutional liberties. It isn't anybody else. Everybody else has these liberties to do whatever they want unless they're Christian. So this makes no sense. If a person is making this claim, it is their job to defend it. It is their job to say, yes, see, look at all these situations. All this is an example of Christian privilege, and they're just removing the privilege. They're not persecuting the Christians. But it isn't a matter of Christian privilege. It's a matter of First Amendment rights that are afforded everybody else but denied religious people, in particular Christians. So that's the kind of case I would make. I'd want to ask those questions.

What Christian privilege are you saying is being denied here? And what about all these cases that are being now litigated? You cannot litigate against a parochial privilege that some people just get to defend it. You can't litigate it to secure it. If it's a parochial privilege, in other words, it's a privilege just given to one person, there's no legal basis to defend that. You have to defend based on the Constitution, the First Amendment, that is applied, ought to be applied equally to everybody. And this is what I think is happening here, Greg. I think they are equating freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution with privileges. So the fact that, okay, you can't as a Christian,

we've talked about this not even too long ago, in a government office, they say you have to remove your Bible, you have to do all these things. Well, is that losing your privilege or is that being denied a freedom? So they're assuming that means being denied, losing a privilege, but that freedom, losing a privilege. But that freedom is not a privilege. It's a right guaranteed by the Constitution, and we all hold it. So are we being put into jails and things like that? Well, for the most part, no.

But someone like his, I can't believe I can't remember his name is Jack something, the baker in Colorado. He keeps getting sued by people because they keep trying to trap him and get him in trouble for not being able to do things according to his conscience. Well, that's not losing a privilege. That's someone trying to deny him his freedom. That's right. That's someone trying to deny him his freedom. That's right. And so maybe you could just talk about, here are the freedoms we're allowed. And you seem to be treating Christians differently from everyone else.

If someone else has a religious belief, it's allowed to continue. And for the most part, we do pretty well here. But there are these cases you can point to and say, well, you can see this happening. So in a workplace where Christians can't have a Bible on the desk, can a Muslim woman wear a burqa? Because a burqa is religious clothing. It identifies her as a Muslim. It is consistent with her Muslim convictions to dress in this particular way, in this modest fashion.

How is that different? Of course, people are going to immediately say, well, it's different. Well, how? Each of them is an expression in the public square of a parochial religious practice and conviction. And that might be a good way to ask, say, do you think that a Muslim woman ought to be able to wear a headscarf at work that identifies her as Muslim? Do you think that she should be given that freedom? Well, if she should be given that freedom, then shouldn't Christians have the same freedom?

So sometimes people are able to see it when it's a minority group. They're much better able to see the freedoms that the Constitution offers. And then maybe you can compare that. Now, the other thing I would say, and this isn't persecution, but this is something very curious and strange that's happening in this society. I would ask, what would you think? And this is something I've been thinking about lately, what would you think if you were watching TV and every time you're watching a murder mystery of some kind, if a black person came on there, you would know immediately, oh, he's obviously the murderer. black person that comes on TV is evil and is manipulative and is a hypocrite and is judgmental and is terrible to everyone. And he ends up being the secret evil person. That's the way it's characterized. Yeah. Like, what would you think? What would you think? Would you think that there's something

very bad going on here that needs to be addressed? I would hope you would. And yet, that is how I know who is the murderer on TV shows. If a Christian shows up, the Christian is a terrible person. It happens every time. That's not—there's something bad going on here that shouldn't be happening, because it's not—for one, it's not true. And for two, it's very— But by the way, just for the record, in either case, you're making a parody. Okay, just so this isn't misunderstood. The other example is to show how ridiculous it is. It's not true in either case, and it shouldn't be the case that people have these weird propagandistic depictions of Christians that are crazy and untrue and are making everyone afraid of Christians. I

mean, this is not a good situation. So you just have to look around the culture, and this isn't, I wouldn't call that persecution, but I would just look around the culture and say, how is that going to lead anywhere good? Well, it certainly is a negative stereotype. And by the way, just for the record, I have record, I've met thousands and thousands of men of the cloth over the years. I have never met one that walks around with his hands folded in front of him or his hands folded behind him and continually says to me, my son, my son, me, my son, my son, oh, my son. This is a nonsense, but you see this every single time. You see a priest on TV, for example, or somebody who's obviously a man of the cloth. It's this Hollywood, you know, prides itself in being authentic, except for when it comes this way, and they're dishing

out all of this negativity with regards to Christians. By the way, there's a case that's being adjudicated right now by First Liberty, I think it is, and this is where a young man—let me pause for a second. Think about what the kinds of clothing kids are allowed to wear in school nowadays. The kinds of clothing, the messages on the t-shirt, all kinds of stuff, because the ACLU has made sure that they have the freedom of speech for all these kinds of things. All right. And some of it deeply offensive and untoward and whatever. But when a young man wore a t-shirt that said there are only two sexes, he's a Christian, he got expelled. And so he got a new T-shirt and it said there are only, and then he put censored sexes, like the two was censored. He got expelled for that too.

Okay. You can burn an American flag on campus, but you can't wear a T-shirt that says there are only two sexes. If you wear a T-shirt that says there's a limited, unlimited amount of sexes, well, that wouldn't be a problem, even though it deeply offended, would offend a whole bunch of the sensibilities of a whole bunch of Christians. No, that's fine. So I don't, this person who makes this comment is not living in the real world. Well, this is why I don't know that anything you say is going to have an influence on the family member. You could just say, look, I'd love to talk to you about some of the cases that are going on

and hear what you think and show you where I think freedoms are being denied. You're defining that as losing a privilege, but it's actually a freedom that we're think freedoms are being denied. You're defining that as losing a privilege, but it's actually a freedom that we're guaranteed that's being denied. But one last thing I would say, regardless of what's going on out there, we have to remember as Christians where our hope is, and we have to find a way to be like the apostles who joyfully accepted the seizure of their property. Actually, it was the early church. It wasn't just the apostles who joyfully accepted the seizure of their property. Actually, it was the early church.

It wasn't just the apostles. And the apostles were the ones, the disciples were the ones who rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering for his name. If you are, and Peter talks about this in 1 Peter, if you do suffer for the sake of proclaiming Jesus' name, that is when you rejoice because it's proof that you're proclaiming Jesus' name. It's proof that you are with Jesus and you will suffer now, but you will have glory later. And this is just a short time. We have, you know, we need to feel sorry for these people. They do not have Jesus. They're, they, right now, they have no relationship with God. They are headed for the destruction and judgment. We suffer a little bit now, and many of us won't ever have a case brought against us, so our suffering is only vicarious anyway. But as Christians, we have hope, and we have a goal for our lives, and we know where go around angry, returning evil for evil, or lashing out at our family members that argue that we should lose our privilege or whatever.

We need to be as Christ was on the cross where he did not return evil for evil, and he suffered for the sake of others. So sometimes we take abuse from others for the sake of showing them grace so that we can show them who Jesus is, because he showed grace instead of returning evil for evil. The very last beatitude in Matthew 5 is, blessed are you when men persecute you and insult you and say all kinds of evil against you for my name's sake. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Thank you, Greg. And thank you, Andrew and Linda, for your questions. Please send us your question on X with the hashtag STRASK, or you can go to our website at str.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.