Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Christianity and Social Justice | New Testament | Luke 14

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Does Christianity say anything about social justice? Is the Christian faith more about personal salvation than it is about justice? Patrick discusses Luke 14 and shares God's intention for setting the world right. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Luke 14

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Just a few weeks ago, the influential and sometimes controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, he wrote something on Twitter. This is what he said. There's nothing Christian about hashtag social justice. Redemptive salvation is a matter of the individual soul. Now, it's important to note that while Peterson has a respect for the Bible and Christians in general, he's not a Christian. But that's simply fact doesn't make him wrong. What do you think? Does Christianity say anything about social justice? Or is it really just about the individual soul? And that's all. If you wanted to find out the answer to

that question, how would you do it? A few years ago, Keith had a good friend who was getting concerned that he was seeing words like justice and oppression during our Sunday morning services. He feared it meant that we'd chucked to Orthodox Christianity for some sort of baptized social agenda. In other words, he kind of agreed with Jordan Peterson. Christianity is a lot of the about individual salvation, the soul, justice and oppression, those aren't topics on the menu. But this guy was a great guy who really wanted to know the truth. And so Keith challenged him to go home later that day and visit Biblegay.com. It's a website that lets you search for words in the Bible.

Keith asked his friend to type in some of the words he was worried about hearing on Sunday morning. Justice, injustice, oppression, oppressors. Well, his friend was shocked because these aren't rare words in the Bible. They're everywhere. He came back to Keith and told him about some of his favorite new verses and what the Bible had taught him about justice. Now, I don't think the problem is that Jordan Peterson hasn't searched his Bible. He surely knows that these words exist in God's word, but he's got him fixated on one aspect

of Christianity. God's plan to save people. Now, I have to say Peterson's focus on individualism is also way wrong, but that's not what this podcast is about. He's got a focus on God's plan. to save people to the exclusion of a different thing. God's plan to save people from injustice and set the world right. In this way, Jordan Peterson, and if we're honest, people like you and me sometimes, we end up sounding a lot more like the Pharisees than Jesus. We're about to read a story

focused on Peterson's question, but it requires a little bit of historical context. So put on your history hat. You probably know that the Pharisees were a religious group who focused on following a lot of rules. And that's true enough. But the question we rarely ask is why. And maybe you think the answer is they followed rules so that they could go to heaven. But that answer actually misses the mark. We have no records of Pharisees talking about going to heaven. In fact, we don't have much about that in the New Testament from Christians either. But again, that's a different story. What were the Pharisees focused on? Well, they wanted the military occupation of Rome to end. They wanted the kingdom of God to arrive. They were awaiting a future resurrection when God would judge the peoples and set the world to

rights. So in a lot of ways, they hoped for exactly the same things early Christians hoped for. Resurrection, the full arrival of God's kingdom, the restoration of all things. But there is a twist. The Pharisees read their Bibles and they knew that Israel was sent into exile for their disobedience. They believe that Israel could effectively cause God to end the exile and bring the kingdom if they just observed their law, if they did the thing that Israel failed to do. But they knew that it wouldn't take just one person doing this. It would take the whole people doing it. And so that's why they taught so many rules. They wanted the people to obey God's covenant and thereby cause God to act and to bring his kingdom finally. But with all the rules, there came a very

profound temptation to fixate on lesser matters of the law and ignore weightier matters. For example, Isaiah castigated the people of Israel for fasting and doing careful religious observances, while they ignored injustice in their midst. Isaiah 57, verse 5. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen? Only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the kind of fast I have chosen to loose the chains of injustice? and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke, is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Now this finally takes us to today's passage, Luke 14, where Jesus is riffing on Isaiah and he takes the Pharisees to task for thinking a lot like Jordan Peterson. Like justice really doesn't matter. what matters is just the Pharisees' personal vision of salvation.

Let's read the story in chapter 14, verse one. One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. then he asked them, if one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath

day, will you not immediately pull them out? And they had nothing to say. You see, God does care about justice. If you think Christianity is merely about salvation, not justice, will you separated two things that fit together for Jesus? Salvation is ultimately the promise not only that we have been rescued from our sins and forgiven, but also the promise of resurrection. When all sicknesses are healed and all injustices are cast out and all things are renewed. When Jesus healed people, he did so to point forward to a future reality of salvation, where all that is wrong is undone and rewritten, which takes me back to my own life. We must not be like the Pharisees, going to church, praying, reading our Bibles, but ignoring the sick, the weak, and the needy. We don't care for the

hurting to win God's love and God's care and affection. No, we care for the hurting because we've already received God's love. He rescued us when we were sick and hurting and needy and now he invites us to do the same for others. Salvation is a grand package. It's not just about the individual soul. Salvation catches up the whole of life. It's the promise that Jesus, as our rescuing king, has secured our lives from the threats of sin and death and will one day make this world just and right. Don't pull those things apart. Keep them together and let them strengthen you in both love and justice. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus.

Thanks for listening.