The Sean McDowell Show - What Was the Mission of Jesus? A Conversation with Greg Koukl

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Did Jesus come to earth to champion the cause for the poor and oppressed? While he cared deeply about bringing justice to the poor, and spreading a message of peace and love, his primary mission was different. And we must get this right! In this conversation, I talk with apologist Greg Koukl about the main reason Jesus came to earth. READ: The Legend of the Social Justice Jesus: (https://www.str.org/w/the-legend-of-the-social-justice-jesus) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Was Jesus a social justice warrior? Was his primary mission to care for the poor, to fight against oppression, and to take a certain view of social justice? Well, we hear this regularly today. In fact, it's one of the hottest topics people are discussing and debating within the church and without. I've got a guest today, a dear friend of mine. We met in the early 2000s, maybe even the late 90s, Greg, where we had classes together at Talbot. You invited me into a mentor group and we have been friends and colleagues for over two decades. So I love you, grateful for you. It's about time I had you on the show. So thanks for coming on. That's right. And I'm going to embarrass you at a moment here. There is the picture. Oh my goodness. I was trying to get it so we don't see the reflection.

But Sean's right in the middle there of that group. That was, what, 2002 or 2003 or something? That was half your lifetime ago, just about. But you don't look much older now than you did then, Sean. But you got two master's degrees, a PhD, and you're doing great work. And so I'm glad to partner with you in this. Well, thanks for being such a champion. And with that said, I love this article. I was looking for an excuse to have you on, and I read this article you wrote. It's a

solid ground. It's called The Legend of the Social Justice Jesus. Now, let's start by asking, what do you mean by the legend of the social justice Jesus? Well, there is a popular narrative that is going around about Jesus. And it's not just in, say, more progressive groups there. And I'm not speaking derisively, but descriptively. But it's also a standard line of thinking of evangelicals in general who have a more conservative view of theology. And they'll say, well, Jesus did do this. He was an advocate for the poor and the outcast and the marginalized and that kind of thing. And so it's really part of both of the narratives of the more progressive groups and the more conservative groups. Okay. Now I've been concerned about this because, um, what the

last thing I want anything, anyone to do is to eclipse, um, the, the genuine mission of Jesus, because what he came to do was so important. I mean, that's an understatement. It was, it's life-changing, it's world-changing. It's at the center of the Christian story. And so when someone brings in an alternate Christ, and these showed up even in the first century. Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 chided the Corinthians how readily they would accept false Christs. You know, oh, you bear with these beautifully. He's being sarcastic there. But down through history, we've had many iterations of Jesus. You have the Muslim iteration of Jesus as the prophet of Muhammad, for example. You have the LDS view of Jesus as the spirit brother of Lucifer. You have the new age Jesus, the avatar Jesus. You have the

social justice Jesus. You have all kinds of characterizations. It's not surprising either, Sean, because people recognize that Jesus is someone to be contended with, all right? He was a magnificent individual. He influenced history like no other human being has ever done. I've always had a sense of this, by the way, but just a shout out to our friend J. Warner Wallace and his new book, A Person of Interest, because in this book, he really, really explains the indelible impact that Jesus has had all over the world in every single area of culture. And so, given that he's such a large figure, people like him, generally speaking. They don't always read him very carefully, but they like him in general, and they want to get Jesus on their side, which is

why, for example, say the LGBT crowd might say, well, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. The issue aside, notice how they want to get Jesus on their team. Why? Because he's a person to be contended with. And he's a noble individual you want on your side. And what I say in the article is the important thing is not getting Jesus on our side, but making sure that we're on Jesus' side. And so what side is that? Who is the real Jesus? The one that Paul preached, the one that the disciples followed and were trained by and proclaimed in the book of Acts. And what was his mission?

What did his forebears, those that came before him to announce him, say about him? What did Jesus say about himself? And so this is the question that I was pursuing in this whole enterprise, Sean. Given all these different views of Jesus, all coming allegedly from the same historical material, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, how is it that we have all this variation? Who was Jesus and why did he come? That was what I was after here. Well, I really appreciate that you framed the question of whether Jesus was in favor of a certain contemporary view of social justice in light of

all the different iterations we've had about the person of Jesus going all the way back, like you said, to the time of Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Even in Galatians 1.8, there's a different gospel, of course, tied to the nature of Jesus. There's the mythical Jesus, the New Age Jesus. This is the latest, you might say, iteration of Jesus that is arguably confusing people and pulling away from the heart of what his mission really was. Now, in many ways, you may have answered this, but why did you write this piece now? And by the way, before you answer that, you do a monthly solid ground issue where you're focusing on kind of larger issues. It's in depth. If people don't subscribe yet, they need

to subscribe. I read every month when it comes out. It's super helpful. Why did you write that one now? Well, thanks for the hat tip there. By the way, it's bimonthly every other month because the alternate months I write a shorter piece that's a mentoring letter. So if people subscribe at str.org, upper right hand corner, very easy to do. They are going to get this snail mail or virtually whatever they like. And every month they're going to get something where I'm trying to help them deal with contemporary issues. And this is the longer piece. This is usually 35 to 4,000 words, 3,500 rather to 4,000. And my commitment as a human being is to the person of Jesus Christ. And that is someone in particular. And keep in mind that it was the person of Jesus and the commitment to Christ that the early Christians had that allowed them to go to the gallows.

Well, that's a nice alliteration, but they didn't have gallows and they had lions. They got stoned. They got hung. They got crucified upside down. They got burned. They got burned, you know, tar and pitch. That was Nero's favorite method. So crucified and set on fire. Why would anyone

do that for this man, Jesus of Nazareth? And it turns out that all these other kind of iterations, especially the more current ones, the more recent ones, when you look at who many of these people say Jesus is, you'd wonder, why would anybody, if that's the right picture, right profile of Christ, why would anybody suffer such a heinous death on his behalf? And the answer, and even today, nowadays, many Christians are suffering, being beheaded. And historically, that's been the case. Why? For these other iterations. They're not high enough. They're not noble enough. It turns out, though, that the reason Jesus came, and many people are aware of this in general, but what I try to do is really quantify this in a powerful way, is such a life-changing, life-transforming purpose that even life itself

is not worth deviating from that purpose, which is why early Christians gave their lives. So it's hard to imagine anything more important in any human being's life right now than this question, like Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say I am? And the answer they give to that is going to seal their eternity. That's the kind of issue we're talking about. Those of you just joining us, we're here with Greg Kokel, president of Stand to Reason, talking about if Jesus was a social justice warrior or if this is a legend. We're going to take questions at the end, but right now we're going to jump into this piece and really unpack it for you, what scripture says about Jesus's mission and how that frames the way we should

think about social justice efforts. So last question before we do that, why do you think people find this social justice Jesus so attractive? Why is it getting so much attention right now? Well, you know, in the beginning of our grand story, it says that God made man in his own image. And ever since then, man has been trying to recreate God in their image. And so when you have a noble individual like Jesus of Nazareth that everybody admires, and you have your own, we'll just call it a narrative for now, okay, your own understanding of how the world is and how the world works and the things that you campaign for that you think are important, it's natural to try to get noble people kind of on

your side. And so this is what I think people have done with Jesus of Nazareth. And so there are, I think people are committed to their projects for whatever reasons, but if they can get some help from Jesus, all the better. And so what ends up happening is people kind of cherry pick, and I don't even think they're doing this maliciously. I think they don't know better. They just look around for some things and a line or two that Jesus says that resonates with them in light of their own view. So what's going on here, Sean, and this is not unusual, it's a me first and my views first, and what can contribute or give credibility to my own views.

Rather than it's God's view first, let's figure out what that is. Okay, this is super helpful. I already see some comments here of people saying, I agree, but you can't deny that Jesus' ministry involved healing, feeding, and accepting people. True, but we're going to get into that. Greg, if I was going to list the top five or 10 people, of course, outside of scripture that shaped my thinking,

you would be in it. And I want to say that publicly because you have profoundly shaped the way I think about issues. But perhaps the most valuable thing I've learned from you is just the methodology in thinking itself. So you have a very careful methodology that you apply to asking the question, was Jesus a social justice warrior? Tell us about that methodology itself before we jump into your conclusions.

Okay. That narrative looks something like this, that Jesus' mission was to champion, or at least part of his mission was to champion the cause of the disenfranchised, the outcast, those who are unloved, accepting the unacceptable, and especially campaigning for the poor, okay? And so this is the general idea that people have. And as I mentioned earlier, not only is this kind of concept majored in by those on the progressive side of the spectrum, even evangelical types would give a certain, acknowledge that. Well, we know that Jesus did this, that, and the other thing, but it doesn't mean that was his main message. So what I decided to do, and I've done this on a number of different topics,

it's a simple methodology, Sean, that if anybody wants to get a clear take on, in a certain sense, the full counsel of Scripture on a particular issue, then they need to read through every single verse in the category of Scripture that you're interested in, in this case, the Gospels, and isolate every verse that pertains to your issue. And once you've isolated all those verses, it turns out that they begin to fall. You could look at them and they fall into different categories. You can organize them. And then you can get a clear idea of what the full counsel of the text says about the issue that you're looking for.

You're not just cherry picking one thing or another or a couple that sound good to you, and then coming up with an imbalanced or maybe even a fully mistaken view. You're looking at the whole thing. Okay. Now, just a caveat here, Sean. Of course, this will work for people who believe the Bible is fully inspired by God. Okay. But there are a lot of people who don't think the Bible is fully inspired or not inspired theologically in that sense at all, supernaturally, but it's just a book that has, you know, good ideas in it, you know, and we can, we can benefit from that. And so, uh,

progressives characteristically have a lower view of scripture than say more conservative Christians, but for this project, it does not matter because whatever view of scripture you have, you can bring that to the table. Here's what you can't do. You can't say that you can't rely on the gospels in any sense as a characterization of the life of Jesus and then argue, here's what Jesus' mission was all about from those same texts that you just dismissed. So let's just be consistent. If you want to know what Jesus' view was from these fictitious texts, okay, we still have to deal with the texts, even if what we come up is this fictitious view, you know? So in any event, however you use

scriptures, you can apply the same technique to find out what the Jesus of the text had to say. Whether it's God-inspired or not, you're still dealing with the Jesus of the text. And so what I did is I went to the Gospels, and I was looking for two things. I was looking for specifically what those texts said about the poor, and there's quite a number of references Jesus made to the poor. And then I was asking the question, what do those texts tell us about Jesus' mission? And here you have two categories. You have Jesus himself and what he said, I came to do this. Pretty straightforward. All right.

But then you also have other people who were, let's say, the heralds of Jesus. And when you look at the birth narratives and the first beginning of Jesus' ministry, you have people like John the Baptist or his father, actually, Zacharias, who gives a prophecy. You have the prophecy of Bethlehem and Judea. You have the comments of Ananias or Annas and the other gal there when Jesus was presented there at the temple. And then you have the comments of John the Baptist himself. So they are all saying something about this individual. And then we have what Jesus says about himself, too. And now we have two Jesus says about himself too. And now we have two categories to compare and to see if what's the theme, what are the themes? And did these two groups of people say the same thing or did they say different things? And whatever they said,

how much of the kind of social justice message seemed to be contained within these verses. So there's my methodology. That's a really helpful caveat because even somebody like Bart Ehrman wouldn't believe the Bible's inspired or even entirely reliable, but says we can know some historical things about Jesus from this text. So really we're just looking at the earliest text asking what did Jesus say according to the text? What did others say about Jesus and the heart of his mission? And what does it reveal? By the way, Greg, I did the same thing when it came to the apostles. I wanted to know, I read through the entire New Testament very carefully. How much is the theme that Christians will suffer for their faith found in the New

Testament? And it surprised me of how much more central it was than I expected. And it sounds like your search on Jesus and oppression and the poor revealed a similar surprise, but in a different direction. Yeah, it was, surprise is probably an understatement. Okay. Because, and I'll just give you the, I'll give you the punchline here, the final analysis, but I'll substantiate it through our further conversation here. What I was stunned to find is that Jesus never campaigned on behalf of the poor. Jesus never campaigned on behalf of the disenfranchised. He never campaigned on behalf of the outcast or those who were considered, well, outcast, I guess is a good word. He never did any of those things. It turned out that even the more conservative folks who are saying, well,

this was part of Jesus' ministry, but it wasn't the whole thing and the main thing, they're mistaken because it was never part of Jesus' ministry at all. And this is something I'll justify with the passages, but I don't want anyone to misunderstand. Keep in mind, my question is, what does the relevant witnesses early in Jesus' ministry, the birth narratives, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself say about Jesus' purpose? So the conclusions I come to have to do with the purpose Jesus came, not with what the Bible has to say about our obligation to the disenfranchised or the poor or those who are genuinely oppressed. Incidentally, your question that you brought up earlier, you know, the observation that Jesus fed the poor. What's interesting is he fed people, yes, but this created a tremendous problem for

him. He did it twice, first 4,000 and second time 5,000. And these were just men. They were just counting the men. So it was a lot more people than that. But this created a problem. And you read about it in John chapter six, because the people came, first of all, looking for another miracle. They were looking for pizzazz. They weren't looking for what Jesus could provide spiritually. And Jesus chastised them for that. And then he adds, and by the way, a lot of you are here looking for a free meal. Do not hunger for the bread that perishes. Hunger for the bread that came down from heaven. That's me. I am the bread of life, and that's called the bread of life discourse. So what's interesting, people know about him

feeding all those, but they don't realize the place it played in the entire context. This created a problem for Jesus because people started expecting him to get freebies, and it distracted them from the main purpose that Jesus came, that he was the bread of life that brought eternal life. Just as an aside there, that's a good example of people, unfortunately, reflecting on something they know about the Gospels, but then coming up with the wrong conclusion about the implications of that. So let's take this a little bit further. You say Jesus did not do a campaign for the poor or the oppressed or the outcasts. What did you find? Let's start with the Gospels themselves, not necessarily what Jesus says, but what did you find the relationship between Jesus and the poor and his message

as you just read systematically through the gospels? Right. Okay. So let me start with the first witnesses, because remember the gospels, this is the way they proceed. They start at the beginning with the exception of the gospel of Mark. It starts at the beginning of Jesus' ministry where the other ones start earlier. All right. And so we have people bearing testimony regarding Jesus. Now, Matthew was written to Jews, and so there had to be the kind of information there that made sense to them as Jesus is being introduced, etc. Actually, John has a different kind of beginning, but Matthew and Luke give us some details, and especially Luke. So we see the first thing that's mentioned

time-wise is that Bethlehem would be the place where the Messiah was to be born, this person who Jesus claimed to be. And it says there that this from Bethlehem would come for someone who would shepherd my people Israel. So the first reference we have to purpose from those sources is a shepherd. The next source is John the Baptist. Actually, it's his father who gives a prophecy, and he identifies that he would be a prophet. John the Baptist would be his son that would herald the coming of this person who would bring salvation by the forgiveness of sins. So now we have a second element. The shepherd Israel, salvation by the forgiveness of sins. Then at the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel says to Mary that this one that she will give birth to will receive the throne of his father David and will rule in the Davidic kingdom forever. Another detail, Davidic king.

When Joseph is grieved at the circumstances that he has encountered there with his betrothed, now pregnant, who knows why, from his perspective, he actually gets a visitation, a vision from an angel that tells him that she will bear a son. You will call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All right. So then now we got salvation from sin that's entering into this this profile that is being developed at the very outset of Jesus life by these people at jesus birth we've got the uh the angel before the shepherds and uh as i recall you and i went to the shepherd's field two years ago yeah yeah it's it's not a very attractive place anymore uh just saying uh once was enough for me but when the announcement was made by the angels to the shepherds in the field, what they were told

is, behold, a savior is born for you. Okay. And then instructions were given to them. So now we got a savior. Salvation from sin, the angel said to Joseph, now savior. Similar theme there. When Simeon looked at the infant Jesus there, a week or so after Jesus' birth, he says, now my eyes have behold your salvation. When Anna did, she spoke about the redemption of Jerusalem. So we got the redemption issue there. Then John the Baptist, when we see him there at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and this I think you can find in the Gospel of John, in addition to Matthew chapter 3, John chapter 1, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Now notice the reference there. There is the same reference to salvation through taking away sins, redemption and forgiveness of sins, but notice the metaphor that's used, the Lamb of God. Well, everybody

there knew what this was. The Lamb was used to be sacrificed for the sins of the people, you know, on an annual basis. And so this resonated with them. So here's what we have, kind of launching the story of Christ. And I realized that this process that I went through, in a way, is kind of tedious. You know, you just got to go through and do the kitchen work. But it's amazing what it ends up revealing, because let me just read the sentence from the article. It says that the totality in these initial gospel passages of what the profile that is being prepared of this person, Jesus of Nazareth, is that he would be a Savior named Jesus, who is Christ, Messiah, the Lord, God, all right, the Son of the Most High God, born in Bethlehem to shepherd Israel. He's the sacrificial Lamb of God who will bring salvation

and redemption through the forgiveness of sins, baptizing some with the Holy Spirit and some with fire. I mean, that's judgment. And John the Baptist mentions that. And he will be given the throne of his father, David, and rule over an everlasting kingdom. Now, this is the totality of the profile of Jesus given by all of those that came before him and announced him specifically in the birth narratives or at the beginning of his ministry. Wait a minute, something's missing. Something's missing here. And the thing that's missing is there's not any reference to his rescuing the oppressed, taking care of the poor, helping the downtrodden. All of these references have to do with something entirely different, Sean.

It has to do with forgiveness of sin and ushering in the Davidic kingdom as Jesus, the Lamb of God, takes the punishment for everyone else so that he can forgive us and cleanse us and redeem us and pave the way for spiritual salvation for those who trust in him. Gosh, that's the message. This is so helpful, Greg. And I want to just emphasize for people watching, because I see comments jumping up, people saying, but Jesus did care about physical needs. He did care about the poor. Of course he did. And we're going to get there. What you're asking is what is the heart of his message why did jesus come and that has a spiritual reason tied to forgiveness of sins salvation of souls now that said we're going to go beyond this what did jesus say about his mission we started with what others said about him and you read the beginning of these Gospels. What did he say about why he came and the purpose of his mission? Okay, so here is another

list of passages where Jesus is identifying for everyone else his mission. Now, what I'm going to say about what I'm going to offer here, Sean, is that most of the references are absolutely crystal clear. However, there are a couple of passages that are ambiguous as to their meanings. And these are the passages where he makes reference to the poor and the oppressed. Okay. Now, there's a way of finding out what he actually was after. And I'll get into that after I give you this information. But I'll just give you the summary and I'll just go down there.

I won't even give the references there in the people can find them themselves. This is nothing about what I'm saying is controversial in terms of Jesus claims. Jesus saying, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. He said that I didn't come into the world to judge the world, but that the world would be saved through me. He said, I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He says that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom. Now, by the way, a ransom is when you pay a price to purchase something out of bondage or slavery, for example. Now that fits right in with this theme that we've been talking about, of course. All right. He also said that I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but to do the will of the Father so that everybody who

believes in me, I lose none, but I raise them up on the last day. Notice that all of these references have to do with something that is spiritually substantial, and they all dovetail perfectly with what the forebearers announced about Jesus himself. The point I'm making here is, this is a theme that is like a drumbeat throughout the entire record of Jesus' life. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I know people are saying, but this, but that, but the other thing, and we'll get to that in a moment. It's going to turn out, I think, that they're going to be disappointed in their expectation based on what the text reveals. And to be honest, this surprised me. It really surprised me what I found or the degree there. Okay. Now, for salvation then to Jesus, salvation was not economic prosperity. It was not equal distribution of goods. It wasn't sexual liberties without shame. It wasn't, let's not be judgmental,

let's just love one another. That wasn't any of what was included in these statements. Rather, it was salvation that came through belief in him and resulted in forgiveness of sins and a restored relationship with the Father. And there are more verses that say the same thing, eternal life, eternal life, eternal life, salvation, salvation, salvation. And they're listed in there. In fact, Jesus, a number of times, says to people, the woman who had the issue of blood, right? She grabs his cloak, thinking she'll be healed if she just touches his cloak. Jesus is aware. And he says, what's happening here? Because of your faith, your sins are forgiven you. In Mark chapter two, we have Jesus forgiving sins of the paralytic. And this really upsets people. How

could you say this? You're not God, only God can do this. And then he demonstrates his authority to forgive sins by healing the paralytic, a famous passage there. Once again, the same drumbeat over and over and over again. And so I list all of these things there. Jesus talks, anticipates his suffering. He tells the disciples this a number of times. And by the way, when he sums up his ministry on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection, he tells those two disciples that he's walking with that don't recognize him yet, that all the scriptures have borne testimony that the Messiah must be born, must suffer and die and rise again from the dead. He sums up his own ministry in the same salvific spiritual terms that he has been talking about it all along. And just a qualifier here, when I say spiritual, I don't mean that this is something out of the ether. I mean, these are, they are spiritual ends that are

concrete, real things that we desperately need more than anything else. Forgiveness of our sins to be made right with God so we can enjoy company with God in his kingdom forever, a kingdom over which Jesus will rule. That is what all of the these testimonies by Jesus himself about why he came? What's missing is reference to his purpose for helping the poor, his purpose for helping the disenfranchised, etc. All the narrative, the narrative, the social justice, Jesus narrative, it is not there in those statements. I'm really glad that you emphasize what you mean by spiritual, not just immaterial, not a platonic sense that matter is bad and we escape the body. Right. You actually mean salvation of our bodies and of our souls. That's the resurrection. That's

what you mean by spiritual in the resurrection. So that clarification is really important. I don't want it to be dismissed as impractical. That's just ethereal stuff. And we talk about practical things like helping people here on earth. There is a role for us helping people here on earth. By the way, that wasn't called justice in the Bible. That was called mercy and charity.

Okay. There was no presumption in scripture that if a person was poor, it was because of injustice. Now, we do see in scripture, especially in the Hebrew scriptures, people that were poor were abused and treated unjustly. But that's because, pardon me, being poor made them vulnerable. All right. And so the prophets were speaking against oppression of the poor because they were poor, but they didn't identify being poor as an example of oppression itself. In fact, the law makes it very clear. I think it's in the book of Exodus. It might be in Leviticus. And the law says, do not favor the poor in judgment, but rather act justly. So that's a very interesting passage

in light of the way people often think of the poor. The idea, if I could just toss this out, Sean, that people who are poor are poor in virtue of injustice. In other words, anytime you see a poor person, you know oppression and injustice has been played out in their lives in some way. That is not a biblical view. That is a Marxist view. Okay. Very, very helpful. I know a ton of you have questions for Greg. As we get towards the end, write question in caps, and we will come to it, and I'll ask him some of the best, most pointed questions. Quick shout-out to Colby Martin, who's been on my show twice.

He made a comment that I finally upped my camera and lights. It looks good. Thanks, man. You came on my show and shamed me by example. I had to up my game. So thanks for recognizing that. Greg, was Jesus ever dismissive of the poor? Yeah, famously in, I think, the Gospel of John, and actually it was just before, it was in, I think, the final week, the Passion Week. Actually, in the Gospel of John, one-third of the Gospel is about that week, okay? And the reason is, is because that week was so important. Notice Jesus had already done all of his teaching about whatever was important to him, and then now you've got the Passion Week, where he's on the way to

the cross. John devotes one-third of his entire account to that week. Why? Because this was the most important thing. And during that week, there was a woman who took some very expensive perfume and anointed him with it. And some of the disciples were bugged, especially Judas, as it turned out. Hey, that money could have been given to the poor. Now, Judas was saying this because he pilfered from the treasury, you know, so he had his own motives for saying that. And by the way, that's all in the text. And Jesus says, the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me. So I want to make clear, this wasn't a blanket dismissal of poor people. This was a dismissal of poor people relative to something

else that was vastly more important. And that was Jesus, because he says there in that passage, she has anointed me for my burial. The thing that was most important to Jesus is the thing that he's been talking about for three and a half years on and on and on and on. And that is the salvation issue. Okay. Eternal life issue, belief entrusted him so that we could be rescued and forgiven of our sins. Now I do need to, there, some people might be thinking, wait a minute, he left out a passage. He left out that passage where preach the God, I came to preach the gospel to the poor. There's actually a couple of references of that. And so the question is, who does Jesus have in mind when he says, I came to preach the gospel to the poor? He repeats this, by the way, when

John the Baptist in a dark moment is doubting and he's in prison. And so he asks, are you the one that we've come to expect? And so Jesus makes the reference there. Notice the gospel is being preached to the poor, but which poor? Do we really think that Jesus only came to preach the good news of salvation to poor people? So if you had a certain economic level, that was the break point. Jesus wasn't interested in you. No, Jesus met with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. He was a rich guy. Jesus had a tax gatherer in his Matthew, in his group. The tax gatherers were filthy rich. Now, they had been extorting the money from the Jews to get rich, jesus did not make distinctions that way he preached the gospel to everyone so wait a minute well then who is the poor he had in mind you look

at the gospel of matthew and the beatitudes in john or got matthew chapter 5 jesus makes the clear he said blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, what he's referring to as poor people is people who understand and recognize their spiritual poverty, that they don't have what it takes. And think of the tax gatherer and the Pharisee in the parable that Jesus gave, the Pharisee up front saying how wonderful he was, and the tax gatherer in the back bowing his head, beating his breast, saying, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus said that other one who realized his poverty spiritually, even though he's physically rich, he realizes poverty compared to the Pharisee who is self-righteous. It's the poor in spirit one

who is justified and not the other. And so this is what Jesus was after in his references to the Pharisee who is self-righteous. It's the poor in spirit one who is justified and not the other. And so this is what Jesus was after in his references to the poor, the poor in spirit. Now, there are a lot of places where Jesus mentions the poor. And the irony though, Sean, is when I went back to those passages, in many of those cases, Jesus wasn't talking about the poor as such. He was using the poor to make a different point. So when he talks about the widow's might, the poor woman who gives everything she has, this is a point about her liberality. It isn't something to do with the poor as a group. When he tells the Pharisees, when you give alms to the poor, notice that there's an assumption that charity would be

given, okay? When you do it, don't sound the horns and make a big deal and draw attention to yourself. That's hypocrisy. You got your work rewarded full, he says. So there he's using poor to make a point about hypocrisy. And it turns out in virtually every case, that's the way he is making reference to the poor, except these occasions poor in spirit. Okay, well, what about what he says he came to help the oppressed? Well, now it's not clear what he means by oppressed, is it? We just see the word oppressed, and it's very simple, easy to read into those words a modern characterization of that. Oh, well, that's social justice. Okay. Well, not so fast. Let's go back to the text and see what it has to say. It doesn't give us any characterization in the Gospels. But Peter mentioned this, and I don't

have the reference here, but it's in the article. But Peter, when he talks about the oppressed, that Jesus came around doing good and releasing those who were oppressed by the devil. Wow, well, we do have a lot of that. Jesus was healing people physically because he cared about their physical need, and he also delivered people from demonic oppression. There's many examples of that. And of course, the greatest delivery from demonic oppression is forgiveness of sins. So it would be natural then to read in the historical context and in the biblical context that when Jesus says that he is there to proclaim release of the captives and preach the gospel to those who are oppressed, the good news is that there is release for them. Jesus develops this idea, by the way, in John chapter 8, where he talks about people who are enslaved to sin,

and if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed. So what happens, though, with those passages that I just mentioned there about the poor and the oppressed is now this has exhausted every single passage that is a reference to the poor, to the oppressed, or makes any reference to why Jesus came. And none of those references make any change. It's not even the main theme. It is the only theme, Sean. It is the drumbeat throughout the entire text. And that's what surprised me. I expected to see more of campaigning somewhat for the poor as such, or the outcast as such, or the disenfranchised as such, but I saw none of that. I was not able to find a single verse where Jesus actually did that kind of thing. And by the way, even if there was a single verse or more, it's clear that these are completely eclipsed by all the other verses

where Jesus made his main mission most clear, and that is the salvation of souls, to put it simply. Now, there may be some people who say, well, you should look outside the Bible for your social justice, and we would say that's a separate question. What we're doing here is trying to not read into the scriptures a certain agenda, which we're all susceptible to doing, but to ask what was the message of Jesus itself? Now, Jesus talks a ton about ushering in the kingdom of God. Is social justice or justice a part of that? Well, the kingdom of God, I think this is to some degree a malign term because people, you know, they make it into whatever they want. All right. So I think to think of it in its simplest sense, think of the very first verse of our story. In the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth. Okay. So what do we have there? We have a sovereign who creates a domain, which he rules over. So you have a king and a domain, or you, a king and a dom, or a kingdom. Okay. My conviction is this is the overarching theme of the entire scripture, that God has total authority over everything that is his. And the kingdom looks a certain way, and we can see that there are moral qualities to that, and people who are members of the kingdom have certain moral responsibilities. And some of those moral responsibilities have to do with the issue of justice when injustice is actually being performed. And remember, I mentioned that verse from the Pentateuch that says, do not favor the poor in judgment, which means that many times when the poor are giving a favor, injustice is actually being accomplished against the rich.

Wow. And ironically, by the way, there are a number of parables that Jesus uses in which he champions the landholder, you know, and the rich person, and not as such, but it's clear that he's not making the case that the landowner, et cetera, et cetera, is the bad guy, he hires a bunch of people and he can pay those people whatever he wants. And this is a point that Jesus makes in one of his parables. And so the kingdom is a broad theme of scripture. I think it's the main theme of scripture. Because of the revolt we see in chapter three, the kingdom is torn and people have left out from underneath the authority of God and gone their own way to do their own thing. Okay. And build their own narratives, you know, of various kinds that are their own idols, if you will, to replace God. we come back under the kingdom of God, and this is what Jesus made possible, principally what Jesus

made possible, then the kingdom values apply to our lives. Then we are to live like kingdom people. And this means doing justice, okay, living humbly before God. Now, by the way, justice there is defined by God. It's not defined by the current culture. This is another little mistake. And it entails charity. All right. Paul says that the Christian ought to work with his hands and make income, not just to be able to take care of his own needs so he's not a burden on others. But he is, by the way, this is often overlooked. This is a New Testament ethic. But to have more so he can give to those who have genuine need. So the notion of charity and mercy are huge as a kingdom ethic and spoken of frequently. But those are Christian kingdom ideals that weren't the things that Jesus came principally to address. He had a very focused purpose, and he did not deviate at all from that purpose in his conduct or in his teaching. He exercised mercy.

He showed charity to people, no question. But he did not preach anything like social justice as construed now or the social gospel. If you're watching this, a comment or a thumbs up just helps us with the analytics. I've got one more question for you, Greg, and then we're going to open it up for questions. So if you do write a question, make sure you write in caps questions as and as succinct and to the point as possible. Best chance I'll pick it up and give it to Greg. Last question for you is, can you clarify what you see as the relationship between doing justice, which we're told Micah 6, 8 and the gospel? What is that connection in relationship well in in in a theological sense there's no connection

all right now i just think a little beat there a little silence for a moment because i want to let that punctuate the point in a theological sense there is no connection in a practical christian virtue christian living, there is a connection. But we can't, what's happened, Sean, is I think the tail is wagging the dog. Okay. People have seen the things that follow from a changed life. That would be mercy, pursuit of justice, kindness, charity, helping others that genuinely need help. And they have made that the central thing. What's really interesting is you see in a number of places in the epistles where the proper

order is given. Okay. And I'm thinking right now, famously in Titus or here, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. This is the very first verse I ever learned 48 years ago as a brand new Christian. And I didn't memorize it. It just stuck because it was so important to me. By grace, you have been saved through faith. It is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works that no one should boast. Very next verse. But you are created for good works. Okay, so that's the pecking order. First

salvation, then the works that follow salvation. Okay, a lot of people have like the works first to earn you salvation. That's legalism. Or just the works are the salvation. okay? And I think this is where a lot of progressives have gone. The gospel, the good news, is just that we do these things to help people, and that's as far as it goes. I don't mean to broad brush the movement, but I think a lot of people do have that attitude. So the gospel is something very simple, very straightforward. It is good news about a rescue from sin that is secured by the work on the cross and the resurrection of Christ. So when you see the characterization of that in 1 Corinthians, I think 15 or somewhere like that, you have those pieces put together. The gospel proper is a very tight thing. But that gospel proper, when imbibed of, when experienced, when taken advantage of, when applied to one's life, has massive ramifications for everything else.

And that includes all these things that people are talking about. But they're practically connected, but theologically they are distinct. And I think what happens is sometimes these things get meshed together. And then the gospel, the real gospel, the life-giving gospel kind of gets lost in the chaos. And that's what I fear. And that's what I'm concerned about. Now, there's some chatter about this, and this is a huge question. I remember you wrote a whole piece on this, a solid ground, I don't know, six, eight, ten years ago, maybe more, about Paul and James and how works of righteousness would play into this. Because James seemed to say you cannot be justified without works. So maybe you're kind of, if it's possible, just not Twitter is too short, but just the synopsis response of what Paul and James are getting

out there. Okay. Almost no word is univocal. In other words, having one unmistakable meaning. Virtually every word has multiple meanings. The word justified does have multiple meanings. In fact, if I were to say, Sean, why did you do that? Justify yourself. I wouldn't be asking you to declare yourself as righteous. I'd be asking you to demonstrate why your actions were appropriate. Okay, so you point to something. And this is exactly what we find in James versus Paul. Paul, let's say Romans 4 and James in James chapter 2. They're using the words justification differently, and they're also citing two different times in Abraham's life. Paul is talking about a justification that is not associated of our works, but are rather a result of trust in Christ, and God sees us as righteous. That's what justified means. And that happened to Abraham in Genesis 15. But then James is talking about those who say they have been justified in that sense, why don't you prove it, justify it in the second sense, demonstrate it to be so by your behaviors.

If you say you have so-called faith with no works, I'll show you my faith by my works. And then the reference to Abraham in that case is actually to Genesis 22, where he offers up Isaac. And so what you see there in Abraham's life is a justification in the first sense, in a forensic sense there early on, and then afterwards, he is living out his justification in his obedience to God with Abraham. Abraham was with the sacrifice of Isaac or the attempted sacrifice. So those things fit perfectly

if you understand that justification has two different meanings and James and Paul are not fighting each other. They're complimenting each other. Very, very helpful response and distinction. Now, you've talked a little bit about certain passages that say actually don't favor the poor, that you don't hear often in these conversations. Did Jesus care more about the poor than the rich? We certainly see him reaching out and caring for the marginalized women, children, those who are sick, those who are demon-possessed.

So does he care more about the oppressed versus oppressors, rich versus poor? And you notice I'm using language that's often couched in critical theory. So unpack that and answer that in a way you think is most helpful. Yeah, well, the language of oppressed and oppressors in the way that people are talking about it does not show up in the gospels. I invite people to read every single word of the gospels like I did. With that particular thing in mind, you will not find that, okay? Jesus is not campaigning for the oppressed in that sense. As to the rich and poor, Jesus was buried in the grave of Joseph of Arimathea. It was a fulfillment of prophecy. I think it says something like he had a rich man's grave or some reference to that. Jesus didn't issue the rich. Saul of Tarsus was, you know, he was one of the Pharisee of Pharisees. These people were at the upper level. You have Nicodemus, same thing. And you have, look at the Roman

centurion or whatever, where he said, you don't have to come to my house. I just give orders to people. I know how this works. Just say the word, my soul, my servant will be healed. This guy was a rich guy. He was in command of all kinds of things. Jesus did not care whether you were rich or poor. Jesus cared whether you came to him in repentance and acknowledgement of what he did. Now, as it turned out, the poor did that more than the rich because they were aware of their spiritual poverty. And this is why Jesus said, look at the whores and the tax gatherers and all these terrible people that the Pharisees thought were terrible will get into the kingdom before you self-righteous people. Why? Not because one was rich and the other was poor. It's because one was poor in spirit and the other was not. And in their poverty of their spiritual poverty, they came to Christ knowing their sin, beating their breast.

Have mercy on me, a sinner. You do that as a poor person. Jesus accepts you. You do that as a rich person. Jesus accepts you. You don't do that rich or poor and you're out. I think Jesus in Mark 7 and Paul in Romans 3 leveled the playing field that all are sinful. That's right. Oppressed, oppressor, rich, poor,

any other category, black, white, male, female, that's the equalizer, so to speak. Here's somewhat of a practical question. See if you can kind of, I know you can. There's no question about it. Just kind of flesh this out. Yeah, what we've been talking about so far is all this impractical stuff. So let's try something. I knew you were going to go there and bounce on that one. Here's how it might apply specifically. Let's say that.

So Hanover says, so would Jesus be in support of caring for the poor in the form of food stamps and other social programs? Okay, what's interesting about this, I'm just going to make an observation and not try to campaign really hard about this, but what food stamps are and social programs are government programs, where the government power takes money from one group and redistributes it. You never see this anywhere in Scripture, and you don't see that certainly in Jesus' campaign. What Jesus would want to have happen is for individuals to give freely of their own excess to those who had genuine need to help them. And incidentally, if you notice, there is another very practical element here.

When that kind of giving is done, you have accountability. When the government distributing things, there's all kinds of opportunity for abuse. And of course, we all know this. There is no charity in being taxed and then the government gives the money to someone that they think deserving of it. That's not charity. That's taxation. There is no virtue in that. There's no virtue in the individual pays his taxes and to give to those in need. And this was characteristically the way that charity took place for the last for most of the last 2000 years.

It's just been in recent times where the government has taken this over lock, stock and barrel. And everybody is aware on both sides of the political aisle of the abuses that come from that kind of thing. That's a great answer. And that was, I was hoping you made that distinction in terms of government support and individual support. And regardless if somebody thinks the government should do it and is wise, that is still downstream. Even if you could make a case that Jesus would support it, that's still downstream from his essential mission, which is salvation, which is what you've been talking about. And that's the heart of our conversation. Don't be distracted by that stuff. Absolutely. And by distracted, of course, what you don't mean, just because this often gets misunderstood, is not to not care for the poor, not to be involved in politics. We are called to do justice,

but don't confuse that with the heart of the message of what those around Jesus and Jesus themselves said why he came. Listen, Sean, today's the second of the month. Yesterday, I was doing radio shows, so today I paid my bills and wrote lots of checks to different organizations that are doing just that. I also wrote a check to the government, but I don't think that that money is going to be as well used as the Christian organizations checks to different organizations that are doing just that. I also wrote a check to the government, but I don't think that that money is going to be as well used as the Christian organizations that are having more direct contact with the poor. I believe in that as an obligation for me as a follower of Christ, and I am happy to give charity because I love the Lord. Amen. Well, there's some other questions that are coming in here, but of course, we don't have time. We got to wrap up. If you have found this helpful. I read it a few times. Share it with somebody.

All of this, the verses and the support are there. And you'll learn a methodology how to approach other issues when they come up for yourself. Second, leave a comment here at the end. Consider sharing this with somebody else and maybe even to start a conversation with a Christian, with a non-Christian, conservative, progressive, to talk through some of these issues. And if you do, make sure you just go back to the scriptures themselves as your guide. A couple last things as we wrap up. I'm getting close, our channel here, to 100,000 subscribers. So if you have not subscribed yet, please hit that subscribe button.

We're almost there. Kind of exciting and consider sharing this uh with somebody else would love to get there very soon got some exciting things lined up including friday i had a conversation lined up with ariel scarcella she's not a christian for 12 years she she is a lesbian has been producing content on youtube has a massive following we had this set up before and it's rescheduled this friday at 11 a.m we're going to talk about religious liberty we're going to talk about her views of jesus and sexuality and see if we can model a civil conversation of two people from very very different backgrounds and the last thing if you've enjoyed this greg teaches in our program as adjunct we'll come and teach a tactics class at biola there's

information below and we have a fully distanced the top rated apologetics program we would love to train you and equip you and we had a class this year greg specifically on social justice taught by one of our colleagues uh scott smith so greg hang on i want to say goodbye afterwards thank you for coming on sure rest of you we will see you friday morning 11 o'clock for conversation you're going to find very interesting give them heaven