The very term churns my stomach because of the politics surrounding the current usage. Merriam Webster has a definition, Wikipedia has a similar explanation, but in politics there’s a whole different connotation of forced redistribution of wealth. There’s a pretty good article by the Heritage Foundation about the whole concept.
The political Left loves social justice. The political Right hates it. But God is neither Republican nor Democrat. So where does the Bible lead us?
There are a lot of verses that support Jesus identifying with the poor. He was born into an economically disadvantaged family, evidenced by the offering Mary and Joseph gave when presenting Him to the Lord. God could have sent Jesus via a wealthy family of nobility, or powerful family in the Sanhedrin. He came to nearly the poorest possible family in a town prone to poverty.
Before Jesus began His public ministry a few events took place in that region. Here are two of the biggest:
Herod the Great died, and the Roman armory in Sepphoris (four miles from Nazareth) was raided. The Romans crucified 2,000 Jews in retaliation.
Judas the Galilean started a tax revolt. More crucifixions.
Is it any wonder Nathan asked if anything good could come from there?
Jesus also never forced people to do anything. When asked what a person had to do to earn eternal life, He said to sell everything and give it to the poor. As God, Jesus could have taken by force everything that man had.
The whole Gospel (Good News) message is voluntary. When Jesus was asked if “taxes” were to be paid, He said to give to government what belonged to the government, and give to God what belongs to Him.
BTW, there are a lot of subtleties in that story. I won’t go into them here, but the biggest has to do with the tax revolt mentioned above.
He never advocated taking money by force and giving it to others. That’s stealing. But anyone who follows Jesus should do as He would do: help the poor and downtrodden.
Doing that is a personal responsibility, and the Bible teaches that how a person acts is a good indicator of what they believe. Isaiah mentions that the people who reject God’s message benefit from oppression and deceit.
So what does that mean?
I used to work with a guy who frequently said something like this: “Don’t blame the CEO or sports star for getting lucrative contracts.” But I think in some cases we can.
What would a Christian CEO do during contract negotiations? Perhaps something like asking what kind of pay decrease would he have to take to give the “rank and file” workers another dollar per hour.
In 2019, an article indicated the average CEO’s pay is 278 times the wage of the average worker. That’s down from the highest ratio set in the year 2000. It’s easy to think, “Hey, they’re offering it to me, so I must be worth it.” But is that the attitude Christ would like?
When I was considerably younger I pondered the question of amassing wealth to the point where it earned enough to live on, and then donating larger amounts to charity. My thought was, “Wouldn’t it end up to have more of an impact that way?”
The Bible teaches, however, that the donation isn’t what’s important. The heart of the believer is far more important the the sacrifice. Jesus even talks about the camel and the eye of the needle, telling us that rich folks have a hard time parting with the wealth.
So what did that tell me? If I spent decades collecting cash, I’d have a hard time donating dollars when I could afford it. God would rather have my quarters now because of what the significant savings would do to me. In the end, the smaller donations along the way would end up being more because the bigger amounts wouldn’t ever materialize.
So “social justice” has been co-opted as a political phrase. Any usage that doesn’t focus on God will end up serving man instead.
That goes for any political philosophy, Right or Left. But if you work for God first, the Left v Right dilemma will vanish.
Now if only I could shed the baggage that comes with that phrase.
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