(Continued from yesterday’s excerpts from pastor/author Kevin DeYoung’s recent post …)

Earlier this year, DeYoung also went through seven common Scripture passages that are often used to support notions of “social justice” in secular society. He shows how such texts can’t be taken out of the context of God’s redemptive history and used for mere social improvement, and addresses many truths about what Scripture actually does say.

My contention is that these passages say more and less than we think, more about God’s heart for justice than some realize, and less about contemporary “social justice” than many imagine.

And my wish is that DeYoung will sometime adapt this series into a book.

Seven Passages on Social Justice (1)

Isaiah 1: Can we take God’s condemnation of Judah then and apply it to our society now?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (2)

Isaiah 58: Does Scripture support stopping perceive wealth inequities as “social justice”?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (3)

Jeremiah 22: Whom did God critique — Judah’s rulers, or all Judah’s people? If so, what for?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (4)

Matthew 25:31-46: When Jesus describes caring for “the least of these,” who does He mean?

(If you read any of these columns, read this one. It’s the first place I heard it clarified, with Biblical balance yet careful exegesis, that “the least of these” has a more-specific meaning.)

Seven Passages on Social Justice (5)

Amos 5: Back in the Old Testament — who defines real “justice,” God or modern-day activists?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (6)

Micah 6:8: Does Scripture here vaguely endorse improving society, or outline specific injustices?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (7)

Luke 4:16-21: Did Jesus claim He came to Earth to focus on “the materially destitute and the downtrodden […] to bring the year of jubilee to the oppressed […] to transform social structures and bring God’s creation back to shalom” (as opposed to that whole dying-on-the-Cross business)? Or did He mean something else here: not helping the downtrodden achieve justice in this world, but sinners to awake from their spiritual death and delight in Himself?

(Imagine fuzzy, crackling black-and-white fast-motion footage over the following process …)

1. Hosts of professing Christians get comfortable with their easy lives, satisfied with blessings and any benefits obtained from a stable country, and lifestyle, based on some Biblical truth.
2. The next generation of professing Christians, likely the children of the above generation, gets sick of the whole easy-living Christianity and its lack of emphasis on caring for the poor and destitute. Christ came to bring Social Justice! is their cry, and they talk a lot about this.
3. In reaction to them, more Christians get sick of that and dismiss Social Justice as just a bunch of liberal talk. For Gospel-driven reasons or not, they don’t help the poor and so on.
4. All sides get together, on the internet and sometimes even in person, and yell at each other.
5. People from either sides switch to either more “liberal” or “conservative” views. Each “side” has children, or other protégés, to teach their views.
6. (Repeat as many times as desired.)

Which of the two “sides” — or an overlapping viewpoint — do you fall?

Scripture doesn’t let Christians get away with either extreme view. Neither does pastor and author Kevin DeYoung, who last week concluded an ad-hoc series to encourage Christians not to fall off into one ditch or the other. Don’t base your view on what the Other Side is or isn’t saying or doing, DeYoung cautions. Instead, we must have Biblical balance:

#1: Don’t Undersell What the Bible Says About the Poor and Social Justice

In recent years there’s been so much talk about the poor and social justice that some conservative Christians, especially if that conservatism is political as well as theological, are tempted to tune out any time a well-intentioned evangelical chastises the church for neglecting “the least of these.”

[…] But there actually is a lot in the Bible about the poor, even more if you expand the category to include wealth, money, possessions, and justice.

[…] Because we have been given grace in Christ, we ought to extend grace to others in his name. Tim Keller is right: ministering to the poor is a crucial sign that we actually believe the gospel.¹

But now, for those closer to the the-church-hasn’t-done-enough-for-the-poor side of things:

#2: Don’t Oversell What the Bible Says About the Poor and Social Justice

Just as some Christians are in danger of over-reacting against social justice, other Christians, in an effort be prophetic, run the risk of making the Bible say more about the poor and social justice than it actually does.

[…] Some Christians talk […] as if the story from Genesis to Revelation is largely the story of God taking the side of the poor in an effort to raise the minimum wage and provide universal health care. As we tried to show earlier, the biblical narrative is chiefly concerned with how a holy God can dwell with an unholy people.[1.]

Moreover, the Bible’s references to “poor” are most often about those righteous people, God’s people, who are humble and waiting on Him, and may or may not be economically poor. Scripture encourages Church members to take care of their own poor first, DeYoung notes. After that comes seeking justice in the world — though knowing that only Jesus brings justice.

(Tomorrow: links to more resources from DeYoung. Social-justice myths are certainly not new.)

We need a revolution in the Church!

The Church is too (fill in blank) and/or not enough (fill in blank) and we need to be Radical for Christ. Christians are too (select one: Americanized, comfortable, cultural, non-missional, risk-averse) and we must Return to the Ideal Church of Yesteryear. We’re much too used to the way things are; it’s time to abandon that and finally go out and Change the World!

I’ve heard this often. Thought that way often, too. Sometimes I still do. And it’s easy to think so, because a) younger people think they have their ancestors’ sins all figured out, and b) very often we have figured them out, and can see the flaws in those who’ve come before.

This is not limited to “emergent” professing Christians either. I’ve seen this in some “young restless Reformed.” Again, they’re often right. Too few Christians really are “radical” enough.

Yet along with being encouraged to take risks for God and figure out what Christianity really means and finally sell out your life to Jesus and go wherever He takes you — I have begun to wonder, apparently along with many others, if we aren’t becoming a little imbalanced.

Let’s narrow this subject to be about those who truly are Christians, not those who hijack Jesus mostly to promote modern social movements (often with liberal, non-orthodox emphases). The fact is, we’re prone to many of the same errors, and just because we’re concerned about being Biblically correct and orthodox, and read Edwards and Spurgeon, doesn’t mean we’re immune to an imbalanced kind of Radicalism Idolatry.¹

Is it possible that in our haste to be all radical and world-changing, we’re not also prone to:

1) Being unloving to older Christians, even less doctrinally solid ones, even family members without whom we never would have gotten to this spiritually superior point?

I pause and shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. Guilty.

2) Worshiping a more-direct Christian Ministry™, while minimizing the importance of, or even coming to despise, other lines of work — such as business or parenting — that in Christ are just as much “ministry” as a more-overt Radical calling to foreign missions or pastoring a church?

Also guilty, and for months and perhaps years I subconsciously buried my talents in the ground, wondering to myself whether God could really use me in powerful ways even if I was only writing feature stories five days a week for community newspapers, or blogging Christian topics.

3) Doing what author/pastor Kevin DeYoung describes below, and basing our lives on a sort-of Christian-conference high and mostly exhortations to be radical, and as a result despising the “day of small things” when God is working in radical ways, even if we cannot see them?

Guilty times three. At age 17, I was a latecomer to the Christian camp scene, and coming home I felt all so spiritual, a New Stage of Christian living. I haven’t been back to camp since, and the few conferences I have attended were good ones, such as New Attitude (now Next).

In 2006 one of the New Attitude speakers, Josh Harris, directly encouraged his listeners not to fall for the Christian-conference high thing. That often leads to discouragement, Harris said. Once the air of real life becomes thicker, and you fight with your parents or neglect to read the Bible — you forget how God works radically, as DeYoung said, even in “the day of small things.”

And it was just this year that DeYoung incidentally furthered this point, in his May 30 message about “The Church” (download the MP3) about how Christians ought to view local churches.

Today Sovereign Grace head C.J. Mahaney blogged about DeYoung’s closing points. I’ll reproduce his transcript here.² This is so encouraging, and essential when the Next Big Thing/Leader/Cause comes along, from outside or inside true Christianity, and could make us feel unnecessarily guilty for being right where God does want us, being a “plodding visionary” for Him.

It is easy to blast the church for all her failures. It is harder to live in the church day after day, year after year, with all of the ho-hum, hum-drum, and slowly, consistently make a difference[. …]

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. So we need to ask the right questions, we need to have the right expectations, and we need to establish the right vision. [… He asks listeners to turn to Zechariah chapter 8.]

Here’s my burden for our generation […] along with all of the necessary pleas we have to be earnest and intense and radical and sold out — with all of that, I just also want to wave the banner from Zechariah 4:10: Do not despise the days of small things.

That’s what I mean by being plodding visionaries.

So if you’re a visionary, you don’t have your head in the sand. You’re going somewhere. You’re looking out, you’re moving in a direction! But you’re a plodder — one foot in front of the other.

Many of us are attracted to a Tasmanian Devil kind of Christianity! You remember, from Looney Tunes, spinning around? I attempted to do the impression, but you know what’s he’s like — rwlrghhkrghh — splattering, spinning around! You get fired up — and praise God for that — you get excited, and you spin out like the Tasmanian Devil, ready to conquer the world for Christ — and you blow up into a tree somewhere.

We need plodding visionaries.

When I wrote the book on the church, I read nine books that called for a revolution. Every other day it seems like I read of a new manifesto. And we may need to just simplify a little: get on the right road, and keep going. Get on the right road, keep going.

Our generation in particular is prone to radicalism without follow-through.

We want to change the world and we’ve never changed a diaper.

You want to make a difference for Christ? Here’s where you can start: this Sunday, volunteer for the nursery. “Here I am, pastor. What can I do to serve?”

“God, I thank you that I am not one of those Carnal Christians. I see them all around, the compromisers, CCM artists and other people so desperate to be liked by nonbelievers that they throw out good moral standards of dress and behavior and dive headfirst into everything the world offers. They’re much too worldly, giving into temptations of the eyes, with their lack of discernment, tattoos, drinking, rock music and indulgences in TV, movies and video games.

“But I recognize that Christians are meant to counter the culture in every way they can. So I don’t have a TV, or any book I didn’t safely purchase at a Christian bookstore. I don’t drink or play video games. I listen only to hymns because they are solid. I do all I can to keep pure.”

“God, I thank you that I am not like Modernist Christians who don’t see the ways the world has changed around them, people who only want to analyze truth and use it to preserve their own power structures, and want to reduce the Bible to facts, without living in love.

“I make everything about how I see your love. I blog about worthy causes and point people to new books and other blogs about the same things. I see many ways Christians have failed in the past, and I can see that inevitably their central sin is not seeing you as loving enough. I know for sure that no one can know anything for sure, and make all my beliefs about being very clear that you are only Mystery. I fast from PCs and give my money to Apple products.”

“God, I thank you that I am not like those Wacky Emergents, all of whom don’t care a bit about you and who go around with their coffees and avant-garde attitudes as if only they can solve the world’s problems, when they don’t care about much besides left-wing politics and causes.

“Thank you for making me different. I see that the only error Christians can commit is going off into this mystical la-la land and not recognizing that you are Truth. I’ve read up about all this ‘postmodernism’ nonsense and can tell there’s nothing good in it and that it could be a scheme to draw people into the Mystery Babylon Religion. With your help I know that we’re to be in the world but not of it, and not buy into all this ‘tolerance’ and gaining favor with nonbelievers.”

All my life I heard Matthew 25:40 interpreted to be about Christians helping the poor.

Just last week the “Bible fog” lifted, and I really heard the context of the whole passage.

Maybe you read this next and think, Duh, I always knew that. But for me I am sure I always subconsciously “bought” the whole this-is-about-Christians-helping-poor-people assumption. When “social justice”-styled professing Christians quoted the verse that way, I accepted their argument and moved on to other reasons why helping the poor isn’t the be-all-end-all of the Bible (something like, Yes, that’s important, but what’s also important is …).

But actually, though taking care of the poor is a Scriptural concept, it’s not exactly here.

The other day I heard activist Jim Wallis, in a debate with Marvin Olasky, quote verse 40. His point was that Christians need to do righteous to “the least of these.” If I remember correctly, he didn’t quote the whole verse — just the part about caring for the poor. (Ironically, the entire chapter is about the coming Kingdom and God’s judgment, a topic Wallis didn’t mention.)

But here’s the full context — from Mark 25: 31-40:

The least of who? All poor people? Victims of oppression? The hungry? Maybe Scripture talks about these elsewhere, but it’s not here. The least of who? The least of these my brothers. Who are they? It’s not the whole human race — rather, His disciples who do His will.

I didn’t find this on my own. But on the human side, I can credit Kevin DeYoung. Last month he myth-busted several Bible texts often misused to support “social justice” causes.¹

Matthew 25 has become a favorite passage for many progressives and younger evangelicals. Even in the mainstream media it seems like hardly a day goes by without someone referencing Jesus’ command to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked. And few biblical phrases have gotten as much traction as “the least of these.” Whole movements have emerged whose central tenet is to care for “the least of these” ala Matthew 25. The implications–whether it be increased government spending, increased concern for “social justice,” or a general shame over not doing enough–are usually thought to be obvious from the text.

But in popular usage of the phrase, there’s almost no careful examination of what Jesus actually means by “the least of these.”

[. . .]

“The least of these” refers to other Christians in need, in particular itinerant Christian teachers dependent on hospitality from their family of faith.

[. . .]

Matthew 25 is about social justice in the sense that it is about caring for the needy. But the needy in view are fellow Christians, especially those dependent on our hospitality and generosity for their ministry. “The least of these” is not a blanket statement about the church’s responsibility to meet the needs of all the poor (though we do not want to be indifferent to hurting people). Nor should the phrase be used as a general cover for anything and everything we want to promote under the banner of social justice. Jesus says if we are too embarrassed, too lazy, or too cowardly to support our fellow Christians who depend on our assistance and are suffering for the sake of the gospel, we will go to hell. We should not make this passage say anything more or less than this.

And just today I caught more of the same truth from D.A. Carson’s book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.² Summarizing Biblical texts some professing Christians often mangle to support their favorite social/political causes, Carson notes:

In the hands of some writers, what distinguishes the sheep from the goats is social concern: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting people in prison—along with the dramatic addition of Jesus’ words, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (25:40, 45).[NIV] But that misses the point here. Certainly the Bible lays considerable stress elsewhere on compassion, justice, acts of mercy, kindness, and much else—as shown by Isaiah and Amos and the parable of the good Samaritan. But it has often been shown that in Matthew’s gospel the expression “the least of these brothers and sisters of mine” can only refer to the least of his followers. In other words, the sheep and the goats are exposed for what they are by the way they treat the downtrodden of Jesus’ followers.

One more phrase I’ll be using more carefully. Such a difference a few words can make.

Some professing Christians, particularly of the liberal variety, claim that little (or no) delving into doctrine is worthwhile for the world. After all, they claim, God is so mysterious and lofty that we can’t possibly know Him fully. And it could be arrogant to say we “know” something for sure about Him.

But I doubt people who prefer the label “emergent” have come up with that view on their own. Haven’t we already heard this attitude in other believers too? Yes, some doctrine squabbling is nitpicking. But some believers seem to think it’s all worthless nitpicking, or arrogance.

Author Brian McLaren seems to think so, too. Lest this seem like another contemporary McLaren pick-on, this actually comes from D.A. Carson’s older book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church.¹ After spending a few chapters in a deep yet readable compare/contrast of “premodernism,” “modernism,” and “postmodernism” frames of thought, Carson moves to evaluating what he terms the false antitheses (either it’s this, or it’s this!) common to “emergent” profess-ors.

First, Carson quotes more of McLaren’s book The Church on the Other Side.²

When we “do theology,” we are clay pots pondering the potters, kids pondering their father, ants discussing the elephant. At some level of profundity and accuracy, we are bound to be inadequate or incomplete all the time, in almost anything we say or think, considering our human limitations, including language, and God’s infinite greatness.

Our words will seek to be servants of mystery, not removers of it as they were in the old world. They will convey a message that is clear yet mysterious, simple yet mysterious, substantial yet mysterious. My faith developed in the old world of many words, in a naive confidence in the power of many words, as if the mysteries of faith could be captured like fine-print conditions in a legal document and reduced to safe equations. Mysteries, however, cannot be captured so precisely. Freeze-dried coffee, butterflies on pins, and frogs in formaldehyde all lose something in our attempts at capturing, defining, preserving, and rendering them less jumpy, flighty, or fluid. In the new world, we will understand this a little better.

Here it is again: the absolute antithesis. Either we can know God exhaustively, or we are restricted to the mysterious. Of course it is always true that we cannot know God exhaustively: we are not omniscient. God is infinitely greater than we are. Moreover, the best of the modernist theologians were among the most adamant on this point. It did not take postmodernism to discover that God is infinitely greater than we and in that sense forever remains mysterious.

But although the comparison of elephant and ants is helpful at one level, it overlooks the fact that in this case the ants have been made in the image of the elephant, and this elephant has not only communicated with the ants in ant-language, but has also, in the person of his Son, become an “ant” while remaining an “elephant.” If the ants were left on their own to figure out what the elephant knows and thinks and feels, “mystery” would be too weak a word. Yet in the case of the revealing elephant with whom we have to do, he has told us ants what he is like, what he thinks, what he feels, what he has done, and what he is going to do—not exhaustively, of course, but truly.

True, we must never think we have domesticated God, making him a specimen, a frog in a bottle of formaldehyde. But which of the great modern theologians ever thought of God in those terms?³ On the other hand, if this God has disclosed a great deal about himself, is it not appropriate to talk about and think and write and sing about the attributes that he himself has chosen to disclose in the language of the ants? Is this reducing God to a frog in formaldehyde? Surely not: it is merely the mark of faithfulness to the self-disclosure of this gracious God.

Because we are small and sinful, we will sometimes misunderstand and distort what he has disclosed. Sadly, we will sometimes be tempted to pretend that we know more about him than we actually do.

But when he has disclosed so much, it scarcely honors him to say, “Ah! He is so big, everything is so mysterious, that I cannot say a single true thing about him.” Only if “true” demands omniscient truth (that antithesis again!) is that a responsible position. Otherwise, it is merely a new idolatry: we refuse to take God at his word and prefer to worship the dogmatic not-knowing of hard postmodernism.

It’s happened again — an “emergent” professing Christian on his Facebook profile posts a note making imbalanced claims, and I start offering responses. Others then add more responses, and they seem not to get anywhere with the post-writer or others sharing his views.

They tend to say things like “Christians seek both religious and political power and prestige,” without qualifier, as if seeking religious and political power is the only problem in the professing Church. Others like me say back that the Church has many problems, resulting from worse lack of belief in the Gospel. We get ignored in favor of more trendy slams against the Church, and on and on it goes, the great circle of internet time-wasting life. It’s quite a kick.

Here’s one sample, edited only slightly.

Counting up the stereotypes in your recent comment [. . .] I think you’ve been reading too many [George] Barna surveys without critically evaluating the kinds of people surveyed or the language used to qualify real “Christians.” (However, I’m surprised you also didn’t mention “Christians’ divorce rate is the same as the world”! )

Are all these supposed greedy-power-hungry-warmongering folks true Biblical *Christians* or merely professing ones?

(Even if they are Christians, should we condemn them for surface symptoms, or seek to understand and correct the roots of these errors: wrong views of Christ and the Gospel?)

Anyway, I know plenty of Christians who are not all about Stuff. They give their lives and resources for others. Plenty of popular Christian leaders, such as John Piper, directly oppose the idea of Christianity-and-the-”American-dream.” If you truly haven’t seen them, you need to get out more.

I don’t need to remind you of Jesus’ infamous (and sobering) reminder later on in Matthew 7: 21-23 that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter His Kingdom.

“Jesus told us not to judge”? Actually, He cautioned against hypocritical judgment.¹ Then He goes on to warn of false teachers that come in among the flock like wolves. You yourself are doing quite a lot of judgment in your comment. So am I, and judging in itself is okay, as long as we strive to judge without hypocrisy and with Christ-honoring love.

I think you already believe this. Still, I hear a lot of Christians being careless with their language. “Jesus told us not to judge” is a wrong statement that reinforces wrong views.

No, Christians are not perfect and have a lot to learn. Who would say otherwise? Yet looking to Him and the Gospel, not bemoaning problems, is the solution. Pulpit-pounders of previous generations (and some survivors today) decry the lack of moral behavior in the Church, but stop there.

Let’s not do that. Let’s point to Christ Himself and His Word, His Truth, His love for us and our resultant love for Him, our gratitude for Him saving us, as the basis for better living. That is the only way to wash the Bride’s garments cleaner: looking to its Groom and loving Him before than ever.

Naturally, this resulted in several Prayers of Salvation right there in the Facebook discussion.²

Well, maybe next time I’ll have this next quote on standby — thanks to my re-reading a little book by Randy Alcorn called The Grace and Truth Paradox. It’s the best summary I’ve seen so far by a popular yet Biblically based Christian author, about how Jesus is both grace and truth — and therefore, His people should be too.

Grace without truth is no longer grace, Alcorn writes in this little 90-page hardback. Without truth, “grace” turns into harmful, dangerous “tolerance,” a pathetic substitute.

And truth without grace ceases to be truth, he adds. “Truth” alone becomes self-righteousness.

That could summarize the entire book, which a trained reader could likely start and finish inside one afternoon. Thus a lengthy review might be half the length of the actual book! Yet I thought I’d post this brief excerpt, specifically addressing how the Christian grace/truth living affects how we perceive modern political platforms. Christians cannot claim a single party or cause without qualification, Alcorn says — something I wish “emergents” and others would remember.

Political Grace and Truth

Often, conservatives emphasize truth (morals), and liberals emphasize grace (compassion). Conservatives want to conserve what’s right; liberals want to liberate from what’s wrong.

Liberals’ commitment to fighting racism in the sixties was commendable. But sometimes liberals fight against true standards, life the beliefs that abortion, fornication, adultery, and homosexual behavior are wrong. They embrace tolerance as a grace substitute. Liberal Christians often end up being liberals first, Christians second.

Conservatives want to restore lost values. They want to go back to the days when prayer was allowed in schools. But they forget that the same schools that allowed prayer didn’t allow black children! By trying to conserve so many things—even things that were clearly wrong—conservative Christians have sometimes been conservatives first, Christians second.

Why should we have to choose between conservatism’s emphasis on truth and liberalism’s emphasis on grace? Why can’t we oppose injustice to minorities and to the unborn? Why can’t we oppose greedy ruination of the environment and anti-industry New Age environmentalism? Why can’t we affirm the biblical right to the ownership of property and emphasize God’s call to voluntarily share wealth with the needy? Why can’t we uphold God’s condemnation of sexual immorality, including homosexual practices, and reach out in love and compassion to those trapped in destructive lifestyles and dying from AIDS?

We cannot do these things if we are first and foremost either liberals or conservatives. We can do these things only if we are first and foremost follower of Christ, who is full of grace and truth.

When I was younger and a snarkier Christian, I rewrote the first chapter of Genesis. Unlike some, I wasn’t trying to remove the six-day creation parts. Instead I rewrote it the way an evolutionist might, in retelling his account(s) of the origin of the world.¹ This was called the L.E.F.T. Bible, the Liberal Evolutionists’ Favored Translation.

But I think Marvin Olasky did a much better job.

On March 11 last month, he debated “social gospel” activist Jim Wallis, who seeks Biblical and Christian justification for liberal welfare and wealth-distribution policies. Earlier that afternoon, Olasky has given a lecture about Christian responses to poverty and affluence. The afternoon is for academics, Olasky said. He wanted to start his introduction to the debate with a little snark.

In his hotel, considering a Gideons Bible in the drawer, he wondered: how would a “progressive Christian” version, such as Wallis’s Sojourners organization, translate three famous parables?

First, from Luke 10:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. The stripped him of his clothes, they beat him and they went away, leaving him half-dead.

But a Samaritan came to where the man was, and was outraged that some people were so poor that they were forced to steal clothes. He returned to Jerusalem, and using rhetorical brilliance to overcome prejudice against his ethnic group, he convinced the Sanhedrin to pass the Good-Looking Samaritan Act, which gave a new suit of clothes to every disadvantaged youth who might otherwise turn to crime along the Jerusalem-Jericho highway. And the Act also erected a monument at the spot where the robbery victim had died.

What about Acts 3?
Continue reading …

Directions to an “emergent” church?