(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.)