Micah 6:8 informs that the Lord requires His people to “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” In the sermon today we are looking at the idea of justice as Biblical command that shapes the identity of God’s people. There is a lot of talk about justice in our world today, and we as believers can tend toward two dangerous poles. The first is to embrace ideas of justice that are not rooted in the Biblical understanding of our humanity, God’s nature, and righteousness as defined in Scripture. But the other is to reject the call to “do justice” because at times it will compel us to lay aside our rights and power to love and advocate for the poor and marginalized.
I am recommending this article by Tim Keller, A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory. This is one article in a four part series he wrote on the Bible’s view of race and justice. You can find all four articles here.
For those wrestling with how to engage justice Biblically in our current culture, this is an informative article with a good explanation of Biblical justice and critiques of other theories that are not rooted in the Biblical worldview. I plan to use this quote in the sermon.
In the Bible Christians have an ancient, rich, strong, comprehensive, complex, and attractive understanding of justice. Biblical justice differs in significant ways from all the secular alternatives, without ignoring the concerns of any of them. Yet Christians know little about biblical justice, despite its prominence in the Scriptures. This ignorance is having two effects. First, large swaths of the church still do not see ‘doing justice’ as part of their calling as individual believers. Second, many younger Christians, recognizing this failure of the church and wanting to rectify things, are taking up one or another of the secular approaches to justice, which introduces distortions into their practice and lives.
