John Tucker lectures in Christian history and preaching at Carey and is part of Windsor Park Baptist Church. This article is an excerpt from the 2024 Baptist National Hui keynote panel discussion on how the Hui themes of justice, mercy, and humility relate to the church today and in the past. Watch the panel discussion in full here.
Justice, mercy and humility seem very important to the God of the Scriptures. When you think of your Heavenly Father, which word grabs you the most?
Throughout Scripture, God stresses again and again that he loves justice. Take Psalm 146 as an example. It describes God in these terms:
7 ‘He upholds the cause of the oppressed [some translations say: he executes justice – mishpat – for the oppressed] and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, 8 the Lord gives sight to the blind …’
In other words, God brings into the light of freedom people who sit in dark dungeons. This is a reference not so much to healing, as to liberation.
‘The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, [that is, those who stagger under oppressive burdens, those who are enslaved or oppressed.] The Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.'
Notice these three categories: the foreigner, the fatherless, the widow. In ancient Israel, these three groups of people were the most powerless, the most vulnerable, the ones most likely to be mistreated or oppressed. The Lord watches over them.
So, in this passage, how does God describe himself? He describes himself as the defender of those who are oppressed. In many passages of Scripture, that’s how he describes himself. God identifies with the powerless, with the vulnerable.He takes up their cause, which is remarkable.
Vinoth Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan scholar, points out that in virtually all the ancient cultures of the world, the gods were identified with the elites of society – the kings, the captains, the priests – not the outcasts. But the God of the Bible, the Christian God, stands out from the gods of all those other religions as a God who identifies with the powerless, with the outcasts.
I love this about God. Our God, the God of the Bible, wants all people and places to flourish, he wants all relationships to be right and just. And his zeal for justice means that he feels special compassion for the victims of injustice.
Why should justice be important to the people of God?
We should be concerned about those who are weak and vulnerable, those who are mistreated and oppressed because God is passionately concerned about them, and he wants us – his people – to embody his concern. When God entered a covenant with the people of Israel, he gave them a series of laws that were designed to create a culture of justice and concern for the poor and the vulnerable.
Laws like this: ‘Cursed be anyone who withholds the justice due to the immigrant, the fatherless, and the widow.’ (Deuteronomy 27:19)
And when the prophets later castigated the people of Israel for ignoring the law, what did they say? Things like this:
‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner.’ (Zechariah 7:9-10)
Throughout the Old Testament, God says to his people,
‘If you will obey my law and care for those who are powerless and vulnerable, the surrounding nations will sit up and take notice. People will start asking questions.” (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).
You see this in the New Testament. In Acts 2:44-45 Luke says,
‘All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.’
The result?
‘The Lord added to their number daily …those who were being saved.’
This is the recurring pattern throughout church history. Whenever the church demonstrates God’s generosity towards the poor, it attracts people to God. In the third century, for example, we know the Christian community in Rome was supporting 1,500 widows every day. Churches all around the Mediterranean were setting up food programmes, hospitals and orphanages. These were radical innovations, and they had a profound impact. So great an impact that the Emperor Julian feared that Christianity would take over his entire empire by what he called “the stealth of good works.”
In short, doing justice honours God. As Proverbs 14:31 says,
‘Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.’
Where do you see people and places that need justice, mercy and humility right now in our nation?
From the 1950s to the late 1980s, homes were typically priced around three times the average household income. Now, the national house price to income ratio stands at approximately nine times the average household income.[1] This housing affordability crisis is disproportionately affecting lower-income families and young people. The rising cost of both homeownership and rent means that many people in our communities don’t have a secure home and can’t afford essential items like fresh produce, doctor visits, or suitable clothing. We have a housing market, a rental market, that is fundamentally unjust.
From your experience, what hinders faith communities from outworking these words?
An inadequate theology of sin prevents many of us from pursuing justice. I know pastors who say, “We’re not called to fight unjust social systems. We’re called to evangelism. Get people saved and society will be transformed. The heart of reform is reform of the heart. We need to concentrate on individual social work. Not social justice.”
But, as Tim Keller says, that’s theologically naïve. In his book City of God, City of Satan, Robert Linthicum tells of a time when he was a student ministry intern working among black teenagers in a government housing project in a US city. A 14-year-old girl named Eva began to attend one of the Bible studies that he led in the project. At one point, Eva came to him, deeply troubled. She said, “Bob, I’m under terrible pressure and I don’t know what to do. There’s a very large gang in this project. They recruit girls to be prostitutes for wealthy white men in the suburbs. They’re trying to force me….” Linthicum urged her, “Don’t give in to their demands and stick with your Bible study group, okay?” He then went home for his summer vacation.
Three months later, he returned and Eva was nowhere to be found. The other youth told him she had stopped coming about a month after he’d left. He went to Eva’s apartment. As soon as she saw him, she burst into tears. “They got to me, Bob.” He said, “How could you give in like that? Why didn’t you resist?” She replied, “They told me they would beat my father … and they beat him really bad. I had no choice.” Linthicum responded, “But Eva, why didn’t you get some protection? Why didn’t you go to the police?” Eva responded, “Who do you think they are?” Linthicum goes on to say that he had thought of sin in strictly individualistic terms. He began to realise that much of the city’s legal and political system was structured to enrich and empower some people at the expense of the poor. There was no way to rescue the Evas of the city without addressing the systems that shaped the city.
Endnote
[1] oneroof.co.nz/news/tony-alexander-why-do-kiwi-houses-cost-nine-times-the-average-income-46244
Photo: John Tucker speaking at the Baptist National Hui 2024. By Charis Fotheringham.
