Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the historic one-year lectionary.
Our passage from Micah , particularly verse 8, is frequently used to scold Christians. Really? To scold people? Yes. If a Christian says or does something that suggests the Lord's demands, the requirements of the Law, or any sort of traditional morality, we'll hear the retort that we really just need to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. Really, just be kind. And your view of justice should be the same as mine, by the way.
Aside from that sort of retort not showing humility, there are some additional challenges to be dealt with. Who gets to define justice? The larger passage, and certainly the consensus of the Scritpure, is that God is the one who decides what is just and right, and that most of the time it is God who tells how we should rightly pursue justice.
In other words, I can't with a clear conscience suggest consulting a revolutionary to find out how a Christian ought to pursue justice. I need to consult the Scripture and, if in doubt, consult some good theologians.
I am very tempted to wax political here, but that isn't the purpose of this blog. We do have a national election coming up, though, tomorrow. Are there issues of justice on the ballot? I'm going to challenge my readers to seek out God's view of justice, kindness, and humility. We bear those in mind, not only on election day, but on every day we get to live on earth.
God speaks in His Word, very clearly, about things like dignity of human life, fair treatment of employees (though often it's in terms of servants or slaves), considering the health and safety needs of others before those we ourselves have, the value of our natural world, property rights, and many other topics that underlie not only our political discussion but also our life in society.
Go, dig in. See what the Lord has said. Then go for it. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God.
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