Sunday, June 7, 2009

The Bible and Economics


Earth Day 3
Originally uploaded by paynehollow
Sorry, I've been a bit busy lately. Here is another entry in my ongoing collection of Bible passages dealing with economic matters. For the complete listing thus far, you can click on the "Bible and Economics" listing below on the left.

From Hebrews 13...


Let love of the community of believers continue.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for God has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you…”

Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited…

And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

~Hebrews 13: 1-5; 9; 16

21 comments:

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

First, wait for some to pounce on the whole "marriage bed" thing. NO GAY MARRIAGE!! RIGHT THERE IN HEBREWS!!!

Anyway, I've always liked the hospitality line.

Edwin Drood said...

Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for God has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you…”

This seems (to me at least) to a be a direct rebuke to churches that preach "economic justice"

Dan Trabue said...

?

I think perhaps you misunderstand "economic justice."

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

I do believe, Edwin, that the statement means that we are not to look to all the "stuff" in our lives as providing any security. "Being content with what we have" - in other words, at least I have a 401(k)/pension/retirement plan. The past few years should disabuse anyone from thinking these have any real value at all (and I have a 401(k) and my wife has a pension plan and I have no illusions about either one of them meaning anything whatsoever). Indeed, the entire verse is directed squarely at the question of economic justice, properly understood.

I really am not quite sure what you mean, but that's OK, because I don't think you do either.

Alan said...

What? No 15 page screed from your usual commenters about ... oh, I don't know ... something completely unrelated to the post and saying the same stupid things they say on any post you write?

They must be gettin' slow in their old age.

Anyway...

"Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. "

I guess that means "torture early and often"?

Edwin Drood said...

What I mean by “econimic justice” are the churches and preachers who focus heavily on social topics such as wage disparity, lack of opportunities and government intervention and social class.

Do you think that such churches exist and if so are they correct to focus on such things considering what we have read from Hebrews?

Dan Trabue said...

I believe you mistake "keeping free from the love of money" with working for justice for economically oppressed peoples. Yes, churches exist (like mine) that believe in working for economic justice.

We do this sometimes by opposing companies that get rich by exploiting workers - paying them a dime a day to produce shoes that the company will sell for $100 and oftentimes doing it in slave-like conditions. For instance.

That is a good thing and has nothing to do with love of money and instead is supportive of paying people just wages for reasonable work. Do you think that a church would be wrong to oppose such an oppressive system?

Dan Trabue said...

In other words, "be satisfied with what you have" ought not be codespeak for "Put up with whatever conditions you're placed in - even oppression or slavery."

After all, the children of Israel righteously complained about the conditions of their enslavement.

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

Ah, yes. I wondered what Edwin was talking about.

How really pathetic. Social and economic justice is the heart of the gospel message - God's love for all creation irrespective of the labels we insist on putting on the Other.

I am utterly and completely exhausted even attempting to address commenters like Edwin.

Edwin Drood said...

Sorry my last comment was so out-of-line. I had the audacity to offer a followup question to a post on a blog. I don't know why I do these things. Then to top it off, I elaborated on my question. What has the world come to. Well if for a penny in for a pound.

If the gospel is meant to free us from sin and bring us closer to Jesus and ultimately bring us to heaven though the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ's death on the cross then how us social and economic justice even relevant?

Paul wrote the book of Hebrews and he also wrote Colossians.


Colossins 3

...
22Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.


Could this not mean that the Lord does not care about Social and economic justice, since we all (rich, poor, slave, king) serve the Lord Christ?

Dan Trabue said...

If the gospel is meant to free us from sin and bring us closer to Jesus and ultimately bring us to heaven though the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ's death on the cross then how us social and economic justice even relevant?

Umm, because Jesus said so? Because the Bible says so?

"For I have come to preach good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, etc"

"Is it not the rich who oppress you?"

"Woe to you who are rich?"

Free us from sin? Yes, and oppressing the poor IS sin. I don't think you're saying what you mean to say.

Edwin Drood said...

I suppose my fear is that social gospel takes the class warfare that exists in the world (as mentioned in James 2) and brings it into the church. James 2 basically tells the church to leave all that at the door. Do not act like the rich who oppress you by oppressing people in the church.
I don’t think it gives the church freedom to denounce someone simply for being rich, or to preach that the congregation is in a state of perpetual victimhood simply because they are poor.

Dan Trabue said...

Then we agree.

1. The church ought not denounce someone simply because they are rich (or poor?) - I have never said this and do not believe it, nor does anyone I know think it.

2. and we agree that we ought not preach that the congregation is in a state of perpetual victimhood simply because they are poor. And again, I have not said it nor do I believe it, nor does anyone I know believe it.

I think you're mostly chasing strawmen to knock down. Good luck with that.

Bubba said...

Dan, I hope you don't mind my commenting here and adding an off-topic comment, but it appears that you're no longer commenting at Marshall's, and I would like to point out my response to what you wrote over the weekend.

In brief, I don't know precisely what Mark wrote elsewhere, so I'm not going to denounce him for comments I've never personally seen.

I also do not understand why you demand that a denunciation come even from those who are only aware of the comment second-hand, and I do not appreciate your slander of people who comment there as apathetic "moral illiterates."

But I'm not all that interested in that subject, nor do I see its relevance, and I would like to continue the discussion that we were having. I've raised a few issues before you brought up Mark's "verbal assault," and even before you demanded that I address Mark's calling you a heretic -- a request I did fulfill -- and I would like you finally to begin addressing those issues substantively.

If you don't want to do so there at Marshall's, start a new thread here. And if you have one last list of relevant preconditions you would like me to meet before the discussion continues, present that complete list of preconditions.

Either way, let's move past the digression and irrelevant sideshows.

You claim to love the Bible and deeply respect its teachings, and you claim that your beliefs are consistent with what the Bible clearly teaches.

On a variety of serious theological issues -- such as the Virgin Birth, the reality of the Atonement, and the necessity of a historical and physical Resurrection -- it appears that the details of what you believe deviate sharply from what the Bible teaches clearly and often emphatically.

I ask you again either to correct the record if I misunderstand what you believe, or to present a detailed, substantive explanation for how your beliefs could ever be the reasonable result of a good-faith attempt to conform one's worldview to the teachings of the Bible.

The two two-part questions I asked earlier would be a good place to start.

Thanks.

Alan said...

"I think you're mostly chasing strawmen to knock down."

Yup, my thoughts exactly. I don't recall anyone here suggesting that we denounce the rich, nor support a perpetual state of victimhood. Must be some other blog.

off topic...

OMG. It does amaze when people start blog-stalking you demanding that you speak to them, even when (apparently) you've already moved on. Amazing and sad at the same time, while simultaneously embarrassing for the stalker. One wonders who the hell such people think they are, to come and demand an answer to their questions, and why any of them would think they deserve an explanation from anyone.

This is precisely why I avoid the free-range rude whom we all know and love. I'm not interested in busybodies and bigots trying to turn me into their latest obsession. (And fortunately they return the favor most of the time. There's a lesson there ... ignore them and they go away.)

Dan Trabue said...

In Bubba's defense, he is NOT blog stalking. I grew tired of someone's presence and filth at the other blog while we were in the middle of an extended conversation and announced my departure.

I invited anyone who wished to continue the conversation to come by and Bubba is accepting the invitation. Grace, please, Alan. (Even when it is not always forthcoming in both directions.)

Dan Trabue said...

Bubba said:

Either way, let's move past the digression and irrelevant sideshows.

I will note that I do NOT consider it a digression or irrelevant at all. A commenter committed a horrific sin towards someone he does not even know and, not only did not repent of the sin, no one else would denounce the sin as such.

It appears that you all truly do not recognize the action as a sin (and I hear that you were not present at the original now-removed comment, but I've described the gist of the comment far enough that it should be clear to you what the sin was). The fact that no one among you even RECOGNIZE the sin as such, when it is so horribly obvious, well, I don't know what to do with that.

It makes me doubt your ability to make morally sound judgments. IF you are unable to make even basic moral reasoning on an obvious offense, what makes me think that you are able to make sound moral judgments in other regards?

Beyond that, I HAVE answered 98% (at a guess) of questions asked of me by your posse. The fact that I (and you and others as well) have dedicated hours to answering dozens of questions - sometimes answering the same false charges/misconceptions over and over and over - makes me question how appropriate a use of time it is.

Nonetheless, because I started that conversation with you, I DID attempt to answer your two "big" questions over at Marshall's.

Alan said...

Filth at MA's blog? Color me surprised. Frankly, I'm not sure how you'd be able to tell the filth from anything else.

So he's not stalking (though I'm not sure what other name I'd give to his usual MO of posting a zillion 15 page essays that say precisely the same thing over and over and over for months on end.) Anyway, I'm not sure that changes much. In any conversation I've ever seen with them, it's usually about their obsessive demands for an explanation, as if they deserve it. And when one is given they ignore it anyway. How many times have you corrected his continued these misunderstandings of your beliefs? 100? 1000?

Waste. Of. Time.

Al-O said...

Alan said:

"Yup, my thoughts exactly. I don't recall anyone here suggesting that we denounce the rich, nor support a perpetual state of victimhood. Must be some other blog."

Except that expressing this attitude is what this blog is used for...and what the author's church strives to promote.

Alan said...

And even if that weren't a lie I can't imagine why you'd care.

Bubba said...

Dan, thanks for addressing my questions at Marshall's. I do apologize for interrupting this thread.