Justice by Law and Precedent – The Kingdom Curriculum XIX (7)

Justice by Law and Precedent

“…and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.” Deuteronomy 16:18

All those in a community who are charged with the maintenance of justice must have some understanding of how one proceeds to reach just decisions on any matter. The Law of God is the starting point; but the Law of God is not exhaustive. Further, it was written for an ancient people, many of whose ways do not apply in our day, and who, in their day, could not have anticipated the needs of our own.

So how do we reach justice in any situation? By Law and precedent–understanding what the Law of God teaches and looking to Scripture and our Christian past to guide in understanding how to apply the Law today. Let’s look at just one example.

When the Apostle Paul came to Corinth, in order not to be a burden to them, he took up work as a tent-maker, laboring most of the day to earn his bread and ministering as he was able, for 18 months, to build the church in Corinth. It seems never to have occurred to the Corinthians that they ought to have provided for Paul’s needs, freeing him from long days stitching and selling so that he could devote more of his best energy to the work of the church. It is hard to imagine, however, that Paul did not at some point teach them, as he did the Galatians, that “One who is taught the word must share all good things with the one who teaches” (Gal. 6:6).

Thus, after his ministry there was concluded, when Paul sought to get the lethargic Corinthians to contribute to the relief of the saints in Palestine, he chastised them for their hardness and invoked the Law of God to move them to contribute financially to those who had made their spiritual wellbeing possible (1 Cor. 9:1-18; 2 Cor. 8:1ff; cf. Rom. 15:26, 27). The Corinthians had broken the eighth commandment in “stealing” from Paul; he did not want them to continue in this way toward their fellow believers. So he invoked the statute about allowing the ox to eat as it is treading out the corn (Deut. 15:4), together with his own situation when among the Corinthians, in order to move them to right (just) action on behalf of their brethren in Palestine.

The more we know of the Law of God, the more consistently we practice it in every situation, the better we will be at every level of the community in working for justice. Justice does not simply happen. The love for God and neighbors encoded in His Law must be practiced and administered by finite human beings. But God has promised that, to the extent that we make justice and only justice our aim, He will bless His people, and He will bless those among whom they dwell, even though they be unsaved, and even though they be His enemies (Matt. 5:45-48).

Reading and meditating on the Law of God is every believer’s duty and privilege (Ps. 1). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compendium of the commandments and precepts of God’s Law, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.