Tim Keller on Generous Justice

I have spent a lot of time wrestling with the question of (1) what does God's justice entail? and (2) what response does that require from me?  I have read a few books on the subject and written a research paper on the topic, but in November Tim Keller published a book called Generous Justice.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  Yes, everyone.  It does a great job answering the questions I was asking, but also raising other questions as well.

Keller spoke at the Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago this week, and I was fortunate enough to hear him speak on the topic Thursday night.  Unfortunately, the video/audio from that talk has not been posted yet.  Fortunately, he spoke on the topic a few years ago at another conference, and the video is posted on The Resurgence:



A few quotes from the book that I really liked:

“The rules for use of land in the Biblical laws challenge all major contemporary economic models.  They “suggest a sharp critique of 1) the statism that disregards the precious treasure of personal rootage, and 2) the untrammeled individualism which secures individuals at the expense of community."  (32)

“Jesus did not say that all this done for the poor was a means of getting salvation, but rather it was the sign that you already had salvation, that true, saving faith was already present.”  

“Before you can give this neighbor-love, you need to receive it.  Only if you see that you have been saved graciously by someone who owes you the opposite will you go out into the world looking to help absolutely anyone in need. Once we receive this ultimate, radical neighbor-love through Jesus, we can start to be the neighbors that the Bible calls us to be.”  (76-7)

3 Levels of involvement = Relief, Development, Social Reform (113)

"Don Carson writes that once we shed utopian dreams of producing a “redeemed culture,” we can look at history and acknowledge that it is possible to “improve and even transform some social structures.” (118)

End of the book:  

             On Judgment Day, don't say to the Lord, "When did we see you thirsty, naked, and captive?" Because the answer is--on the cross! There we see how far God was willing to go to identify with the oppressed of the world. And he was doing it all for us!

There Jesus, who deserved acquittal and freedom, got condemnation--so that we who deserve condemnation for our sins can receive acquittal. (Galatians 3:10-14; 2 Corinthians 5:21). This was the ultimate instance of God's identification... with the poor. He not only became one of the actually poor and marginalized, he stood in the place of all those of us in spiritual poverty and bankruptcy (Matthew 5:3) and paid our debt.

Now that is a thing of beauty. To take that into the center of your life and heart will make you one of the just.

 

 

Zambia Working in the Field...Great Moment.

During the Zambia trip, we worked hard.  And played hard.  At the same time.  Don't believe me?  Join me for one of the seminal two hour blocks of the entire trip:

A Look Back at Zambia 2007

When I was in college at Trinity, I was heavily exposed to the importance of social justice in the life of the Christian and the church body.  When I visited Zambia in 2007, I was exposed to a country that had huge social and economic issues.  In addition to being at the center of the AIDS crisis and a malaria epidemic, education in Zambia was not necessarily the ticket to success.  To place this comment in context, the United States is going through an economic crisis right now that for a time raised our unemployment to roughly 10%.  In Zambia 2007, only 10% of college graduates even got jobs.  There were scores of children living on the street because of necessity, or they had no parents.  The affect of aids on the culture was apparent, as the streets of Lusaka (the capital) were lined with people who were in their mid-to late 20s.  Seeing even one person who was as old as 50 was an aberration.

There are more things I could say that would describe the poor state of living within Zambia, but you get the idea.  Even so, I fell in love with Zambia.  Even amid the background of poverty, sickness, and death, the people we were with truly had joy and hope in Christ.  It was an awesome experience to worship with them on Sunday morning.  A small taste of that:

I loved seeing the ministries that worked with children, the AIDS clinics, and the hospice clinics.  I saw in a very practical sense that while the gospel that we are wretched creatures who cannot save ourselves from the judgment of God, and it is only through Christ's death and resurrection that we can have salvation through placing our faith upon him is the most important thing that could be given to the people in Zambia, there were many "felt needs" (physical needs) that needed to be addressed as well.  I couldn't help but feel a sense of compassion for them.

This was a huge week of learning, self-discovery, and reflection for me.  It was at this time that I realized that I wanted to add the component of working with the needs of people that extended beyond the preaching of the gospel.  I came away from that week wanting a better understanding of what God's Justice was, and how He wanted us to interact with society.  In Zambia, the preaching of the Gospel came with service and caring for the needs of people.  This just seemed right, and I wanted an understanding of whether this was a biblical approach, or something that just worked in Zambia because of the circumstances.

This week also threw me onto a different trajectory.  I felt totally inadequate to be involved in the realm of making a tangible difference in the social realm outside of personal contact with individuals.  The combination of wanting to learn something that would be helpful in this area and wanting to learn about justice was one of the strong factors that made me decide to pull out of seminary and was one of the significant factors in my decision to go to law school.

What have I learned?  That is a topic for another post.