Great article in the Leadership Journal. Here are some edited highlights.
"Biblical justice involves making individuals, communities, and the cosmos whole, by upholding both goodness and impartiality. It stands at the centre of true religion, according to James, who says that the kind of "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27. Earlier Scripture says, "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern" (prov 29:7)
As we experience the wholeness that Jesus offers, we are to carry his justice forward in the world.
Both individual transformation and community transformation are part of restoring wholeness. While morality and immorality are birthed in the human heart justice is centred in God's heart. We are to purify our hearts whose desires lead us to sin. With transformed hearts, we are to extend God's justice to the poor, orphans, and widows, and show no partiality. "
Metzger, P.L. (2010) what is biblical justice in Leadership Journal summer 2010 pp 25.
"Biblical justice involves making individuals, communities, and the cosmos whole, by upholding both goodness and impartiality. It stands at the centre of true religion, according to James, who says that the kind of "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27. Earlier Scripture says, "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern" (prov 29:7)
As we experience the wholeness that Jesus offers, we are to carry his justice forward in the world.
Both individual transformation and community transformation are part of restoring wholeness. While morality and immorality are birthed in the human heart justice is centred in God's heart. We are to purify our hearts whose desires lead us to sin. With transformed hearts, we are to extend God's justice to the poor, orphans, and widows, and show no partiality. "
Metzger, P.L. (2010) what is biblical justice in Leadership Journal summer 2010 pp 25.
Comments
Our from NT Wright makes an interesting observation about appealing to justice in reference to cutting ethical knots. "The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations." Wayne