“Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.”

--The Wizard of Oz to the Scarecrow


"I know I chatter on far too much...but if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't. Give me SOME credit." --Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables, PBS, 1985

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

blogging through "Generous Justice" I

P.K. has chosen to write his own introduction to "Generous Justice". He begins by quoting Jesus' words in Luke 4 where we find Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth having read from Isaiah 42: 1-7 and proclaiming himself as the fulfillment of that scripture.

P.K. then brings to our attention that elsewhere in this chapter of Isaiah the "Servant of the Lord" is described as bringing justice to the gentiles, and not resting till He has established justice on the earth.

For some reason Jesus did not include the justice- related verses in His reading, but P.K. assumes that because those verses refer to the same Servant of the Lord  that we can assume that they also apply to His first coming, and thus to His body; the church.,

 Eschatological assumptions aside, I heartily agree with his application that a person who has experienced God's grace in Christ will greatly desire to seek justice on the earth.

The rest of the introduction is divided up under subtitles. The first is Who is this book for?
Here P.K. recounts that there has been of late an increase in the number of young people who are motivated to volunteer in community service which he calls social justice, but their motivation is not connected with the gospel and is often thwarted by materialism.

I realize now that P.K.'s understanding of what justice is differs radically from my own, so maybe I need to take back my earlier agreement. I thought that he meant that a person who has experienced God's grace in Christ, partaking of the new and better covenant, with the law written on their heart, will have a reverent love for the Author of that law, and will seek to apply it's principles in love to God and neighbor, " Love works no ill toward one's neighbor".

Of course the ultimate question here is not, what do I think? P.K. and I are both convinced that God cares much about "justice". We differ on what "justice is.

What does God say "justice" is?

The next subtitle is Justice and the Bible

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