Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 23-27.
In Deuteronomy 24, there are a host of small regulation and laws given by God to the Children of Israel. In them, I see a pattern that God set up which carries into the New Testament, the idea of doing unto others as you would have them do to you. These commands carry in them the idea of what I would call true social justice.
I won’t look at them all, but God told the Israelites to treat people as people don’t take advantage of their position especially if it because they are poor or in an unusual circumstance (newly married, related to a criminal, etc.). God’s solution as I see it here is to treat the unfortunate like an equal and give them the opportunity to better themselves. The key for many of these commands was to make sure the person could work for themselves so they could get ahead.
We may not be able to change the way the government or business dealings with the less fortunate, but we could look at these laws and ask ourselves, what we could do personally to treat people like equals. We could ask ourselves if there is something we could change either as the person who is in the fortunate position or how you need to work if you’re the person who is poor or in that unfortunate life circumstance. God may ask us to help change the government or our business, but he always asks us to change ourselves and in truth, it is what we need to change first, before anything else.
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