Compassion and Justice From Leviticus 19

Leviticus 19 and the Claim About Income Inequality

I had somebody reach out to me on Twitter regarding one of my videos, and he was asking for me to sort of describe why I feel like the social justice movement is misdefining justice against the Bible.

Biblical justice and social justice, in my opinion, are very different, and he wanted me to explain that. And so I took a quick example from Leviticus chapter 19, and I compared it to this sort of idea of income inequality and how income inequality is not a sin, it's not oppression.

And to my surprise, he actually wanted to talk about Leviticus chapter 19, and he said that there's actually a verse in Leviticus 19 that does talk about income inequality, and he cited a really weird verse.

And so I'm going to take you to what he said, and then we'll talk quickly about it. Oops, this is 18. Okay, we're talking about Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, he told me that verses 9 and 10 talk about income inequality.

Gleaning Laws, the Poor, and the Sojourner

And here's what verse 9 and 10 says. It says, when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest, and you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard.

You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. Now, if you don't know what that's all about, I'll quickly just sort of describe it. What God is saying is that if you own a vineyard or if you own any kind of field where there's food growing, God is telling his people not to harvest everything.

So you leave some of it for just in case there's poor people or sojourners that don't have enough to eat. They can go and take some of what you've grown for their own food, right? So they'll go into the land and since you didn't harvest everything to sell, they'll have some food there.

It's sort of almost like a welfare program where the poor have something to eat if they don't have anything else. And so that's a weird verse to say that talks about income inequality. What his argument was is that it's taking away some income from the rich people who owns the field, the fields rather, and giving it to the poor.

And it's basically allowing, this is what this person said, it's allowing the poor to steal from the rich person. Now that's actually not the case at all. Because if this law was actually allowing people to steal, then it would be a contradictory law to God's other law, which says you shall not steal, one of the Ten Commandments.

So no, this is not about stealing, obviously. So you can dismiss that out of hand because God is not contradictory with himself. So that's the first thing. Now the second thing is this doesn't talk about income inequality at all.

Compassion for the Poor as a Matter of Obedience

It's not saying that income inequality is a sin. It's not saying that income inequality equals some kind of oppression. That's not saying that it's even wrong. What it is saying is that God wants the poor to be able to eat.

And that is very true. God wants the poor to be able to eat. His people are supposed to have compassion on the poor. And so this is a thing that God commands his people to do, to share what they have with the poor.

Now, he's saying this is a matter of justice. And in a sense of religion, in a sense of your duty before God, then he's actually correct. It is a matter of justice in that sense. If God's people did not do this, then God would have something against his people.

They're sinning against God. And so that is a matter of justice in that regard, but it's not a matter of justice here on earth. And what I mean by that is there is no law in God's law that says if you do not do this, if you're an Israelite and you did not leave the edges of your field for the poor, nothing happened to you.

But there was no crime that was committed. There are no charges brought up against you on between people, right? So the judge couldn't come to you and say, okay, well now you're going to have to pay, you know, a fine for not doing it.

No, that didn't happen. There was, it's not a matter of justice in that regard. It is a matter of obedience to God though. And so in that regard, yes, it is a matter of justice. The other thing about this that I think is interesting as well is it kind of gives us a model for what welfare ought to look like.

Welfare, Work, and the Dignity of Gleaning

And what welfare ought to look like is we make certain, you know, people who have, people who have money, make things available for poor people to go and work for them, go and get. Because if you notice, it doesn't say gather your leftovers and then hand them out to the poor.

It doesn't say that. It says, leave it in the field and the poor go out and get it. That's how you do it. You go out, you send gleaners, they go out and get the food and they bring it back. Why do you think that is?

Right? Well, Paul says, if you don't eat or if you don't work, you don't eat. So this is, this is carried over into the New Testament context. If you don't work, you don't eat. Well, if you don't glean, you don't eat in the Old Testament.

Why do you think that is? Well, God is, is, is smart. You know what I mean? God is smart. And what he knows is that, you know, by having poor people who don't have enough to eat work for their food, chances are they're going to pick up some skills.

They're going to make relationships. And what do you think is going to happen if you've got this poor person coming into your field and gleaning all day long? You know, eventually you're going to say, well, you know, you're, you're already here.

You're already gleaning to eat. Why don't you just work for me? Why don't I just pay you to go harvest the field? You know, I mean, that's, that's what's going to happen. And likewise today, if, if, if people had to work for their welfare, they'd be picking up skills and eventually people would be like, why don't you just work for me?

Forget about welfare. Just work for me. You're already working. You know what I mean? So, so that's the thing. Like it brings harmony into the situation. This is not about handouts. This is not about just giving people money for, for doing nothing.

This is about creating a situation where people who are poor, who maybe don't have the skills in order to survive on their own. They get those skills. They build those relationships. They network. You see what I'm saying?

Because it's too tempting for a poor person today to sort of stay in their house all day and not connect with anybody except government employees. And that's, that's a sad thing because the more connections that these poor people are able to make with people in the community, the better chance that they're going to be able to lift themselves out of poverty.

Charity, Mercy, and Justice Before God

Anyway. So I thought that was weird. That has nothing to do with income inequality, has nothing to do with what these social justice brothers are charging about income inequality, how that's somehow a sin to be addressed.

It's not about that at all. It's about charity is really what it is. It's about having mercy on people, having grace towards poor people. It's about charity. It's really not about justice in the way that we're talking about justice today.

Now it is about justice in regard to God. So in other words, if I, if there was a Christian today that had money and didn't give anything to the poor or had no mercy on the poor, that would be a problem.

That would be a religious, you know, moral problem, but it wouldn't be an issue of justice. We couldn't bring up a charge against him, you know, in the civil realm. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.