This week in Congress leaders are voting on a massive budget bill that will radically reshape government priorities. And, many of these leaders are gathering at Bible studies that will teach them that government “is outside the purview of God’s ordained means of provision for the truly needy.” Yes, these elected leaders learn that, according to the Bible, government has no business providing for the poorest and most vulnerable of our neighbors and fellow citizens.
This error-laden Biblical teaching is brought to you by Capitol Ministries, an Evangelical Christian ministry that hosts weekly Bible studies for members of the House, the Senate, state governors and White House Cabinet members. The names of dozens of elected leaders are featured prominently on the weekly bible study’s front page as sponsors of the red, white, and blue spangled study, just as names are listed as sponsors on legislation passed in their chambers.
The Bible study makes several mistakes and reveals itself to be an ideological commitment in search of Biblical support rather than a study of Scripture seeking to inform public policy.1 This study neglects the Bible’s central claims of justice, mercy, and generosity, while making a priority of marginal Biblical concerns about abuses of generosity. In this way it majors in the minors, inverting Biblical priorities to arrive at an entirely unholy conclusion regarding a nation’s responsibility to care for its own people.
Be wary when Christians dismiss the very Scripture that Jesus and of his disciples lived by.
The study begins with the false premise that the Old Testament is not relevant to any Christian discussion of our shared responsibility, through civil governance, to provide relief and care for the poor. [Side note: be wary when Christians dismiss the very Scripture that Jesus and of his disciples lived by!] By misreading Matthew 22:21 – “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” – this study incorrectly concludes that Jesus clearly delineates between church from state: “God has clearly separated the institution of civil government from any and all sacerdotal responsibilities.” This is wrong (as I’ll show below). But sticking with the study’s logic, with church and state now separate the responsibility for care for the poor now falls under the church and not the state. As such, the injunctions of the Hebrew Bible – which assumes a kind of theocracy – cannot inform theories of civil governance. They only apply to the church’s mission. Again, this is wrong.
This study hinges, in large part, on a misreading of Matthew 22:15-22. Let’s start there.
“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” Jesus says, perhaps with a shrug of his shoulders. Give the supposed man-god his trifling coin.
Jesus responds to a question about paying taxes to a foreign emperor who claimed to be a god. This question is meant to trap Jesus in a dicey damned-if-he-does, damned-if-he-doesn’t conundrum about idolatry, loyalty, and mere survival under the boot of Roman occupation and oppression. His response deftly takes the air out of the balloon by asking, as a matter of fact, whose image is found on the coin. If it bears the emperor’s image it must be his coin. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” Jesus says, perhaps with a shrug of his shoulders. Give the supposed man-god his trifling coin.
But Jesus’ real concern is not about the coin, or even the illegitimate, oppressive imperial government that will receive it. Instead, the heart of Jesus’ response to the gotcha question is in the corollary. “Give to God what is God’s,” Jesus continues. If the coin is marked with Caesar, give the coin to Caesar. But you, dear child of God, are marked with God’s own image. So give yourself – your whole self – to God.
Jesus calls his hearers to place their ultimate trust in God’s promised Kingdom and not in Caesar’s false promises.
Jesus’ teaching about Caesar and God is not a preview of any “Two Kingdoms” theory divvying up the ecclesiastical and civil realms, nor of Jeffersonian principles of democratic governance. Jesus instead calls his hearers to place their ultimate trust in God’s promised Kingdom of mercy and truth, and not in Caesar’s false promises of an everlasting Pax Romana built on oppression and idolatry. This passage is no cornerstone of a Christian approach to civil governance that absolves the nation, through government, of its responsibility to care for the poor. And, certainly, Matthew 22:21 is no warrant to jettison the Hebrew Bible as we consider civil government’s responsibilities in society. Jesus’ concern is that we reject idolatry and place our faith in God’s promises.
By claiming that the Hebrew Bible is irrelevant to this conversation, the study dismisses whole swathes of Scripture that make clear God’s intent for humanity to care for our neighbors in need. From Genesis to Malachi the Hebrew Bible cries out for justice and mercy. The plight of oppressed migrants, widows, orphans, and poor people who cry out to God in their suffering is literally a repeated refrain in Scripture (“widows, orphans, aliens” appear together 13 times, and “widows, orphans, strangers” 5 times, over a combined 6 books of the Bible, in the NRSVue translation). God’s desire for justice is abundantly clear, and God’s call that we the people of God care for one another is equally clear. Yet since the Hebrew Bible is dismissed from this discussion by a single misinterpreted verse in Matthew, our elected leaders are not invited to consider the wisdom of the Law and Prophets for our nation this week.
Absent also from this Bible study are the very Scripture that tell us about the life and ministry of Jesus – the Gospels. Among the “seven New Testament passages regarding the construct of a societal safety net,” Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John are missing in action. Thus neither the Hebrew Bible (Jesus’ own Scripture) nor the Scripture that most clearly tell us about Jesus (the Gospels) are among the seven passages that outline the study’s vision for a societal safety net. Yikes.
The bulk of this study focuses on three passages (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12; 1 Timothy 5:3-16; Acts 6:1-6) addressing concerns that some members of the Christian community might seek to take advantage of the community’s characteristic generosity. The 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy passages extol people who can work to do so in order to provide for their needs, and for Christian families to care for their widows.2 Acts 6 is likewise a question of care for widows, with an accusation that Gentile and Hebrew widows were being treated differently.
This study distorts Scripture to give priority attention to minor concerns in order to undercut Scripture’s primary commitments to compassion, generosity, and justice.
At issue in these isolated passages are possible abuses of generosity and unequal distribution of resources. These concerns constitute a legitimate but relatively minor theme in the New Testament, and certainly should not be top billing on any Christian’s list of Biblical guidance for public policy. Even with these concerns about abuses of Christian generosity, the baseline of Christian commitment to compassion and generosity itself is itself never questioned in Scripture. This study distorts Scripture to give priority attention to minor concerns in order to undercut Scripture’s primary commitments to compassion, generosity, and justice.
Unable to make its claims by citing Scripture, the study then shifts to Scripture’s silence as rationale for its belief that government should neglect basic human needs. “Nowhere in Acts 6, nor elsewhere in the NT, is the State deemed responsible by God to meet the needs of the genuinely bereft.” This is an extremely odd argument to make for two reasons.
The absence of a clearly articulated theory of civil governance is not the slam dunk they think it is.
First, should we even expect that early Christians were in any position to wax philosophically on the role of the State in a diverse democracy? They were first generation members of an extremely small and powerless religious community working out the life and faith of their new religious movement under the boot of imperial oppression. These were not legal theorists sketching the interplay of church and state for some future time when Christians would influence and even control the levers of power for the most powerful nations of the world. The absence of a clearly articulated theory of civil governance is not the slam dunk they think it is. 3
Secondly, this argument by silence – “the Bible never says that government should do this” – is simply bizarre. By that logic, we can argue against all kinds of government functions, including the management of municipal water systems, residential trash collection, and the postal service, since the early Christians failed to itemize them among a list of civil government’s God-ordained responsibilities. And more broadly, if the Bible is silent on automobiles, the designated hitter, and Chia Pets, what are we to think about them?
One more item in this study is worthy of our attention. In the discussion of Romans 15:25-26 – on the collection for the Jerusalem saints – the study takes a cheap swipe at the early church’s commitment to holding their funds and possessions in common. At the end of Acts 2 we read that, upon receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, early Christians sold their possessions and held everything they had in common. No one among them was hungry or lacked for anything. These verses reveal the Spirit-driven selflessness of the early church, sacrificing personal possessions for the common good.
This study literally blames the early church – and the Holy Spirit – for the early church’s own poverty.
Yet this study cynically disregards the early church’s common ministry as reckless error, suggesting that “the overzealousness of congregants led to some wrong decisions that would later lead to the poverty in the church.” It blames the early church – and the Holy Spirit – for the early church’s own poverty. This study claims the church’s attempts to share everything in common was an overzealous mistake rather than a fruit of the Holy Spirit that had just endowed the church with power – as such, the study borders on blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Makes me wonder how this study would cynically dismiss Jesus’ own commands to give of one’s possessions, and even life, for the sake of the Gospel.
Friends, beware of those who call good evil and evil good.
The Bible is not an easy guide for public policy in a diverse, democratic state. Christians can and do have legitimate and diverse political commitments. But any decent study that seeks answers on matters of public policy cannot, as this study does, callously disregard central parts of Scripture as irrelevant. It’s too easy. And faithfulness isn’t easy.
Even if we do not seek to enact Deuteronomic law on care for the widows, orphans, and aliens in our nation today, do we not derive from such laws God’s holy concern for the vulnerable, and apply such concern to our governance? Even if we do not place ourselves in the shoes of the rich young man whom Jesus commands to divest of all worldly goods, do we not have to contend with the thrust of Jesus’ call – that wealth can be an obstacle to faithfulness and represents a withholding of what our neighbor needs? And where in this study is the characteristic Christian humility to be found, the selflessness that calls believers to “look not to your own interest but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4)?
I do not believe that we can lift whole passages from Scripture and write them into law. But neither do I think that Christians can claim to use Scripture as a guide when considering public policy while disregarding Scripture’s principal themes of justice, generosity, and compassion. This Bible study leads elected leaders away from Scripture’s heart and toward a thoroughly unBiblical conclusion.
- On dismissing the Hebrew Bible, the study’s author comments that “many liberal theologians, who are pro-government entitlement programs, use the [Old Testament] as their proof text”. It’s not one’s approach to Biblical theology or hermaneutics that is disqualifying to this study’s author. Simply being a “liberal theologian” and in support of a social safety net are disqualifying.
↩︎ - The study makes much of a contrived hierarchy of responsibilities: “One cannot expect the State to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of society’s bereft any more than one can expect the institution of the family to manufacture well-running automobiles.
God has ordained and provided other more efficient and effective means, catch basins if you will, to meet the genuine needs of others in a fallen world so that, again, ideally no one ends up going downstream in society. In summary, those catch basins in their order of the priority of first response are as follows:
1) The meeting of one’s own needs;
2) the institution of the family;
3) the institution of marriage;
4) the institution of the church.”
This “hierarchical order of God’s societal safety net” makes a straw man out of those who believe in government’s rightful responsibility to provide relief and support for the vulnerable, and reflects more the commitments of small government purists than of any fair reading of Scripture. Furthermore, “efficiency” and “effectiveness” may have a place in discussions of public policy, but they aren’t high-ranking Biblical values (this is a Bible study, no?). Jesus doesn’t teach us to be efficient toward our neighbor, but to love them.
↩︎ - In a footnote the study quotes Phoenix Seminary professor Wayne Grudem as saying, “I am surprised to discover that few people seem to realize that these verses say nothing about civil government overcoming individual citizens’ poverty!” The odd expectation that Scripture would clearly outline such a thing is baffling. ↩︎
The Lutheran Zephyr 