In this last post on the issue of the Bible, poverty, and social justice, I want to remind readers of several of the basic conclusions we reached in this series. The following conclusions were readily discernible in the biblical text after looking at the OT and NT...
Social Justice
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 11: Parable of the Talents
We’re close to the end of our series on social justice. Thanks to all those who’ve stayed with it, as it’s taken quite a while. In this post I want to share some thoughts about the parable of the talents (minas). Introducing the Parable of the...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 10
In this installment of our series, we want to consider a passage in Acts 2 that is often brought into the discussion of a biblical view of social justice: Acts 2:42-47. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 9
In the preceding eight posts on this topic, we’ve focused on defining key terms so as to reveal how the Bible defines poverty and justice with respect to the poor. A lot of the discussion has been “negative” in the sense of focusing on what the Bible...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 8
In the last installment of this series we got into the NT vocabulary for the poor. My focus was the first of two essays I linked to earlier: “Poverty and Poor: New Testament” from Anchor Bible Dictionary “Rich and Poor” from the Dictionary of...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 7
Time to get back to this series! Review of Earlier Part 6 It’s been a while since I posted Part 6 of this study/discussion. Hopefully by now many of you have read the two items I linked to in Part 6: “ Poverty and Poor: New Testament ” from Anchor...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 6
Summarizing the Old Testament Material Fundamental Questions To this point in our social justice series we’ve tracked through the OT vocabulary for poverty and the poor. We supplemented the study of the vocabulary to include an article by J. Levenson about...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 5
In the last installment of this series, I directed readers to the short essay by J. Levenson, “ Poverty and the State in Biblical Thought ” (13 pp). Levenson is a Jewish biblical scholar and a favorite of mine. I think the article is important for helping us think...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 4
In Part 3 of this series, I had assembled a list of verse references drawn from the ABD article (linked in Parts 2 and 3) on the poor / poverty which its author categorized as involving oppression of the poor in legal (and hence political) contexts. I then put an...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 3
Well, finally back to this. Since it’s been so long, I need to give readers the context of the first and second posts. Review In the first post, I had encouraged readers to keep the following items in mind as they read the essay from the Anchor Bible Dictionary...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice, Part 2
I’m hoping that by now those interested will have read the ABD essay I posted on terms for poverty and the poor in the Old Testament. In case readers did not take it upon themselves to do so, here is another PDF of the actual OT occurrences of each of the OT...
Biblical Theology, Poverty, and Social Justice: Part 1
I’ve decided to embark on an exploration of poverty and social justice with respect to the biblical text. “Social justice” is currently a hot-button issue and, in my view, is a term easily manipulated by politicians and theologians who want to wield...