Leviticus 19 and its Social Context

This past Wednesday my father completed his 48th revolution around the sun. So Friday I went home to watch the new Star Wars film, Clone Wars (it is a large pilot episode that is really well done I thought), and hang out. Today, he had to work in St. Louis, MO so Olivia, Mom, and myself went to church together. The sermon was very interesting. The series they are working on is questions that the congregation wanted their pastors to answer. The question for this week is this,

What does the Bible say about social justice? Do we have a responsibility to be a part of it? Is [this church] already involved in social justice projects in which I can participate? Is what we do enough?

The answers: The Bibl says a lot about social justice. We must actively seek social justice. That particular church is involved in social justice projects and is planning even more. One church can never do enough.

The pastor gave a brief exegesis of Leviticus 19 to show that the Bible speaks about and commands God’s elect to seek social justice. He specifically wanted us to see the context of the golden rule: Leviticus 19:18, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said this is the second in the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-31). The context, as seen in Leviticus 19:9-18 is leaving food for the poor, not dealing falsely with a neighbor, not abusing the name of Yahweh, not oppressing one’s neighbor, paying the correct wages on time to a hired worker, to be impartial, to show kindness to the deaf and blind, not to slander, to not take vengeance for oneself (see Nahum 1:2 for more on this) but to love the neighbor as self. The love here is much more than an affection (though the affection must be there) but action to one’s neighbors.

Then the pastor pointed us to Leviticus 19:33-34 where this “golden rule” is repeated again, “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Again, note the social justice context of the golden rule. However, the pastor pointed us to the ground of the golden rule here: the gospel.

For the Israelites, Yahweh wanted them to remember when Egypt treated them as slaves, abused them, denied them their children. Yahweh wanted Israel to remember that in that horrible situation, God freed them. He raised up Moses, He empowered Moses to perform the 10 plagues, God led them out of Egypt, God parted the Red Sea for Israel to cross, God destroyed the Egyptian Pharaoh in the Red Sea. God rescued them from their slavery.

We too were once slaves. Our master was sin (cf. John 8:34) and we served sin with our whole heart. But Jesus came and redeemed us from sin by his death (cf. Mark 10:45; John 8:36; Revelation 5:9-10). He has freed us from sin. We look back at who we were as sinners and what Christ did for us and we should be moved with compassion and mercy and pity and love (Hebrew: וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥; LXX: ἀγαπήσεις) for our neighbors. The word for neighbor in the LXX is interesting. It is τὸν πλησίον in Leviticus 19:18 (LXX) and ὁ προσήλυτος in Leviticus 19:34 (LXX). τὸν πλησίον means one who is near. The near ones are those we are to love. Yahweh wants us to love those who are near us, not just dear to us. ὁ προσήλυτος means the one who has arrived. It is a noun that refers to one who has come for a far off region. We are to love those that are far away and have come near. We look at them through the lens of the gospel and we love them. We remember that we were once in the same boat and the compassion that God has on us. We do not hold them in contempt and mistreat them, we love them. God is the one who brings vengeance let him worry about that. We are to just love. Paul said of this text in Galatians 5:14, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We fulfill the law of Christ ( 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2). Let us love those who are near and those who are far off. Let us love so that God’s glory will be seen so brightly. Let us look upon everyone the way the gospel does and love.