Equality is a subject that is often misunderstood in our world today, but it has its origin in God. How should we as Christians seek equity and equality according to God’s determinations? And how can we best make sense of the way the world pursues this important subject?
Equality = All Christians freely meeting each other’s needs as a witness of Christ’s example.
- Equality depends on unity
- Equality is reciprocal
- Equality is defined by need not want
- Equality must be free
- Equality comes from God
- Equality is a witness to the world
- Equality is a responsibility of the church
- Equality moves towards transformative growth
Application:
The “physical” will follow the “spiritual”
- Step #1. Be reconciled to God through Christ
- Step #2. Put Jesus as #1 in your heart
- Step #3. Follow the Spirit’s leading to match the physical with the spiritual
- Step #4. Get after it!
Acts 2:44-45
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
Acts 4:32
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10
“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
Acts 4:34-35
“There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”
James 4:1-3
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
Jeremiah 17:9
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”
2 Corinthians 9:7
“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Exodus 16:18
“And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.”
Leviticus 19:9-10
“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”
Deuteronomy 24:19-21
“When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.”
Isaiah 1:17
“Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.”
Micah 6:8
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.”
James 1:27
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
Jeremiah 22:15-16
“Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.
He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.”
Ezekiel 16:49-50
“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”
Matthew 23:23
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”