Jesse Steele
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

Love you sis.

“The Point” is a weekly 100 word gadfly piece, and apparently it’s working ;-)

Me: “Use your money to give justice to the poor…” I’ll expand with examples beyond the 100 words…

Black people in America suffer from daily injustice of the system far more than they suffer from mere economics. Those systems were invisible to me in America until I lived in a country whose language I did not speak.

This really hit me when I went to Vietnam and saw how Johnson’s war had caused injustice to the Vietnamese culture in almost every way beyond economics—psychology, blowing off limbs for decades to follow, and all the mess that follows in the wake. It created ongoing “tyranny through chaos” for generations.

The world doesn’t merely have a “[money] poverty” problem, it has a JUSTICE problem — justice for immigrants, small businesses, even continents fighting Google and California fighting Monsanto. Never reduce the issue to money, it’s about JUSTICE as a whole.

To your comment in point:

Jesus was most likely rich. God’ perfect Son working as a carpenter until 30, he had a treasurer embezzling money and no one noticed. Even if not, he told Peter to pull a coin from a fish (Mt 17:27). If throwing money at the poor was his plan he would have had no problem.

Jesus’ statement to that rich man was an invitation to be his disciple, it included “…and follow me.” (Mt 19:21, Mk 10:21, Lk 18:22) Camels, bags, and needle’s eyes in an ancient walled-city desert culture were a likely reference to crawling through a small gate at night, theoretically possible, but avoided at almost all costs. Regardless of the “needle’s eye gate” theory, the takeaway was to let nothing stop us from following Jesus as our teacher. That the man loved his money and status more than an open invitation to live and travel every day with God’s Son on Earth. Yes, liquidating and giving it all to the poor is indeed a very good way to dump the camel bags and become a nomadic disciple of a Jewish rabbi. The teaching indeed included money, but neither only nor mainly.

Jesus was all about justice for the poor, Is 11:20, Lk 18:1–8.

“Whatever” and “love your neighbor” is justice in general, including, but not limited to, money. We shouldn’t assume it’s only about money, but JUSTICE at large. Didn’t we both say that?

Do you mean “idiosyncratic”? (Blasted Greek transliteration spelling traps!) On Theology, I recently finished my “due diligence” book on Theology. It’s in the e-stores, except Amazon, .mobi at Smashwords. I’ll send you a free coupon if you want. Within the accepted Bible theology I formally studied, my only potential idiosyncrasy I’m aware of pertains to my thesis that the Book of Life has “there will be an answer, let it be” relevance to “good non-Christians”, which is generally unreviewed by the Church, for now. Idiosyncrasy is not the same as an ideological difference. Outside of theology, I gladly admit to having many idiosyncrasies, including, but not limited to, my preference of using chopsticks for salad and steak.

We need empathy, I agree. Especially Sprint ;-)

I’d love to see you comment more, sis. Glad you found me on Medium.

Jesse Steele

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