Saturday, August 04, 2007

God's Law (2)

I have been studying and thinking about a Christian approach to political and economic issues for more than thirty years. After going around in circles for a long time, this is where I have ended up.

The New Testament does not provide a description of a political, legal and economic system. Jesus changed a few things, but never gave a full description of what a Christian political system would look like. Paul made comments with a political or economic implication, but he did not articulate a fully developed political or economic system. I can only conclude that it was not necessary for them to do this, because God had already done it in the Old Testament. (One reason that there is so much disagreement between Christians about political issues is that we try to do it all from the New Testament).

When I went back to the Old Testament prophets, I found that they had a lot to say about political and issues, but they mostly focused on what was wrong with the situation which had emerged in their nation. Again the prophets do not give a full description of how a good society should function. They did challenge their people for failing to honour God’s law, so that pointed me back to the law.

When I studied biblical law, I found what I was looking for: a complete set of laws that covered everything, including family life, business behaviour, social welfare, national defence and a system of judges. They only thing missing was guidance about parliaments and law making, but these seemed to be unnecessary, because God is lawmaker and he has already given his law.


Aaron said...

No, Ron. The reason Jesus didn't describe a Christian political system is not because it was described adequately in the OT - it's because there is no such thing.

RonMcK said...

You are correct. I was to casual with my words. I should have said system of government.