Quotes about Justice

I have called each of My children to a different path, distinctly designed for that one. Do not let anyone convince you that his path is the only right way. And be careful not to extol your path as superior to another's way. What I require of you is to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Me—wherever I lead.

Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it.

Too many people think repenting means feeling terrible about something someone has done. Feeling bad is fine, and it often accompanies repentance, but repentance is not so much about what we feel but the twofold prong of owning up to our own injustices and failures to love, and starting all over by living justly and lovingly.

Community is like peace in that it is a result instead of an action. Peace results from acts of justice and behaviors of love. Community also emerges out of loving behaviors—like compassion and an embrace and forgiveness — and out of acts of justice.

Yes, the church is part of the good news of Jesus. And the church proclaims the good news of Jesus. But when men and women have only seen churches formed by unhealthy power, celebrity, competitiveness, secrecy, and self-protection, our corporate ecclesial life belies the truth of the gospel. The church can only witness to the truth of Jesus by seeking justice, serving with humility, operating transparently, and confessing and lamenting failures.

Many think Jesus came to earth so you and I can have a special kind of spiritual experience and then go merrily along, as long as we pray and read our Bibles and develop intimacy with the unseen God but ignore the others-oriented life of justice and love and peace that Jesus embodied.

As seminary students Jim and friends examined the Bible to find every reference to the poor — and they found more than two thousand. In fact, they concluded one of every sixteen verses was about the poor. Then a zealous friend decided to cut out every Bible verse about the poor to see what the Bible would look like. As he tells the story, "that old Bible literally was in shreds. It wouldn't hold together. It was a Bible full of holes.

We can begin to focus on the eternal if we live to love God and others (the Jesus Creed), if we pursue justice as the way we are called to love others as God's creations, if we live out a life that drives for peace as how loving people treat one another, and if we strive for wisdom instead of just knowledge or bounty.

There is no kingdom that is not about a just society, as there is no kingdom without redemption under Christ. Yet I'm convinced that both of these approaches to kingdom fall substantially short of what kingdom meant to Jesus, so we need once again to be patient enough to ponder what the Bible teaches.

To those who pursue righteousness Jesus promises "they will be filled," and the word "filled" means "sated," "slaked," "bloated," or "filled to overflowing." The metaphor expresses absolute and utter satisfaction: they will find a kingdom society where love, peace, justice, and holiness shape the entirety of creation.

This both/and interpretation makes sense in the Jewish context. Jesus has in mind the Anawim, a group of economically disadvantaged Jews (Ps 149:4; Isa 49:13; 61:1—2; 66:2).27 Historians of Jewish history now mostly agree that the Anawim had three features: they were economically poor and yet trusted in God, they found their way to the temple as a meeting place, and they longed for the Messiah, who would finally bring justice.

He experiences for us what we do not want but deserve (slavery and death), and provides for us what we do want but don't deserve (a life of freedom).