Whenever we see a powerful person using his power to abuse the weak in any way, something goes off in us. There is a great sense of anger at the injustice of it. The big kid on the playground bullying the weakling, the husband abusing his wife, or the parent beating his child raises our righteous ire. We know innately that this isn’t right. Powerful people ought not to be using their power to pummel the weak.
But why? If we actually lived in a universe in which evolution was a reality, these sorts of actions would make sense. The strong survive. The weak do not. Sometimes the strong must eliminate the weak in order to survive because of the scarcity of resources, to eliminate threats, or to demonstrate to others what will happen if they are challenged.
We, however, don’t live in such a universe, and our anger over the injustice of abuse of power is one evidence for that. We are created in the image of a merciful God, who, although he is all-powerful, uses his power to protect, provide for, and lift up the weak. Whenever we perceive that the weak are being exploited or generally abused by the powerful, the character of God himself is revealed in our righteous anger.
This reality is so strong that, ironically, an entire industry of power has been created through claiming victimhood. People of BLM, #MeToo, and many others depend upon our innate sense of merciful justice to perpetuate their power. Present yourself as weak and helpless, abused by the powerful system, and the world will reflexively respond by attacking the bully.
Whatever perversions of this merciful justice might exist, they are perversions; distortions of the image of God who takes up the cause of the genuinely weak and helpless. Indeed, God judges societies on the basis of how they, for instance, treat the fatherless and widows. The law of God is clear that widows and orphans are not to be exploited because of their vulnerabilities (cf. Ex 22.22; Zech 7.9-10). Yahweh himself executes justice for the widow. He is their protector (Dt 10.18; cf. also Ps 68.5). God’s people through the ages have been punished for their mistreatment of the weakest members of society (cf. e.g., Isa 1.10-20). A society that doesn’t reflect God’s merciful character will soon be the object of his wrath.
When Jesus, Yahweh in the flesh, came to his temple, one of the measurements of judgment was how the leadership was treating widows. They didn’t fare well.
As Jesus sits in the temple watching people give their offerings, he sees a widow give two copper coins, approximately one-one-hundredth of a day laborers’ wage. This is no more change than we find in couch cushions. Many focus on the dedication of the widow in this story. That is certainly one of the emphases. She is reflecting the character of God by giving all that she has for his service. However, Jesus recently condemned the scribes for “devouring widows’ houses” (Lk 20.47). How are they doing that? They are like the televangelist wearing a five-thousand-dollar suit and living in a ten-million-dollar home telling some poor lady living on a fixed income that if she is faithful, then she will give everything that she has. They are using the authority God has given them to get rich off the weakest, poorest members of society while they live like fat cats.
What happens to people like this? Lex talionis: eye for eye, tooth for tooth, house for house. Just after observing the widow, Jesus begins speaking about how the temple, the house of Israel, will be torn down. The leaders have devoured widows’ houses, so God will devour their house.
Actual widows in our society have many more advantages than widows in the first century, but we have a system in place in our nation through its laws that helps create functional widowhood and, with that, fatherlessness. We have a system that encourages women to remain single while having children. Single motherhood has become heroic instead of mourned. Our culture praises them and our governments at every level have stepped in to replace husbands and fathers by sending money.
The statistics of unwed motherhood are staggering. The latest statistics from the CDC reveal that 39.6% of all births in our country are out-of-wedlock. Breaking it down by race and culture, African Americans have a 69.4% out-of-wedlock birth rate, American Indians/Alaska Natives are at 68.2%, Hispanics, 51.8%, “whites,” 28.2%, and Asian Americans, 11.7%. A government that helps create and encourage functional widowhood will eventually find its house completely devoured.
We know the government misuses its power. But what about the church? Many of her leaders have joined the woke culture and are using their God-given authority to promote and perpetuate false systems of social justice. In the name of God, denominations are calling for their members to repent of the sin of slavery over and over. Christians are told that they are racists constantly because of the way that God created them–their whiteness–and they are never given the assurance of their justification before God. Instead, leaders use their power to keep people in a state of perpetual guilt.
Wherever God-given power is abused, whether at the highest levels of government, in the church, or in the home, God will not tolerate it. Those who devour people under their care will be devoured by God.
Use your power wisely.
