The Biblical Roots of Catholic Social Teaching

The Old Testament and New Testament foundations of Catholic social teaching.

Introduction

The body of writing known as Catholic social teaching is often confined to the social encyclicals starting with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. The principles expounded in these encyclicals, however, did not suddenly arise but were distilled from centuries of faith and tradition. In fact, we can trade their origins in the Old Testament. In this paper, I discuss the biblical sources that form the foundations of the social teaching of the Church, starting with the Old Testament.   

Biblical Roots: Old Testament

On a sunny morning, Moses led his father-in-law Jethro’s herd of sheep and goats across the desert all the way to mount Sinai. There he saw what appeared to be a flame from the center of a bush. Getting closer, he heard a voice coming from the middle of the bush, “I am the God of your father….I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying…and I am concerned about their suffering….So I have come down to rescue them… So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt….I will be with you….when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you (plural) will worship God on this mountain.”¹

“On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt….they came to the desert of Sinai….and Israel camped there.”²  Moses went up to God, and the Lord said to him, “This is what… you have to say to the people of Israel….if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession….You will be for me a nation of priests and a holy nation.”³  After Moses reported back that the people of Israel had accepted His offer, God asked Moses to consecrate the Israelites through ritual cleansing for two days to prepare them for His visit the following day.⁴   Moses went up the mountain again with his brother Aaron and received from God the specific conditions of the covenant.⁵

The Mosaic Covenant. This was the third covenant offered by God. The first was a unilateral and unconditional promise from God to Noah after the flood had subsided: “I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you….every living creature on earth….never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood, never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”⁶  The first covenant not only set no conditions but involved all creation.

The second covenant was also unilateral, but it was more targeted as it identified both the benefits offered and the beneficiaries. The former were specific tracts of land: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi (river) of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.”⁷ The latter was an identifiable group of people, Abraham and his descendants. “As for me, this is my covenant with you: I will make you very fruitful; will make nations of you and kings will come from you….I will establish an everlasting covenant….to be your God and the God of your descendants.”⁸ (The conditions requested by God were that the Israelites would remain faithful to this covenant and be identified by.⁹

The three covenants mentioned in Genesis and Exodus show a progression from generality to specificity. The benefits evolve from restrain on the part of God not to destroy the earth with floods to the promise of a land and his offer to be God of a specific people. The unilateral offer in the first two covenants becomes a mutual agreement in the Mosaic covenant, and the unconditional nature of the first covenant is replaced by a detailed list of conditions in the third covenant.      

The second and third covenants effectively consecrate the agricultural way of life. The people of Israel would inhabit a land of their own, given to them by the Lord. They would settle in this land, they would work it, they would be fruitful, and from a small group would form a nation.

The replacement of hunter-gatherer societies with agricultural societies involves more than a change in economic structures, it represents a paradigm shift in the relationship between humans and nature. Hunter-gatherers live in a world controlled by nature. Trees grow from seeds freely scattered on the ground and produce their fruit without human help. Similarly, animals are not domesticated and roam the earth at will as both predators and prey. Humans do not intervene in this natural cycle of life. They simply “harvest” what they need for survival in a  sustainable manner. In this type of society, there is no saving, no growth, and no wealth accumulation. There is sharing of the “harvest” to secure the survival of the community. In agricultural societies, parts of the control are transferred from nature to humans. Animals are domesticated to serve the needs of humans, trees are planted where humans want them, and the land is cleared of indigenous plants to make room for cultivated varieties. In this process, even the landscape is altered as forests are transformed into arable land, and waters are diverted from rivers to irrigate the newly created fields. Human control also allows communities to grow larger and eventually become cities, a transformation that affects not only the landscape, but also the economic and social structure and the evolution of human relationships.   

Property Rights. In ancient Israel, the development of an agrarian society occurred within the context of a special relationship with the Lord, an everlasting covenant with a detailed set of norms. An important part of this covenant was the treatment of property rights, which had a variety of special aspects. 

First, all three covenants rest on the fundamental principle that the land upon which the Israelites are to settle and all that is found in it belongs to the Lord. In the covenant with Noah, the Lord makes it clear that he has power over all creation. In the second covenant, God reaffirms his Lordship over creation by gifting a piece of earth to Abraham and his descendants. He could have not offered what was not His. In the covenant with Moses, God reaffirms his ownership over the land gifted to the Israelites: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.”¹⁰ In the agricultural society of the chosen people, private ownership of resources was temporary and always subordinate to the will of God, the ultimate proprietor.

Second, the land that the Lord had promised Abraham was given exclusively to the Israelites. The instructions on how to allocate the land given to Moses are recorded in the book of Numbers. As a first step, the Lord asked Moses and his nephew Eleazar to take a census of “the whole Israelite community by family �" all those twenty years old or more who could be able to serve in the army of Israel.”¹¹ Then He explained how the promised land should be assigned as “inheritance” to the Israelites. The inheritance is given to each Israelite family through the allocation to each tribe. Two different ways of allocating the land are reported. In the first one, “The land will be allocated to them based on the names .…of its ancestral tribe.”¹²  The other way is by lot: “Each inheritance is to be distributed by lot among the larger and smaller groups.”¹³ One way of solving this apparent contradiction is to assume a two-stage allocation process. The tribes are first separated into the larger and smaller ones and the land is allocated to each of these two categories on the basis of the total population in each. In the second step, the land within each tribe is distributed to each family by lot.

Regardless of how the allocation was carried out, the important principle is that the Mosaic Covenant did not establish individual general property rights. The land belonged to God (“The land is mine.”¹⁴) and was distributed as inheritance to each tribe. Moreover, this inheritance remained within the tribe. Because the land belonged to God and the chosen people had only use of it, “no inheritance in Israel is to pass from one tribe to another for every Israelite shall keep the tribal inheritance of their ancestors.”¹⁵    

The allocation of the land was initiated by Moses, who distributed the land east of the Jordan, and was completed by Joshua. All tribes received their allotment except the Levites “since the food offerings presented to the Lord, the God of Israel, are their inheritance.”¹⁶ Later on, the tribe of Levi received towns and the surrounding pasture land from the inheritance of the other 11 tribes.¹⁷ 

Third, the land assigned to each family within a tribe was given for their exclusive use to ensure their survival. These families did not have property rights in the modern sense where these rights may be alienated: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine.”¹⁸ They had only the right to use the land, and this right was passed on from generation to generation. Effectively, they could only lease the land. Not even a tribe, as a collective unit, could sell the land it had received as inheritance from the Lord.¹⁹ Full property rights for real property existed only for houses located within walled-in towns (except for houses inhabited by Levite families). Anyone who purchased such a house gained full ownership, and the ability to resell, if the seller did not redeem it within a year.²⁰ Property rights existed also for personal property, including slaves and livestock.²¹

Fourth, the landowner had full ownership of the production from the land, and that included domesticated animals. Thus, it was possible to acquire wealth either in kind (increase in the stock of animals and purchase of houses in walled-in towns) or financially by selling surplus production. Compared to modern times, however, the opportunities for wealth accumulation were generally limited in agricultural societies and even more limited among Israelites because of the constraint on the sale of land “inherited” from the Lord.

The Lord gave the Israelites productive land so they could lead a comfortable life: “…a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”²²  He wanted them to “prosper and be kept alive”²³, as long as they obeyed His commands. Prosperity, however, meant a comfortable standard of living not the pursuit of riches, and the Lord had a warning for the Israelites: “…When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and you have multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God.”²⁴ 

The concern for the negative effects of wealth accumulation on the relationship between God and His people and for the long-term sustainability of the agricultural economic system was addressed through a set of rules which collectively may be called Sabbath (seven years) laws, and include the jubilee (the year after seven sabbaths).  

Rest for the Land. The first sabbath law is found in Exodus (23-11), (Leviticus (25:2-7), and Deuteronomy (15:10-11) and addresses sustainability and poverty.  In all three books, the Israelites are asked to work the land for six years, but in the seventh year leave it to rest and regenerate. In Leviticus, whatever the land produces unaided can be used by the owner, his servants, his hired workers, visitors, and tamed and wild animals. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, the harvest is left for the poor and for the wild animals. In all three books, the land rests for a year (long-term sustainability) and what it produces without human interference is not to be used to enrich its owner, but is to be shared (equity).  In other words, in the sabbath year, the autonomous production of the land, which belongs to the Lord and whose use was given to the Israelites, becomes a gift from the Lord because it was generated without human help. Therefore, no one has exclusive rights over this production.  

The year following the seventh sabbath is the Jubilee, the year of the Lord: “Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”^25. In the Jubilee year the pattern of land possession that existed fifty years earlier is re-established: “In this year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.”²⁶ This means that the land that each family received as inheritance from the Lord not only could not be sold, but could be leased for a maximum of 50 years at a time. This extension of the sabbath laws was aimed at the preservation of a family’s capacity to make a living on their own land. It also set a limit of 50 years on indentured labor. In practice, this limitation may not have been very constraining given the short life expectancy at the time. Still, a person who became indentured labor for failure to repay debts just one year prior to the Jubilee would be freed before the full debt was repaid.  

Lending and Interest. The Old Testament makes specific references to the treatment of debt. Because debt is the accumulation of borrowing not repaid, these references, discussed below, must be interpreted in the context of the rules about lending, which are reproduced in Table 1. A number of differentiations are made by the rules of lending.

First, there is the differentiation between Israelites and foreigners. Deuteronomy 15:6 allows lending to foreigners, and Deuteronomy 23:20 adds, “You may charge a foreigner interest.” In Leviticus 25:35-37 the differentiation is more subtle, as discussed below.

Second, there is the differentiation between business lending and personal lending found in Exodus 22:25. If lending to a person (“one of my people”) is to be treated differently than lending for business and must not carry interest, then lending for business can attract interest. This distinction has a simple economic explanation. A business borrows money for the purpose of making more money. In this case, charging interest can be justified as a return to an input (the funds borrowed) to be paid out of the gains made with the help of the borrowed money. In the context of a subsistence agricultural society, individuals borrow to survive. Although each Israelite family received its land “inheritance,” not all plots had the same potential productivity, and their actual production depended on a variety of factors not under human control. A bad year, and a family would quickly join the ranks of the poor. The personal borrower did not make a profit from the borrowed funds and there was no gain to share.

Third, there is the differentiation between the poor and the well-to-do found in Leviticus 25. Interest-free lending is reserved for the poor. This version of the lending rules is consistent with the precariousness of subsistence farming. The Lord gave land to all Israelite families so that they could provide for themselves, but the actual production from the land was not guaranteed. It would not take much - a bad harvest year, sickness or death of the family head, or some other calamity �" to throw a family into poverty. In those cases, they would be forced to borrow in the hope that next year’s harvest would be sufficient to repay the debt. The interest-free lending rule for the poor aimed at reducing the burden on people who were already carrying a heavy burden.  

Finally, there seems to be a differentiation between foreigners who live in Israel and those who live outside. For the latter, Deuteronomy 23 is clear: they can be charged interest. In Leviticus 25:35-37, Israelites are asked to treat their poor countrymen as they would a foreigner by not charging interest. If foreigners and poor Israelites are to be treated equally and the latter are not to be charged interest, it follows logically that foreigners should also be free from interest payments. With this interpretation of the above Leviticus verses, the differentiation between loans to businesses and to individuals extends to foreigners. Those who live outside Israel are charged interest and those who live inside Israel and need help don’t pay interest. For both, the interest relief is aimed at helping them remain in the community (“so they can continue to live among you.”²⁷ 

 

Table 1. Verses about Lending in the Old Testament

Exodus 22:25                  If you lend money to one of my people among you who is

   needy, do not treat it as a business deal; charge no interest

 

Leviticus 25:35-37         If any of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and are unable

                                      to support themselves, help them as you would a foreigner

                                      and stranger, so they can continue to live among you….

                                      You must nor lend them money at interest or sell food at a 

  profit

Deuteronomy 15:7        If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites….freely lend

                                      Them whatever they need   

Deuteronomy 23:19-20  Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money

                                      or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a

                                      foreigner interest

 

Remission of Debts. There is a sabbath law also for debts and is found only in Deuteronomy: “At the end of every seven years…. Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite….you may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you.”²⁸ It parallels the sabbath law about interest found in Deuteronomy 23:19-20. The debt law makes no differentiation between personal and business loans or between poor and wealthy Israelites. It differentiates only between Israelites and foreigners, and for the latter it does not separate those living within Israel and those living without. If these two verses are interpreted literally, the debt-forgiveness law is aimed at curbing wealth accumulation, not at reducing poverty.

 

I suggest that the sabbath laws regarding interest and debt-remission should be interpreted in the context of God’s promise of blessings to all Israelites. God gave each family enough land to produce what they needed for sustenance. Therefore, “there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God gave you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you.”²⁹  If events beyond a person’s control lead someone into poverty, it is the obligation of those more fortunate to offer help and be generous: “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, don’t be hardhearted or tightfisted towards them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend whatever they need.”³⁰ In the Mosaic covenant, God envisioned a society where the survival and prosperity of the community took precedence over the interest of the individual. Social cohesion was more important than individual self-interest. To achieve those goals, it was important to minimize the spread of poverty and the expansion of wealth inequality. The means used in the Mosaic covenant included limitations on property rights (the land cannot be sold permanently), limitations on the use of someone else’s land (laws of land redemption and the Jubilee year of the Lord), and commands regarding interest-free lending and remission of debt every seven years, and generosity in helping the needy.                            

 

Labor Markets. In a subsistence-farming agricultural society, human labor is the primary input. Four categories of labor may be identified at the time of the Mosaic covenant: landowner’s own work, slaves, indentured labor, and hired workers including servants. In the case of slaves, the Old Testament makes a clear distinction between Israelites and foreigners. Leviticus 25:42 excludes the possibility of slavery for the Israelites: “Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.” Leviticus 25:44-45 asserts that all foreigners may be slaves, whether they live in Israel or outside (“males and females…from nations around you;…temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country”). Moreover, these slaves become the personal property of their masters and they can be sold or bequeathed to their children. Because of the limited choices afforded to slaves, I will focus on labor among Israelites. First, I want to briefly discuss the concept of work.

 

The Concept of Work. Genesis tells us that the creation of the universe required God’s efforts. God did not create the world simply by wishing it, he had to expend some effort. In Genesis 2:2-3, the term work is found three times and the term rest twice: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing….on the seventh day he rested from all his work…he rested from all the work of creating.” We can identify four features of God’s work. First, it was done by choice. God decided freely to create the world. Second, this work was productive. Third, the product of God’s work was good (Genesis 1). In Genesis, God’s free act of creation established a fundamental principle: the purpose of work is to produce something good. 

 

This principle was extended to human activity. According to Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Man was created not for idleness but for work. Being productive is part of  the human semblance of God. In Genesis, human work was confined to the satisfaction of one’s needs, but involved the care of “the other.” Adam was not a hunter-gatherer, who roamed through the Garden of Eden harvesting what he needed. He was a gardener, tending a lush and productive garden. This purpose of work remained intact even after the fall. When God expelled Adam from the garden of Eden, He cursed the land, not the man or his work.³¹ The integrity and purpose of work was maintained. Work now became “painful toil” because the land had been cursed and became unproductive.³² This curse was largely lifted, but for the Israelites only, in the Mosaic covenant as God gave his people “a good land…a land flowing with milk and honey.”³³ According to the Torah, work is not a punishment from God. On the contrary, it is a divine activity initiated by God in the creation of the universe: creative, fruitful, and producing something good.

 

Working Conditions. The Mosaic covenant also established a six-day workweek: “Observe the sabbath….for six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, holy to the Lord.”³⁴ Exodus 20:8-10 specified that this weekly day of rest applies also to “sons and daughters,…male and female servants,… animals, (and) any foreigners residing in your towns.” There is no mention of slaves or indentured labor. For the latter, however, Leviticus 25:39-41 commands a treatment equal to that of “hired workers.” This means that a six-day work week was guaranteed to all Israelites and at least to the free foreigners living in Israel.

 

There is no mention of the length of the working day in the Old Testament. In an agricultural society, one may expect that the working day extended from dawn to dusk. In Matthew 20:1-9, the landowner went out to the town square to hire workers early in the morning, at 9 a.m., 12, 3 p.m., and 5 p.m., roughly at intervals of 3 hours. The workers hired first complained that those hired last worked only one hour. This means that the first workers were hired at 6 a.m. and the last ones at 6 p.m., making a 12-hour working day. It seems that this standard lasted for centuries. According to Robert Whaples³⁵, in 1830 the average workweek of American workers in manufacturing was 69.1 hours, equivalent to 11.5 hours per day for a six-day week. There is also no mention of wage rates.  There is only a command not to “hold back the wages of a hired worker overnight.”³⁶ In general, however, there was an obligation to treat workers with dignity.  Leviticus 25:53 requires that indentured workers “be treated as workers hired from year to year,” and “those to whom they owe services do not rule over them ruthlessly”; Deuteronomy 24:14-15 commands “not to take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy” and “to pay them their wages each day before sunset.”         

 

 Behavior and Institutions. The verses known as the Ten Commandments³⁷ present a number of commands aimed at patterns of behavior that supported the fundamental institutions of the Jewish people. It should be stressed at the outset that the Ten Commandments are not a bill of rights. They are a list of individual and collective responsibilities. The first three commandments emphasize that the foundation of their nation is the faith in one God and the observance of his commands in daily life. The very existence and prosperity of the Israelites rested on the observance of these three commandments. The fourth commandment (“Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy”), is both an extension of the first three and a foundation of civil institutions. It must be kept because it is holy, but keeping it effectively established a six-day workweek. Commandments 5 (“Honor your father and mother”) and 7 (“You shall not commit adultery) serve to support the stability of the extended family as a fundamental civil institution. The bonds between husband and wife are to be kept strong through a life of faithfulness to each other as an extension of their faithfulness to God. Honoring mother and father stretches this bond to include more than one generation within a family and facilitates the intergenerational transfer of user rights for the land that God gave as inheritance to each Israelite family. The remaining four commandments serve a dual purpose: they protect the rights to life and property and lighten the burden on the judicial system. Commandment 9 (“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”) is aimed at the integrity of the judicial system. These commandments also support the social fabric of society by minimizing interpersonal tensions that would arise from the spreading of malicious lies. The tenth commandment is a warning against greed. While the eighth commandment forbids the act of stealing, the tenth commandment prohibits even the desire to take what you do not own: a neighbor’s house, wife, servants, livestock, and any other personal property.          

 

Helping the Poor. We saw above that the Mosaic covenant contains a number of provisions to help poor workers, particularly laws on lending, interest on loans, remission of debt, and redemption of the right of use of one’s land. Even with these protections, there remained some structural poverty. The Old Testament identifies three major categories of structural poor: orphans (fatherless), widows, and some foreigners. These three groups have one thing in common: the lack of resources to produce what they need for their survival. Poor foreigners had no land and survived only by offering their services as hired workers. Widows and orphans did not have the capacity to take care of themselves even if they owned land rights. The Mosaic covenant recognized the plight of these poor and commanded Israelites to be compassionate and generous with them. In Deuteronomy 10:18, God “defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you”; in Exodus 22:22, He orders the Israelites not to “take advantage of the widow or the fatherless”; and in Deuteronomy 27:19 God curses “anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.” Two other commands are directed at positive action in favor of the poor. In Deuteronomy 24:19 and Leviticus 19:9-10, farmers are commanded to leave the gleanings in the fields to be gathered by “the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.” In Deuteronomy 14:28-29, the Israelites are requested every three years to bring “all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in (their) towns” for the use of the Levites, the fatherless, and the widows. Only after the tithes were collected God would “bless (them) and the work of (their) hands.”        

 

Other Social Teachings

Statements about the economic and social structure of ancient Israel are found in many Old Testament writings other than the Torah. In this section I will focus on the prophets Amos and Isaiah because they are the two most prominent voices on social justice issues.

 

Amos. Amos was a shepherd born in Tekoa, 12 miles south of Jerusalem, in the southern kingdom of Judah. He lived during the reigns of king Uzziah of Judah (circa 783-742 BCE) and king Jeroboam of the northern kingdom of Israel (circa 786-746 BCE). During the roughly five centuries from Moses to Amos, Israel underwent major transformations. The tribes were united into a Kingdom by David, and with the monarchy arose a new class of civil servants. The monarchy also gave rise to a class of large landowners as the kings rewarded their supporters with newly conquered land and even “inherited” land. The population grew and so did the degree of urbanization, stimulating the expansion of trade and crafts. It also created a new class of landless urban poor. Amos interpreted these developments as deviations from the Mosaic covenant which led to an abandonment of God. At some point in his life, he moved from Judah to Israel and prophesized for a short period of time until he was expelled. His message exposed the corrupt life of the Israelites and prophesized their downfall. In particular, he showed the abuses against the poor.

 

Amos preached against the people of Judah because “they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept His decrees³⁸; he accused the women of Bashan for oppressing the poor and crushing the needy³⁹; and exposed the wickedness of the inhabitants of Israel for human trafficking (“they sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals,”) oppression of the poor, (“they trample on the head of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed”)⁴⁰, and unfair taxation (“Israel….you levy a straw tax and impose a tax on the grain.”⁴¹ He prophesized that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah would be defeated by foreign powers because they have angered God by breaking the covenant and turning to pagan gods.   

 

Isaiah. Isaiah prophesized a couple of decades after Amos. From his invective against the unfaithful Israelites, we learn some important details about life in the 8th century BCE. First, there was accumulation of wealth: “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field.”⁴²  Second, this wealth accumulation was acquired unlawfully and through coercion (“Woes to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withholds justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless,”⁴³  and corruption (“Woe to those…. Who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.”⁴⁴ Third, wealth concentration generated a class of idle rich (“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.”⁴⁵ Fourth, the wives of rich men displayed ostentatiously their wealth and spent lavishly on themselves, “walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.”⁴⁶

 

In Isaiah, the oppression of the poor by the Israelites is tempered by the expression of steadfast love by the Lord: “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst, but I the Lord will answer them; the God of Israel will not forsake them.”⁴⁷ Then Lord also commands the Israelites to be merciful and generous with the poor: “Defend the oppressed; take up the case of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow;”⁴⁸ “Is it not this the kind of fasting I have chosen? To loosen the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide for the poor wanderer with shelter, when you see the naked to clothe them?”⁴⁹      

 

Other Sources. Commands to help the poor and needy are found in other Old Testament writings, especially Proverbs and Psalms. “It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor, but blessed is he who is kind to the poor.”⁵⁰ “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will reward them for what they have done.”⁵¹ “Blessed are those who have regard for the weak.”⁵²

 

Conclusions

 

While verses regarding social justice are found throughout the Old Testament, a comprehensive set of rules directed at the stability of the economic and social structure are found in the Mosaic Covenant. On the economic side, this covenant contains mixed rules about private property. It allows full property rights, including the right to buy and sell, for houses located within a walled city, and for personal property including foreign slaves and livestock, but only the right of use for land that God gave the Israelites as “inheritance.” The inalienable right to the use of the inherited land, transferable through generations, was the foundation of the Israelite economic system. It empowered each family by giving it the means to survive in freedom. Even if they fell on hard times and the family ended up as indentured labor, this servitude was limited as every fifty years everyone was free to return to his land. Support for landed families in need was extended to lending and charging interest. There were no controls over lending, but charging interest was allowed only in the case of commercial transactions with foreigners living outside Israel and perhaps well-to-do Israelites. No interest could be charged to landed Israelites who were in need (no one would lend to poor foreigners living in Israel or poor Israelites without any collateral). Moreover, the debts of these people were remitted every seven years. Thus, the Mosaic Covenant went to considerable length to help families maintain the independence to support themselves by working the land that the Lord had given them as inheritance. No one could deprive the descendants of this freedom.

 

This protection of subsistence farming did extend to poor foreigners living inside Israel and to widows and orphans. To ensure their survival, additional commands were incorporated in the covenant. First, landed families were asked not to harvest everything they produced, but to leave the gleanings for the poor. Second, every third year the poor were to partake with the Levites in the annual tithing of the production. Finally, the well-to-do were asked to be generous to the poor, for fear of the Lord’s retribution if not by natural disposition.

 

The Mosaic Covenant was structured to prevent the accumulation of wealth. It aimed at the prosperity and stability of a society which, though not necessarily egalitarian, was just in the sense that nobody was allowed to control an excessive amount of resources and everyone received through their own resources and the charity of others enough to survive. Gratitude to God in receiving was associated with generosity of giving. Sharing God’s bounty, not hoarding, was the ultimate blessing.     

 

It should be stressed that all the above components of the Mosaic Covenant were aimed at the survival and prosperity of the entire community. God did not make a personal deal with Moses. He made a covenant with the people of Israel, and they signed on to this covenant freely and collectively. In this covenant, the community comes first and its survival is paramount. Individuals have rights only within the context of the community. The land, the inheritance that sustains life, can only be tended. It cannot be sold because it is collectively held in the name of the Lord. Israel was not a nation built from the bottom up as some form of compromise of individual rights. It was built from the top, with a moral framework conditioning individual behavior offered by the Lord and accepted by the Israelites in exchange for God’s protection and blessings. Their freedom was the collective acceptance of God’s covenant and the responsibilities it imposed on each one of them.         

 

Biblical Roots: New Testament

The New Testament comprises 27 books: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude, and the Revelation to John. I will focus on three components: the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, one letter of James, and two letters of Paul.

The Gospels: Background. The four Gospels report the main events in Jesus’ life and his preaching. He is the center of the narrative. Regardless of what one may think about claims made about his divinity, within the Gospels and later in the evolution of the Christian faith, one aspect of Jesus’ life recorded in the Gospels is uncontroversial: he was a Galilean. According to the Gospels, he was born in Bethlehem, about 9 km southwest of Jerusalem, remained there for a while (from seven weeks to two years), lived in Egypt perhaps an additional two years, and spent the rest of his life up to the age of 30 in Nazareth, a small village a few miles from the Samaritan border.  Even his three years of ministry took place mostly in Galilee. When “Jesus himself was about thirty years old,”¹ John the Baptist “went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance,”² and “the whole Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.”³ “At the same time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the river Jordan.”⁴  

According to John (1:35-49), on the occasion of his baptism Jesus called his first four disciples: Simon, hereafter called Peter, his brother Andrew, Philip (all three fishermen from Bethsaida, 7 km from Capernaum), and Nathaniel also known as Bartholomew from Cana.⁵  From there they went to Cana, 6 km north of Nazareth, to attend a wedding: “Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had been invited.”⁶   After the wedding “he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brother and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.”⁷  

As the time of Passover approached, Jesus went to Jerusalem where he stayed a few days and then he and his disciples spent some time in the countryside baptizing in the same region where John was also baptizing.⁸ “When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison he withdrew to Galilee.”⁹ He travelled through Samaria and stopped for two days in Sychar, 50 km north of Jerusalem and halfway between Jerusalem and Nazareth. He went first to Nazareth, then visited Cana,¹⁰ and continued to Capernaum where he had his residence.¹¹  While in Capernaum he called two more brothers to his ministry, the fishermen James and John, sons of Zebedee. At this point, Jesus’ inner group consisted of seven Galileans: himself, five fishermen from the area around Capernaum, and a man from Cana. Six more apostles were added later, but of them we know only the names. Since the overwhelming portion of Jesus’ ministry took place in Galilee, it is not unreasonable to assume that most of the additional apostles were also Galileans.

According to John, Jesus visited Jerusalem five times during his adult life, usually travelling from Galilee. His first visit, at the Passover, has already been mentioned. “Some time later (after his return to Capernaum), Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.¹² It does not seem that Jesus stayed long in Jerusalem as the only reported “work” of Jesus was the healing of a paralytic.¹³ The third visit was for the Feast of Tabernacles. “Jesus brothers” wanted him to go to Jerusalem to “show the works you do,”¹⁴, but Jesus initially refused. Later he changed his mind and went, but in secret, and “not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.”¹⁵ His next visit was during the ensuing “Festival of Dedication (Hanukkah) in Jerusalem.” Walking in the Temple courts, he was engaged in debates about his nature and whether he was the Messiah.¹⁶   His last visit, the final Passover, he was in Jerusalem for only one week and culminated in his death on the cross.

Over his entire life, Jesus spent at most five years outside Galilee, if we assume that his family remained a couple of years around Jerusalem after his birth and consider true the account of the escape to Egypt. His ministry took place largely in Galilee: “The Sermon on the Mount, his Transfiguration….nineteen of his thirty-two parables, and twenty-five of his thirty-three recorded miracles occurred in Galilee.”¹⁷ Moreover, within this region, his ministry was largely confined to the villages and countryside around the Sea of Galilee, a lake about 21 km long and 13 km wide, particularly the north-western tip around Capernaum. At his death, only a few followers from Galilee were near the cross: one man and several women who had helped him throughout his ministry. At the resurrection, he appeared first to some of the same Galilean women and then to the apostles, most of whom were Galileans.

Galilee is a region of Palestine, earlier part of the northern kingdom of Israel, with some specific characteristics. At the time of Jesus, it covered an area about 90 km long and 45 km wide, with an area roughly half of Rhode Island. It had a population of about 400 thousand inhabitants, mostly scattered over a large number of small villages. The village where he grew up had no more than 500 people, and the village where he had the “headquarter” of his ministry had about 1,500 people. There were only two fairly large cities in Galilee: Tiberias and Sepphoris. There is no record that Jesus visited either of these two cities during his ministry. Whether he visited them during the “blank” 18 years is unknown, but highly improbable. These were somewhat cosmopolitan cities while Jesus spoke only Aramaic and Hebrew. There would have been nothing in them to attract Jesus’ interest.

Around 103 BCE, Galilee was claimed by the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty. During their 40-year reign, Galileans could maintain and refine their faith traditions and strengthen their cultural and linguistic foundations in a land surrounded on three sides by potential enemies. The daily life of ordinary Galileans, who lived largely in rural areas, was not affected when the Romans took over 63 BCE and 16 years later appointed Herod the Great as governor of Galilee and later king of all Judea which included Galilee and other regions. The Romans were concentrated in the two main cities and Herod the Great focused his activities in Jerusalem. At the time of his death in 4 BCE, Herod bequeathed Galilee and Parea to his son Herod Antipas, with the approval of Caesar Augustus. Antipas ruled until 39 CE when he was exiled to Gaul by Caligula. Antipas rule ushered a period of peace and prosperity in Galilee. His main focus was on a strong building program, particularly the reconstruction of Sepphoris and the foundation of Tiberias, which became the new capital.              

Unlike Judea, Galilee was blessed with fertile agricultural land. Society in Galilee can be separated into two groups. The first group includes the majority of its population: it had local roots, lived in small rural villages, enjoyed a comfortable subsistence life, lacked the presence of large landowner or aristocratic classes, spoke Aramaic, and followed traditional Jewish faith practices. The locals coexisted peacefully with a minority that lived in urban areas, and comprised a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic subgroups that interacted with each other and spoke primarily Hebrew and Greek.  

Jesus was a Galilean, who spent most of his life in Galilee, who gathered a group of 12 disciples, mostly from the same region, and exercised his ministry primarily in the countryside of Galilee. His mother tongue was Aramaic, and he later learned Hebrew. His faith, acquired through that of his family and of the community in which he grew up, was the simple but unshakable set of beliefs that command fidelity to the word of God not to external signs and rules created by self-serving humans seeking power and wealth. Of his parents’ abiding faith we know from Luke: “When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth.”¹⁸ According to Luke (2:41), “Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.” This was not a short trip to the synagogue for the Sabbath service.  It was about 110 km going straight through Samaria and it would take 4 days walking. 

Though raised in a small community of mostly uneducated folks, Jesus was a highly learned man, not in scientific disciplines, mathematics, or engineering, but in the language, scriptures, faith, and traditions of his ancestors. When he was twelve years old, his parents took him to Jerusalem for the Passover. As he remained behind after they left, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him and “found him in the Temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.”¹⁹  According to Gospels, this amazement was expressed also by all those who heard him teaching throughout his ministry, and a good part of his time in Jerusalem was spent in theological debates.

The conflict between the zealous faith of the young rural Jesus and the commercialized religion of Jerusalem’s urban population is highlighted by John who places his first visit to the Holy city as an adult on the Passover following his baptism. Used to small rural synagogues where pious men and women went to worship, Jesus was appalled at what he saw at the Temple in Jerusalem: “He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.”²⁰ Unable to contain his outrage, “He made a whip out of the cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market.”²¹ (John 2:13-17).   

The Gospels: Social Teaching. Jesus’ teaching was grounded on the Scriptures. While some of his pronouncements appear to be radical, he was a fundamentalist in the sense that the foundations of his faith were rooted in the Covenants between God and His people. He did not make a specific speech on social justice. We can only infer from his actions, his parables, and his teachings. These inferences involve a certain degree of subjectivity.

The Lord’s Prayer. Let us start with the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples upon request, and focus on three salient aspects. First, this prayer is based on an old Jewish poem/prayer known as Kaddish. Second, since the Kaddish was written in Aramaic, and the disciples also spoke Aramaic, it is highly probable that the Lord’s prayer was originally spoken in the same language. As an aside, I believe that the apostles asked Jesus for a new prayer not just for themselves but a universal prayer for all those who converted, and the potential converts at that time were rural Galileans who spoke Aramaic. Third, the Lord’s prayer is a reaffirmation of the Mosaic Covenant.  The first two lines confirm the acceptance of one God and parallel the first two commandments. Lines three and four repeat the free acceptance of God’s will in the Mosaic Covenant. Line 5 of the Lord’s prayer expresses the belief that the God of Israel is the giver of life (bread is life). The prayer in this line is not for riches or power, it is just for the necessities of life. Life depends on God, but a happy life does not depend on wealth. The next two lines deal with forgiveness in general, but they also encompass the practical forgiveness of debts that formed one of the pillars of the Mosaic Covenant. The final lines are directly tied to the Mosaic Covenant as the petitioners beg God to free them from the temptations to break the commandments and to protect them from the evil that arises from revolting against God’s will. The second part of the Lord’s prayer also highlights its communal nature. It is not an individual petition for personal healing and salvation. The plural in all lines reflects a prayer of an individual on behalf of a community.               

Private Property. Jesus makes no specific reference to private property. However, he does make a number of references to purchases and sales of land. He also identifies the existence of wealthy landowners who could afford to hire workers and even live away from their land.²² It seems that from the time of Mosaic Covenant to the time of Jesus, the restrictions on the permanent sale of land had been progressively eroded, and had facilitated the accumulation of wealth in the form of land holdings.

Work and Wages. Jesus makes reference to two types of work: the work we do to survive, and the work we do for the kingdom of God. Starting with the former, we need to remember that what he says about work is an addition to commands in the Mosaic Covenant: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”²³ We saw in the previous chapter that the Mosaic Covenant contained a number of commands related to the treatment of workers: a six-day work-week, prohibition to oppress hired servants, indentured workers, and even slaves, and immediate payment of wages. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard,²⁴ Jesus expands on this theme. In this parable, a landowner goes five times to the market place to hire workers for his vineyard, at intervals of three hours. To the first group he offered one denarius, the going daily wage for a laborer, and to the others “whatever is right.” It’s important to note that the workers hired later in the day were not just standing idle in the market place. They were not resting at home, but were in the marketplace waiting to be hired. At the end of the day, he gave one denarius each to all the workers. This parable establishes two principles. First, if an individual is willing and ready to work but cannot find employment, the fault is not his but of the economic system. Second, a willing worker is entitled to a living wage regardless of the number of hours he labors. He should receive (from the employer or other sources) an amount not determined by what he produces but what he needs for a decent living. It must be stressed that, in this parable, the hiring and wage decisions by the landowner are a free choice. Jesus does not advocate specific labor laws. He shows us the principles that would govern employment and wages in the kingdom of God.

Work is one of the foundations of the kingdom of God. We saw in the previous chapter how the world’s creation required work and how Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden “to work it and take care of it.”²⁵ Jesus explains that the kingdom on earth is not complete yet. Not only the Lord’s Prayer includes the special petition, “Your Kingdom come”, but Jesus points out that he and his Father are still busy at work to make it a reality. In John 5:17 we read, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working,” and later continues, “The son can do only what he sees his Father is doing, because whatever the Father does the son also does.”²⁶ Finally, he concludes, “The works that the Father has given me to finish �" the very works that I am doing �" testify that the Father has sent me.”²⁷  Not only are we commanded to work for the kingdom of God, we are asked to work diligently and efficiently.²⁸

All the principles, policies, and programs related to employment, work conditions, and wages, are part of the overall human effort of building the kingdom of God on earth (“Your kingdom come”). In doing so, everyone is to obey God’s will (“Your will be done”) not their own will or desires. This means that employers and employees at a minimum are bound to obey the Ten Commandments. Both need to operate with honesty, and can neither lie nor cheat one another or the consumers. Workers are required to work diligently and employers are required to treat them with dignity and to avoid exploiting them.

Wealth. Jesus had a lot to say about wealth. At first blush it seems that he categorically condemns the accumulation of wealth. In Luke 6:24 he says, “Woe to you who are rich”; in Matthew 6:24 he adds, “No one can serve two masters….you cannot serve both God and money”; and in Matthew 23-24 he proclaims, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Other passages attributed to him, however, suggest that his view of wealth was more nuanced. First, his view was grounded on the priority of the kingdom of God, as was with every other human issue. As he is recorded as saying by Matthew (6:19), “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth….but store up treasures in heaven.” He believed that a comfortable life required a moderate amount of resources: “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”²⁹ Seeking more than that was greed, and greed interfered with the capacity to seek the kingdom of God: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,”³⁰ a statement that parallels the tenth commandment. Second, wealth is not intrinsically bad. It is a curse because if our treasure is wealth, the focus of our life is on accumulating and protecting it instead of seeking the kingdom of God.³¹ 

Two parables provide insights into Jesus’ view of wealth. The first is the conversation with a wealthy man who wanted to know what he should do to gain eternal life. Learning that this man was following the commandments, but was unsure about his standing with God, Jesus advised him: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give them to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven.”³² The second parable deals with the encounter with another rich man, a chief tax collector named Zaccheus. When Jesus was passing through Jericho, Zaccheus wanted to see him and climbed a tree because he was short. Seeing Zaccheus on the tree, Jesus asked him to come down and invited himself for dinner. Zaccheus was so elated that he volunteered to give away half of his wealth and to repay four times the amount that he may have gained by cheating.³³  In the first parable we have a rich man who is very attached to his wealth and is looking for Jesus’ blessing to keep it. He does not seek salvation; he just wants a blessing for keeping the commandments. For this man, wealth is a curse. Zaccheus, by contrast, wants peace of mind, forgiveness, and redemption. Jesus does not ask him to give up his wealth because he realizes that for Zaccheus wealth is not an obstacle to enter the kingdom of God. Zaccheus volunteers to give more than half of his wealth and asks nothing in return. Jesus grants him salvation without conditions.         

Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical cases of our own. The first case involves a couple with two children who received a large financial windfall. It decides to keep part of it for the family’s financial security and for the rest sets up a charitable trust administered by a financial institution. In the second case we have an entrepreneur who has become rich by offering his workers poor working conditions and low wages and who leads a modestly comfortable life and gives the rest to charity. According to Jesus, the behavior of the family is consistent with the kingdom of God, because their treasure is not their wealth, but the behavior of the entrepreneur is not because his wealth was ill-gotten. These parables indicate that it is not what we possess and what we give away that affects our place in the kingdom of God. It is our relationship with our possessions that matter. If we are focused on the kingdom of God, our hearts and minds are filled with the desire to serve Him and we are fulfilled by the very acts of serving regardless of what we get in return. Material possessions in addition to a normal life offer noting of value.

These parables and cases bring forth two additional principles. First, passive obedience to the Law is not sufficient to enter the kingdom of God. We need to be proactive, as Jesus was throughout his entire ministry. Second, in the kingdom of God the end does not justify the means. There is only one end, the kingdom of God, and only one way, loving God, obeying his commandments, and working tirelessly toward that end.      

Helping the Poor. Jesus did not present a structured anti-poverty plan to be implemented by public institutions. His concern for the poor was personal, and was expressed in action throughout his entire ministry. The four gospels record about 20 instances of Jesus’ healings. Only two of those �" the servant of the centurion,³⁴  and the daughter of a synagogue leader³⁵ �" are members of well-to-do households. The rest are ordinary folks, mostly poor: blind, lepers, cripples, widows, bleeding, possessed. In Jesus’ teachings, giving to the poor is so important that it is considered the passport to eternal life, as Jesus made it clear in Matthew 25: 31-36, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory,” and separates people as sheep on the right from the goats on the left, “he will say to those on the left ‘depart from me, you who are cursed. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

Jesus addresses the individual instead of governmental institutions because his focus is the kingdom of God. In a society where every individual is seeking the kingdom of God, there will be no large concentration of wealth and no high degree of poverty, because the primary focus of life is on one’s relationship with God. Wealth accumulation interferes with that relationship and the existence of poverty is a state against God’s will because God, as we saw in the previous chapter, does not want any of his people to be poor. From this perspective, the degree of poverty and wealth concentration in a country may be viewed as an indicator of the separation of its citizens from the kingdom of God.

The Gospels reaffirm the fundamental principles of the Mosaic Covenant: the crucial role of work in human life, the dignified treatment of workers, the prompt payment for their labor, the dangers of seeking wealth, and the obligation to help not just the poor but anyone who asks. The Gospels emphasize particularly a Trinity of love as the driver of all human activity: love for God, love for friend and foe, and love for justice. In a society made up of hateful people, justice can never prevail regardless of its economic structure and political system. 

Acts of the Apostles and the Second Letter of James. The Acts is the fifth book of the New Testament and the second book attributed to Luke. It describes the activities of the Apostles in the immediate aftermath of the crucifixion and resurrection and the formation of the early Christian communities. For the purpose of this book, I focus on three elements of Acts. The first is the way Peter identified Jesus in his conversation with the centurion Cornelius in Caesarea, “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached �" how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”³⁶  For Peter, Jesus was the obedient Son of God who dedicated his life to doing good works and healing the sick. He was a worker, but not a physician or a social worker. He was not even a religious leader. He was anointed by God and was given power in order to do God’s work on earth. This work consisted in healing body and spirit. He did this work not by his own powers but because “God was with him.” Second, the apostles are to follow the example of Jesus: they preached, converted, and healed. We are told in Acts that “Peter converted many,”³⁷ that “The Apostles performed many signs and wonders,”³⁸ and that Peter and Paul healed many.³⁹ Third, the early Christians were part of sharing communities: “The believers were together and had everything in common.”⁴⁰; “All the believers were of one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”⁴¹

Second Letter of James. This letter focuses on two issues. The first is the condemnation of the wealthy: “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming to you….The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you.”⁴²  Notice that the curse is not on wealth per se, but on riches accumulated by cheating. Those who acquired wealth by effectively stealing from others are cursed even if they give all their money to charities. Second, faith is not an intellectual exercise. It is action. It is “doing good and healing”, as Jesus did. James’ most famous quote, “Faith without deed is dead”⁴³ is consistent with Jesus’ parable of the two sons⁴⁴. We do not gain the Kingdom of God by our works, but we are certainly excluded from it without works. God graciously offers us his kingdom. Our works signify our acceptance of God’s offer. If we simply say “I accept your offer, Lord” and will not follow with action, that offer is inoperative. We enter the kingdom of God through our works by the grace of God. 

Selected Letters of Paul. These letters offer additional insights into the Christian view of riches, sharing, work, and the common good. The issue of riches is addressed in the first letter to Timothy, written in Macedonia around 64-65 CE. In this letter Paul offers instructions to Timothy, one of his converts, with respect to personal behavior and duties, and warns him against false teachings. His warnings about materialism are found in 1Timothy 6:8-10: “If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” In this passage Paul reformulates Jesus’ teaching on this subject. Riches have no inherent goodness or evil in themselves. Their evil rests in their power to destroy our life by separating us from God. 

Paul also stressed the responsibility of sharing and helping the needy. In 1Timothy 5:3-8, he deals with helping within the extended family, particularly widows. He identifies three types of widows. Those no older than 60 are not even recorded because they are still capable of working and are encouraged to remarry. Widows over 60 who have children and grandchildren are to be supported by them. Paul is very strict with respect to the duties of family members: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their household, has denied their faith.”⁴⁵ In this verse, Paul gives substance to the fifth commandment. Honoring father and mother is not restricted to behaving in a respectful manner towards one’s parents, but carries the obligation to take care of them in their time of need. The widow who is poor and alone may be entitled to support from the community under two conditions: she was faithful during her marriage, and she did good deeds in the community. The first condition also reaffirms our commitment to the commandments, in this case the seventh. It makes it clear that breaking the Covenant has material consequences. The second condition highlights the principle that, in a Christian community, duties have priority over rights. 

Paul wrote two letters to the Thessalonians around 51 and 52 CE. In the second letter he shows his concern for the behavior of some members who “are idle and disruptive.”⁴⁶ He reminds them that during his previous visits to the Thessalonian community he did not rely on his position of authority to remain idle, but “worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden on any of you.”⁴⁷ He then concludes with his summary rule: “the one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”⁴⁸

Paul also wrote two letters to the Corinthians, the first from Ephesus in 53-54 CE and the second from Macedonia around 55 CE. The first letter was written in response to news about disagreements among the members of the Church at Corinth. In his plea for unity, he uses two examples in the manner of Jesus’ parables. The first example contains his reference to the “common good” in relation to the gifts of the Spirit. Noting that they are doing well economically, Paul explains that “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.”⁴⁹ Then he adds that, “…to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”⁵⁰

The concepts of work in 2 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians are closely interrelated. In the latter, Paul tells the members of the Church at Corinth that every believer has received special gifts. There is no ranking of these gifts in terms of their importance and no difference in their purpose. They all come from the Spirit and they must all be directed to the benefit of the community. These gifts cannot benefit the community if they are not exercised through some form of activity. This latter point is stressed in the second letter to the Thessalonians. A person shows commitment to the community of believers by deeds, not by words. Membership offers benefits but imposes responsibilities. Every member is entitled to the benefits to the extent that her/his responsibilities are fulfilled. According to Paul, willingness to work is a necessary condition for membership in the community. Anyone who is not willing to work is not a member of the community and therefore is ineligible for the benefits it provides. Notice that Paul says “one who is not willing” not “one who does not”.  His focus is on the attitude of a person. A sick member cannot work even if she is willing, therefore remains a full member of the community. A healthy person who is not willing to work cannot be a member.

The concept of the common good in Paul is not a social welfare function derived from the aggregation of the preferences of individuals who seek personal interest unrelated to the wellbeing of others. With Paul, the order is reversed. First comes the community, then the responsibility that each member has to the community, and last the satisfaction of the needs of individuals.

Because the concept of the common good is central to Catholic social teachings, it may be useful to discuss this concept in more detail. Paul’s common good, Jesus’s Kingdom of God, and the Mosaic Covenant are all expressions of the same principle: salvation is not an individual act. Let us identify some of the major elements of this principle.

First, the community’s interests have priority over those of its members. A community is not an aggregation of individuals who interact for the purpose of promoting their self-interest. It is made of a group of people with a common purpose. 

Second, this common purpose is not determined by the members through some voting mechanism. It is given exogenously. In the context of Catholic social teaching, it is given by God.

Third, though given exogenously, this common purpose is not imposed but is freely accepted. God did not impose the Mosaic Covenant. He asked the people whether they would be willing to accept it. As practicing Catholics, we renew that choice at least once a week when we recite the Lord’s Prayer: we pray that the kingdom of God may come and that we may follow God’s will, not ours. The freedom to choose whether or not you want to be an active participant in the kingdom of God, to use Jesus’ wording, is not similar to the numerous, recurrent, and trivial economic choices of individuals: how much to work, how to allocate income between today’s and tomorrow’s consumption, how to allocate one’s spending budget. It is a binary choice: to be part of the kingdom of God or not. That choice determines all other decisions.

Fourth, while outside the kingdom, people pursue their self-interest without regard for their effects on others, inside it, interpersonal relationships and taking care of our neighbors are secondary only to our love for God. As Jesus taught us in the parable of the good Samaritan,⁵¹ we must assist anyone who needs help. Not only are we to help our neighbors, but we must love them,⁵², and our neighbors include also our enemies.⁵³ 

Fifth, although there are costs and benefits to belonging to the kingdom of God, saying yes is not a decision based on a calculation of loss and gain. We know our responsibilities in detail because they were spelled out in the Ten Commandments and in the teachings of Jesus, but we do not know the specific benefits. We have only God’s promises. As stated in Matthew 6: 33, “…seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (material things) will be given to you as well.” The “things” that we will receive may not be what we hoped to receive or prayed for.

Sixth, our gifts are not our private property because they have been given free by the Spirit.  Thus, what we receive from the use of those gifts is partly a return to our efforts and partly a benefit from the free gifts themselves. Therefore, our income is not exclusive personal property, but part of it should be shared.                

Seven, maintaining the kingdom of God requires faithful work. Jesus did not rest much during his ministry, and his rest was for praying and restoring his energy to continue his mission. Paul “worked night and day, laboring and toiling” for the Church in Thessalonia.⁵⁴

Eight, the community that has chosen the kingdom of God is not a human entity separate from God; it is the body of Christ. Working for the common good is being “laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.”

Two further concluding points need to be made. First, the concept of the common good is not addressed to policymaking institutions and does not provide a detailed policy program. It is a guide to individual behavior consistent with citizenship in the kingdom of God. These citizens, in turn, would develop the institutions and policies that are needed for the kingdom of God to materialize on earth. The principles summarized above represent a sketch of the social constitution of the kingdom of God.

 Second, in the Scriptures reviewed so far, the communities involved were small and rather homogeneous and were operating within a largely agricultural economic system. The Mosaic Covenant was confined to the 12 tribes of Israel; Jesus’ mission was directed at “the lost children of Israel”; and the early Christian Churches not only had a limited number of members, but were homogenous in belief by choice. When industrialization began transforming the economic structure, new issues arose and the scope of the Catholic social teaching expanded. In the time span from the Gospels to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, useful insights are provided by the writings of early and late Church Fathers. A brief review of some of these writings is presented in the next three chapters.

 

Notes to Old Testament

 

All quotes are from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible

 

¹ Exodus, 3: 1-12

² Exodus, 19:1-2

³ Exodus, 19: 3-6

⁴ Exodus, 19: 8-11

⁵ Exodus 20:41

⁶ Genesis, 9:9-11

⁷ Genesis, 15:18

⁸ Genesis, 17: 2-8

⁹ Genesis, 17: 10

¹⁰ Leviticus: 25:23

¹¹ Numbers: 26,1-2

¹² Numbers, 26: 52-56

¹³ Numbers, 26: 52-56

¹⁴ Leviticus 25:23

¹⁵ Numbers, 36:7

¹⁶ Joshua, 13:14

¹⁷ Joshua, 21:3

¹⁸ Leviticus, 25:23

¹⁹ Numbers, 36:7

²⁰ Leviticus, 25:29-31

²¹ Leviticus 25:44-46

²² Deuteronomy, 8:7-9

²³ Deuteronomy, 6:24

²⁴ Deuteronomy, 8:11-14

²⁵ Leviticus 25:10

²⁶ Leviticus 25:13

²⁷ Leviticus 25:35

²⁸ Deuteronomy 15:1-3

²⁹ Deuteronomy 15:4

³⁰ Deuteronomy 15:7-8

³¹ Genesis 3:17

³² Genesis 3:17

³³ Exodus 3:8, 33:3; Leviticus 20:24; Numbers 14:8; Deuteronomy 8:7

³⁴ Exodus 31:14-15

³⁵ Robert Whaples, “Hours of Work in U.S. History,” Table 1, EH.net

³⁶ Leviticus 19:13

³⁷ Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21

³⁸ Amos 2:4

³⁹ Amos 4:1

⁴⁰ Amos 2:6-7

⁴¹ Amos 5:11

⁴² Isaiah 5:8

⁴³ Isaiah 10:1-2

⁴⁴ Isaiah 5:22-23

⁴⁵ Isaiah5:11-12

⁴⁶ Isaiah3:16:23

⁴⁷ Isaiah 41:17

⁴⁸ Isaiah1:17

⁴⁹ Isaiah 58:6-7

⁵⁰ Proverbs 14:21

⁵¹ Proverbs 19:17

⁵² Psalms 41:1

 Notes to New Testament

All quotes are from the New Internation Version (NIV) of the Bible

¹ Luke 3:23

² Luke 3:1

³Mark: 1:5; Matthew 3:13

⁴ Mark 1:9; Matthew 3:13

⁵ John 21:2

⁶ John 2: 1-2

⁷ John 2: 12

⁸ John 3

⁹ Matthew 4: 12-13

¹⁰ John 4: 46

¹¹ Matthew 4: 12-13

¹² John 5:1

¹³ John 5:5-8

¹⁴ John 7:2-3

¹⁵ John 7: 9-10

¹⁶ John 10:22

¹⁷Encyclopedia of the Bible, “Galilee.” www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Galilee

¹⁸ Luke 2:39

¹⁹ Luke 2:46-47

²⁰ John 2:14

²¹ John 2:13-17

²² Matthew 13,20,21; Mark 12; Luke 20

²³ Matthew 5:17

²⁴ Matthew 20: 1-16

²⁵ Genesis 2: 15

²⁶John 5: 19

²⁷ John 5: 36

²⁸ Matthew 25:14-30

²⁹ Luke 12:15

³⁰ Luke 12:15

³¹ Matthew 6:19-21

³² Matthew 19: 16-24

³³ Luke 19: 2-10

³⁴ Luke 7:1-10

³⁵ Luke 8: 40-41

³⁶ Acts 10: 37-38

³⁷ Acts 2: 44

³⁸ Acts 5: 12

³⁹ Acts 5: 13-16; Acts 9: 32-43; Acts 20: 7-12

⁴⁰ Acts 2: 44-45

⁴¹ Acts 4: 32-34

⁴² James 5:1-4

⁴³2 James 2:26

⁴⁴ Matthew: 21: 28-31

⁴⁵1Timothy 5: 8

⁴⁶2 Thessalonians 3:11 

⁴⁷ 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9

⁴⁸2 Thessalonians 3:10

⁴⁹1 Corinthians 12:4

⁵⁰1 Corinthains 12:7

⁵¹ Luke 10: 25-37

⁵² Matthew 22:39

⁵³ Matthew 5: 43-47

⁵⁴1 Thessalonians 2:9