This Is Our City

Are we Christians of the New Testament or are we warmed over Israelites following the Talmud?

God's will for mankind regarding property after the fall was revealed in the Torah: thou shalt not steal. No one believes in a 'free market capitalist Eden'. Hermit has to fight a straw man because he can't stand up to the real thing. As the Godly scholars of Salamanca determined, based on the Word of God, God sanctified private property in the Torah and the only just market is a free market.

Continuing the theme of honest Bible interpretation, how should we handle the Torah commands regarding the poor? If we are going to obey part of the law, Paul says we should keep all of it and the Torah requires the death penalty for violating the Sabbath. If we apply Torah law directly today and allow the state to force wealth redistribution, then we should allow the state to execute Sabbath offenders, adulterers and homosexuals. Wise Church scholars separated the roles of religion and state. The Church is responsible for the poor and for religion. The state is responsible for civil law. In addition, Jubilee and Sabbath year debt forgiveness involved no wealth redistribution. The Torah specifies that all sales of property and loans (except those to the poor) should be pro-rated based on the amount of time to Jubilee and the Sabbath year. In other words, the Torah doesn’t allow sales of land as we know it today, but what we would call long-term leases.

Christians need to consider that the majority of the population is not Christian; they are not subject to the principles for godly living to which Christians subject themselves. To force non-Christians to act like Christians is absurd.

Some people want to make Jesus a policy wonk. The lack they natural fear that Christians should have of putting words in God's mouth. Jesus had very little to say about state policy. When the church has the right to arrest and try criminals then I'll concede that the state has the authority to do the church's job. To treat the Bible honestly and not put words in Jesus' mouth, one has to examine the context. In context, all of Jesus' teaching referred to the way believer should act; they were not government policy and to claim they are is simply dishonest. Of course Christians are to share their wealth, but that says nothing about what the state should do. Church scholars determined centuries ago that the role of the state is that of a night watchman. Attempting to do anything more infringes on the role of the Church and the family. Attempting to collect taxes for anything more is theft. As as CT has pointed out, free markets help the poor more than charity.