Two Verses You Might Have Skipped

It's easy to let your eyes wander when reading the law--much of it is common sense, and since for the most part we are no longer an agrarian people, some of it simply doesn't apply to us. However, I want to concentrate on two verses, Exodus 23:2-3:

"Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit."

Since the beginning of man, jealousy has been with us. Indeed, Cain killed Abel because he was jealous of the favoritism God showed. Jealousy matched with a mob mentality is an extremely volatile situation, and when you get millions of people together in a small space, any bad idea can flourish shockingly quick.

The key word in these verses is "pervert," in that God wanted justice, not revenge against a rich man for being rich. God is not saying here that the rich are always right, and we know that, but a persistent theme in our culture today is the "greed" of the rich and "evil corporations." I won't belabor these points and explain just how moronic they are (that day will come, believe me) except to say that a presumption of guilt against the wealthy seems to exist. This isn't neither right nor fair, and the Lord is clearly telling us that this is not to be tolerated. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and a person's station in life is not to be considered when rendering judgment.

We will read one of the most misquoted and misinterpreted verses in the Bible on December 17th, and the presumption that wealth and riches are somehow obtained at the expense of others is simply wrong. There are times the rich will be guilty and obtain their riches in ways that are less than honorable, and in those cases, the judgments against them will be harsh. The common perception is to look at companies such as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and others that did reap ill-gotten gains and consider them the rule as opposed to the extreme minorities they are, but that's what happens when we let our own jealousies enter into our thinking. God clearly tells us to refrain from that.

One last brief point--look at 24:3, where the people of Israel state with one voice "Everything the Lord has said we will do." I want you to remember that verse as we move forward.

Scott