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Social injustices and social oppression
Social injustice among minorities
Explain how Old Testament prophets addressed social injustice
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The prophets forthtold the message of God and foretold the future judgment and restoration He will bring. Israel and Judah were turned against God and living in their sin. Therefore, God sent prophets to both regions. The prophet’s job was to warn the people of the upcoming judgment and to repent of their sins. The prophets condemned several sins that were committed including idolatry, social injustice, and religious ritualism. Idolatry was one of the main reasons why the people of Judah were exiled to Babylon. Since they disobeyed God and worshipped false idols, God placed judgment on Judah. Jerusalem fell to Babylon, and they were taken into captivity. Jeremiah was a prophet during the fall of Jerusalem. He told Judah to turn away from …show more content…
The rich were taking advantage of the poor and exalting their wealth. “Another main area of disobedience took the form of social injustice, as the rich and powerful exploited the poor and needy. Wealth, possessions, and pleasure took priority over their relationship with God” (Hindson & Yates, 869). The prophet, Amos, went to the Israelites to condemn them of this sin. “For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts” (Amos 5:12). God cares for the poor and has compassion on them. His people were to do the same, yet they disobeyed. Micah also prophesied against social injustice. “Your rich people are violent; your inhabitants are liars and their tongues speak deceitfully. Therefore, I have begun to destroy you, to ruin you because of your sins” (Micah 6:12-13). God is just and will judge those who act unjustly to others. God will judge all the nations of their unjust behavior to one another, including Israel and Judah. “Because of their sinfulness, because of their treating others inhumanely, none of the nations…will be able to escape God’s judgment; this included Judah and Israel” (Mamahit,
Later around 792 BCE, the writing prophets come about with the powerful speaker Amos. Amos says a bunch of things that no one wants to hear such as the downfall of Israel’s Northern Kingdom and the death of the King. Then he really upsets everyone by saying that Israel will be sent into exile.
The message of Zechariah was to give hope to God’s people by revealing God’s future delivering through the Messiah. The exiles had made their way from Babylon to rebuild the temple, but the work had been ...
Jeremiah had a very unique message in his time that dealt with the way that people lived their own lives. He believed that sin was chiefly directed towards Judah. It states this point in Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 11, "For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the Lord." (Harper Collins, 1124). With that, the sins of Judah were that of the sins of the people of Judah. Each person must reduce his or her own sins in order for the whole nation to finally turn to God (Baughman, 153).
However, even though the exiles were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland of Judah, many of the people chose not to return but to remain in the recently conquered city of Babylon. There are many contributing factors concerning why these Hebrew exiles chose to remain. Even so, it is difficult to understand why a people, who were located in Palestine for over a millennium and who had such strong religious beliefs and practices, would choose to abandon the location of their now destroyed sacred Temple and ancestral home after being exiled for only fifty years.
One day, a rich man turned to Jesus and asked him about how to inherit an eternal life. Even though he had already followed the particular commandments such as not murdering, stealing, lying and honoring your parents, he still could not keep the law perfectly. Because Jesus asked him to give all his fortune to the poor but he would not like to. Jesus told disciples that it would be easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God. (Mark 10:17-10:25)
For instance, Leviticus 25:35 states, “’if your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you” (ESV). As a Christian, a person is called to help those who are struggling, and speaks of giving everything a person has to help those around him or her. According to the Jacob Riis film, citizens turned a blind eye to all those suffering, without a home or food. It also states in Proverbs 22:2, “…the rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the maker of them all” (ESV). God created everyone on the Earth, and did not create one group to feel superior over another. The last passage that represents the other half is Proverbs 28:6, “ Better is poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways” (ESV). A man can be as poor as can be, but wealth does not make you better in the eyes of God.
It was a huge problem in Israel by that time. But God did not allow it to grow, He showed His judgement for not being social justice according to the laws of Moses. It is not hard to find in Ezekiel 16. “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen (Ezekiel 16: 48-50).” It is a great example that people could see God’s divine judgment. From Moses laws, it is clearly that the better to do is to help, and God did bless those who bless the less fortunate. There is another example in Ruth 2, Boaz blessed Ruth and telling her that “You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go glean in another field, nor go from there, but stay close by my young women (Ruth 2:8).” However, Israel failed in this test, and they suffered God’s punishment because of that. It could be even more obvious during modern time. Sometimes, God set up a tiny goal that He wants His people to achieve. But His followers did not follow Him as His wished. Because of the technology developing so fast, it is easier for nowadays people being not socially. People use social media to contact with each other, when they are ten centimeters from each other.
Lamentations, written by the prophet Jeremiah, is a poem mourning the passing of Judah by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. (Bailey, 82) through siege and battle. Prior to the destruction, Jeremiah had warned or rather prophesized that Judah must change its ways or suffer the consequence of the Lords wrath. Before the Babylonians destroy the city of Jerusalem, Jeremiah warns the people to live by the laws of Babylon and even wrote the warning down to be presented to the people and even to the King. The King, who was placed on the throne by Egypt, in anger, burns the paper and has Jeremiah thrown in jail. While in Jail, Jeremiah conti...
The book of Zephaniah contains messages of divine judgment against Judah and Jerusalem, as well as against other nations. It addresses a rare concentration of references to central issues in the history of ancient Israel. Idolatry, violence, and deception abound in Judah when Zephaniah began prophesying. Zephaniah's prophesying made it clear that Yahweh would execute vengeance upon unrepentant wrongdoers. His adverse judgments would be visited not only upon Judah and Jerusalem, but also upon other peoples: the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Ethiopians, and Assyrians. Significantly, Zephaniah, the prophet, never stands at the center of the book of Zephaniah; the word of Yahweh is at the center of the book. Zephaniah is mentioned only insofar as he is necessary for the interpretation of the text.
The Babylonian Exile or Captivity was a forced exodus of the Jews to Babylon. This was known as the ultimate punishment for the people of Israel because of their inability to uphold the covenant with YHWH. The exile began from a revolt in Judah that led to conquest by the Babylonians in 598 B.C.E. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the Holy City for the people of Judah, was the aftermath of this happening. About twenty thousand citizens were deported to Babylon where they resided for approximately seventy years. When the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians under Cyrus, the people of Judah were allowed safe return back to Jerusalem, given a free degree of self-rule. The Exile had the effect of reminding the Jews of the importance in keeping the covenant with YHWH as it brought about identity changes, reestablishment of community life and distinction of religion.
During the destruction of Jerusalem, God is still with the people of Israel who were exile into Babylon, which is shown through the prophet Jeremiah. While delivering the words of God, Jeremiah was put through multiples rough situations. In the time of sorrow and grief, Jeremiah cried out to God in the place of exile in Babylon. The use of harsh language to blame the wrongdoing against God is a driving factor into comparing the similarity of the predestined birth of Jeremiah and Israel yet their faith to God at the end is completely different.
Much of scripture speaks to the issues of money and taking up cause for the poor, who are among the most vulnerable in society. The Old Testament has a key theme of protecting the powerless. The powerless in biblical times were often the most financially vulnerable within society, yet God cares for them. Kyle Fedler explains that God’s favoritism seems to rest with the poor and oppressed, and to reject those members of the community, is to reject the God that so deeply loves them. Within our society we often show our favoritism not to the poor, but to the wealthy. Our society runs off of individualism. That individualism blinds us to the needs of
The Prophet is a book of short essays by Kahlil Gibran on a variety of themes ranging from love and marriage to pain and death presented by a character named Almustafa. By using a variety of rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes, and imagery, he enhances the ideas presented in each section and makes them easier for the reader to comprehend and put into practice. Although written in 1923, all of the themes are still very relevant in today’s world, perhaps even more so.
A prophet was a person viewed upon as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God. Prophets bring the word of God to the people of God and calls the people to respond. They were called by God in times of crisis, and were chosen by God to lead His people and protect them. "I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him(Deuteronomy 18:18-19)." When it was difficult to see the hand of God, Prophets would give direction, so that God's people know what was happening, and what they should do. Prophets were the “fortune tellers” who have insight into God's purposes for many things. The prophet speaks to the present, considering the future that God has revealed to him. They also received new identities when God calls on them to act in His name. Prophets have done many things, no two prophets were called to do the same thing and every prophet has had a contribution in carrying out the teachings of God. The prophet, Amos, spread the Word of God in such a way that inspired sinners to find redemption.
Let us start with this statement: I believe that new preachers and new people to the Christian Faith try hard to avoid the Old Testament. If they do, they only look at one section and struggle to connect all the pieces together. One of the issues that makes people uncomfortable is the prophets. First, there is a definite volume of them, and then they are divided into “major” and “minor.” I think at the core of our hearts, we are trying to understand the difference among the different biblical prophets.