The Original Social Justice Warrior

 The Original Social Justice Warrior

By Richard P. Joseph

9/29/2022

Social Justice; According to something on google it is;

“Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities.

 

As you can guess, google makes it sound so nice, and don’t forget the picture of two black gay guys hugging.  

Social justice is just a nice way of saying, punish the straight, hard working white guy and give his earnings to lazy blacks.  It is part of the political correct way of telling Christians to buzz off and to usher in all manner of sexual perversion and religious degradation.  It produces nothing but poverty and social decline.  This is one of the Roman Catholic’s biggest projects.  I worked for a Catholic Hospital and their main mission was to champion homosexual rights and racism.  I was actually fired for being a Christian.  Social Justice is Satan’s way of replacing Christianity with sin and it will make the ignorant participants feel good doing it.  I guess, after you think about it, all sin feels good, for a few minutes!   So, what does the bible have to say about it and who was the founder of social justice?

Without getting long winded, we can boil this down to help the widow and the orphan, and if you have an abundance, to give to the poor.  Paul went so far as to say; if you don’t work, you don’t eat.  There is nothing in the bible about punishing  productive people and promoting a sinful lifestyle.   In fact in the parable of the talents, Jesus had harsh words for the lazy unfaithful servant in which he finally said to take his one talent from him and give it to the one with ten, then cast him into prison.  When a social justice warrior said, but Lord, he has ten talents already, Jesus told him that he who has little, even what he has will be taken  and given to the productive servant.   Even if this parable isn’t actually about poor or rich people, the idea is still the same.    So, who really is the original social justice warrior?

There is a story told in the gospels about the time when Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointed Jesus with some very costly oil which filled the room with an aroma.  This caused Judas Iscariot to complain that the oil should have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.  Of course he would be the one to take care of that and perhaps reimburse himself with a slight handling fee.  When Jesus told him to leave Mary alone, and that she had performed a noble deed, Judas became even more angry.  The next verse in Matthew's account shows that Judas, at this point, made his final decision to betray Jesus.

26:14 Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?” And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. 16 So from that time he sought opportunity to betray Him.

Judas Iscariot appears to be the original Social Justice Warrior and all who subscribe to it today are his followers.  Judas had a skewed view of reality and that is why he simply could not understand the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Somehow he could not reconcile the mission of Christ with what he thought it should be.  I hate to be the one to tell people this but attempting to somehow justify natural and normal human behaviors to make all things on earth equal, is not the mission of Jesus Christ.  Our job is to do what Mary has done, worship Jesus Christ.  Only then can we impact our society.  Any attempt to use social engineering to fix society can only be met with futility, especially when the real reason that social justice exists is to promote sin and denounce the straight and narrow.  Judas Iscariot was a failure and all who promote a Godless social justice system will end up the same way Judas did.  Feeding the poor and loving your neighbor is not social justice, it is what we should be doing as Christians.  When a non-Christian attempts the same thing it actually becomes sin and always makes things worse.  By promoting the current social justice we are actually putting people in a prolonged state of poverty and immorality.  Real Christian social justice would guide people out of poverty and lead them away from anything impure.  I implore you all to follow Jesus, not Judas.

The parousia according to Martha

 The Parousia according to Martha

By Richard P. Joseph

9/23/2022

    We are all familiar with the story of Lazarus and his two sisters in the gospel of John.  Apparently, Jesus loved this family and they worshiped him.  I am discovering that this obscure family is more theologically important than what we have imagined.  The few times that they are mentioned seems insignificant compared to their impact on our understanding of Jesus and his mission.  

We are introduced to this family in John 11 but obviously they have been friends and followers of Jesus for a while.  We know that the sisters sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick and near death.  Jesus seemed to take his time getting there on purpose so that there would be no doubt about what was going to transpire.  When Jesus finally arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for 4 days.  It was Martha that got word of his arrival and dutifully ran out to meet him.   Then Martha said; “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” 

Jesus then told her that her brother would rise again and Martha responded by saying; “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Apparently, Martha had a very clear understanding of eschatology and the approaching historical events that were about to occur.  But before we discuss that, I would like to present a few other major events that came from this simple family.  First of all, they might not be as simple as we thought as some have suggested that Lazarus was actually “John Eleazar” or John Lazarus, the writer of the gospel of John, the three epistles and Revelation but I can’t prove that as correct or not but there are some good arguments for it.  The events that took place that day caused the Sanhedrin to meet and condemn Jesus to death, the dinner shortly after caused Judas to finally decide to betray Jesus, the eyewitnesses of Lazarus’ raising would become vocal advocates for Christ, and Mary’s story would be told for all eternity.  But back to the storyline.

    Jesus then confirmed that he was the resurrection and the life.  Martha confirmed that she understood that Jesus was the Christ.  She then went back to the house and got Mary who, upon seeing Jesus, fell at his feet.  You can always find Mary at the feet of Jesus.  She was at his feet later when she anointed him and caused Judas Iscariot to go apoplectic and made his final decision to betray Christ.  When Mary came it caused Jesus to weep and groan.  As they approached the tomb and began to understand that Jesus meant to raise him, Martha informed him that her brother was rotting by now.  If she understood a lot, she, like all of us, really doesn't know how powerful our God really is.  Jesus then called Lazarus out of the tomb which caused a domino of effects that lead to the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus.  This also brings up another topic, eschatology.

    The Jews usually talked about two separate ages; the present age (the Mosaic age, and the age to come; the Messianic age).  In Luke 18 Jesus uses this same language;  30 who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life.”  According to the timeline in Revelation and other places there was about to be a tribulation period in which the Christians would suffer loss, followed by a period of wrath which would be poured out on the unbelievers.  These two periods would be divided by a resurrection and a rapture.  Josephus gives an account which I believe clearly demonstrates the exact time that this took place.  He tells that on the evening of Pentecost (AD66) as the priests were fulfilling their duties in the temple they experienced an earthquake then heard a multitude of souls under the temple shouting “let us remove hence”.   This would have been right between the tribulation and the wrath.  This is what I believe to be the exact day of the end of the “age” and this seems to be exactly what Martha was referring to.  Notice she used a single “day” to describe that her brother would rise on the last day.  If Jesus did not raise Lazarus from the dead he would have been raised on this “last day”.  Also notice that Martha said “at” the last day instead of “on” the last day.  The Greek word en denotes a fixed position in time as if she fully understood this as, not an arbitrary event, but rather a predestined event at an exact moment in time.   This means that Martha had an exceptional  understanding of the eschatological events that were about to occur.  It almost seems like she understood things better than the apostles.  The last day of the Mosaic economy was the first day of the Parousia (visitation or commonly referred to as the second coming) which lasted another 3 ½ years.