Rutherford, who commissioned the Westminster Assembly, calls Christians to seek their Lord rather than the world’s glories. He invokes Naboth’s land-lust and Haman’s rage at a rival’s honor — both feverish for worldly things. Rutherford diagnoses “this age” with that same fever. The diagnosis fits every age. The cure is reorienting desire toward Christ rather than the neighbor’s vineyard or the rival’s laurels.
John McDowell, Presbyterian preacher, noted that oppression often looks quite respectable: lawsuits designed not to win justice but to exhaust the other party into surrender. One might say this still happens. Yet mention “oppression” in church and people gasp—as if the Bible itself hadn’t brought it up first. The question, then, is awkwardly simple: are we defending justice, or merely protecting our profits?
William Swan Plumer, a big Presbyterian voice in the 1800s, told pastors something quite shocking: better to be fooled by a few freeloaders than accidentally send away someone truly desperate.
Today we’ve flipped it—terrified of helping the wrong person, so we help… practically no one at all. Brilliant system, really!
James Pilkington, a #Puritan minister, reflects on Nehemiah’s rebuke of economic abuse. He names everyday injustices—rent-racking, fines on tenants, forced labor without pay—so common that cries fill the land, yet nothing changes. Still, he insists they must be named. Like daily chores, justice requires constant effort. How might you ease the burdens others carry for you?
Dutch Reformed missionary Andrew Murray notes that in Luke 16 Lazarus is praised for no special virtue, and the rich man is condemned for no scandalous crime—only for ignoring Lazarus’s suffering. The sin is comfortable neglect. Faith that guards doctrine yet trains us not to notice pain misses the warning. How are we learning to see—and respond to—the poor at our gate?
#BiblicalWorldview #ChurchLeaders #Christianity #FaithAndCulture #TheologyMatters #ChurchHistory #Mercy #reformeddoctrine
Greg Johnson