When Jesus preached in his hometown of Nazareth, it was the Sabbath day, and he read this text from the Old Testament.
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.” Lk 4:18–19 NKJV
The acceptable year of the Lord was the Jubilee.
Every fiftieth year was the jubilee. Anyone, who had sold his inherited land to pay debts, could repossess his inheritance free of charge.
Jesus read this text on the Sabbath. Every seventh day was also a day of rest. This was a great mercy for workaholics and poor labourers.
In addition, every seventh year was a year when the land rested. The crops that grew in this year must not be harvested by the landowners, but the poor could help themselves.
Every seventh year, all debts were also cancelled.
In the OT Law of Moses, the Hebrew landowners harvested the grain, the olives and grapes, but they were not allowed to harvest too thoroughly. They had to leave a generous portion of unharvested produce for the poor to gather. This was called gleaning.
An evangelical preacher in the USA explained these laws. He then asked his congregation, what they would think if these laws were not in the Bible and we applied these principles today.
The conservative congregation answered, that this would be Communism.
Does this shock you? It seems to me, that evangelical Christians in America and similar countries have badly misunderstood what it means to be Bible believing Christians. We have been indoctrinated to accept uncritically the priority of maximising investment returns and corporate profits.
What does the bible say about financial greed?
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left, and you live alone in the land. Is 5:8 NIV
In America, Australia and some other countries, real estate speculation has resulted in mass homelessness.
These Bible laws were not just principles for believers to follow, but laws to govern a just society. If we live in democratic countries, and governments are not adequately providing for the care of the poor, the disabled and the sick, churches should do more to provide help.
In the past, many schools and hospitals have been founded by churches to help people in need.
But it is not enough for Christians to help. We should also call upon governments to do more.
When the Luke and the Apostles wrote the New Testament, they said very little about principles of government. It was already in the OT. The early church also had no possibility of influencing Roman laws. They were like the church today under dictatorships.
In democratic countries, Christian political activists do try to influence laws. Many oppose homosexual marriage and try to restrict abortion, but conservative activists often ignore the OT principles of making adequate provision for the poor.
Many churches do help the poor but they don’t understand that they should pressure governments to help the poor and sick adequately.
Many American Christians have become so indoctrinated with the philosophy of big business, that they think affordable universal medical service is evil socialism.
What many conservative Christians fail to understand, is that poverty often leads to prostitution and more abortions.
In most democratic countries, the majority of people are no longer bible believing Christians. Political action to stop abortion has usually had little or no success. Adequate social welfare for poor or single mothers could reduce the desperation to get abortions.
