For Many Christians, the concepts of justice and love sum up the major thrusts of the Old Testament and New Testament respectively. But this view misses a great deal of truth in both parts of the Bible.
Starting with simple word counts (using the NIV as a basis), the word “justice” occurs 115 times in the Old Testament and only 15 times in the New. But there are far more books in the Old Testament than the New, of course, and when we look at the average occurrences in the individual books, we find the frequency of the word justice is actually about the same in both Testaments.
When we look at the word love, we find the same thing. The Old Testament mentions love a surprising 425 times, and the New Testament mentions the same concept 261 times. But once again, when we check the averages, we find they are essentially the same – the word love occurs with about the same frequency in the books of the Old Testament and New Testament.
But there is more to this. Looking at simple word counts only gives us part of the picture. First, there are OT verses that clearly show the equivalent importance of both justice and love. David, for example, wrote “I will sing of your love and justice” (Psalm 101:1), and Hosea urges us to “maintain love and justice” (Hosea 12:6).
We may be familiar with such verses, but when we read the Old Testament carefully, we find something surprising. In many places in the Pentateuch, laws regarding justice are clearly alternated with laws regarding love. We find this, for example, in Exodus 23:1-9 as we see below – where the laws regarding justice are in normal type and those regarding love are in italic type:
“Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness. “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 person in a lawsuit.
“If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.
“Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.“Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.
“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.“
When we consider the numerical frequency of the words justice and love that we looked at in the beginning of this article, and we add the frequent alternation of laws of justice with laws of love in the Old Testament, we realize that to characterize the Old Testament as the testament of “justice,” as opposed to the New Testament of “love” is a complete misunderstanding. Both the Old and New Testaments stress the important of justice and love.
Both the Old and New Testaments show that God is a God of justice and love. For example, in the Old Testament we read “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” (Psalm 89:14), and in the New Testament we read both that “God is love” (1 John 4:8; 4:16) and “Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments” (Revelation 16:7; 19:2). Verses such as these show that the two cannot be separated – true justice involves love and true love involves justice.
The application of this fact for us as Christians is to look at our own lives and to consider if they reflect the godly qualities of both justice and love.
What one thing do you think almost all the men and women mentioned in the Bible as faithful followers of God had in common? The answer – apart from the obvious one of their righteousness – was that they all are said to have had to wait. We may not always think about this aspect of the lives of the spiritual “Hall of Fame” greats, but it is the one consistent trait of their stories.
Abraham and his wife Sarah waited for a son – God let them wait for twenty-five years until their waiting was eventually rewarded (Genesis 21:5). The same is true, of course, of Abraham’s waiting to inherit the land God promised him. Although he only received a small portion of it in his lifetime (Genesis 23:17-20), he was willing to wait faithfully for the fulfillment of the promise.
The patriarchs descended from Abraham waited in the same way. Isaac waited twenty years for a son (Genesis 25:20), Jacob waited fourteen years for a wife (Genesis 29:18-30), and Joseph waited thirteen years – some of them in prison – before God brought him to the position of greatness he had promised him.
Moses waited forty long years in the wilderness before seeing the land God had promised. Joshua and Caleb waited in the wilderness, too, and then during the years of struggle before the promised land was finally taken.
David was anointed king years before he became king, but waited patiently till God brought his destiny about. In fact, David speaks often in his psalms about waiting – for example “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits … my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:5-6 ESV).
We see many of the prophets of Israel and Judah having to wait – sometimes even to hear God’s message (Jeremiah 42:7, etc.). The prophet Habakkuk was told regarding God’s vision for him “If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed” (Habakkuk 2:3 NLT).
And we find many others who had to wait. The patriarch Job waited under great suffering till God healed and restored him (Job 7:3), and Noah, Daniel and other heroes of the Old Testament are all said to have waited.
In the New Testament, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, had to wait till she was old to have a child. Simeon and Anna are said to have waited years to see the Messiah. Jesus himself had to wait some thirty years to begin his mission of salvation – and had actually waited for untold time since its planning (Revelation 13:8). The disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem before they could begin their Spirit-empowered ministry (Acts 1:4); Paul had to wait many times in his ministry (Acts 28:30; etc.); and you and I are told to “Wait patiently for the LORD … Yes, wait patiently for the LORD” (Psalm 27:14 NLT).
In our own lives we may have to wait for things we need and for things we long for – perhaps we are waiting for work, or for a husband or wife, or for needed healing, or something else. It can be hard to continue to wait, especially when what we hope for seems nowhere in sight, but we should remember that we are not alone in our waiting. God lets us all wait for something and rewards us when we seek him first and continue to trust him. As Jeremiah proclaimed: “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him” (Lamentations 3:25 ESV).
We may have to wait, but we should never give up the trusting expectancy God desires us to have. Just because a needed answer has not come yet, we should also not give up on praying for it. Jesus gave several parables to teach this, telling his disciples “that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1-8 NIV).
Above all, we need never doubt that while we wait, God works with us in mind – and he works to make things worth our waiting. As the prophet Isaiah learned and confirmed for us, God is a God “who acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4 ESV).
In Romans 16:1-16 the apostle Paul sends greetings to a number of his friends, co-workers, and acquaintances in Rome, a city which he had not yet visited. The list is extensive – almost thirty individuals are mentioned as well as several groups of people – and nowhere else in Paul’s letters do we find such a long catalog of names. As we read Romans today it is very easy to skim-read this list, noting the few names we may recognize and then moving on to the epistle’s conclusion. But there is more to the list than immediately meets the eye, and like everything in Paul’s writings, we can learn from it.
First, of course, we see in this long list of individuals the degree to which Paul was truly a “people person” – knowing, remembering and greeting a large number of people in a city he did not even know. Because of his constant travel and evangelization Paul must have met a great number of people, and it is impressive that he remembered not only the names of the people on his list, but also their qualities.
Looking at what Paul says about these people is also instructive. Phoebe, who is mentioned first in Romans 16:1-2, was probably the person who delivered Paul’s letter to Rome and the apostle’s greetings only begin after she is mentioned. Paul then specifically greets some twenty-eight individuals. Rather than just being an extensive list of greetings with an occasional comment thrown in here and there, however, if we look closely, we see a clear pattern. Paul refers to the people he lists in seven different ways:
1. Those Paul calls “beloved.” Paul was well aware that God referred to his own son as “beloved” (Colossians 1:13) and doubtless did not use the expression lightly. He mentions only three people this way.
2. Those Paul says “worked hard” or “worked very hard” doing God’s work – only three individuals.
3. Individuals mentioned as simply being “fellow workers” – three people.
4. People who are named as being fellow Christians – “in Christ,” “in the Lord,” or a similar expression – five individuals.
5. Those who had personally helped Paul in some way – “been a mother to me,” “risked their lives for me” – three individuals.
6. Individuals who Paul simply notes as being fellow Jews – two individuals who are also mentioned as being in Christ and one individual who is only noted as a fellow Jew.
7. Those who are simply named, or mentioned as being in someone’s family – more than ten individuals. Although they were doubtless Christians, they are included in the list without any qualifying remarks to show that they had any outstanding characteristics.
What is interesting about Paul’s listing of these individuals is the fact that the majority of the people he greets are simply Christians – individuals Paul doubtless loved and cared for, but did not remember as being outstanding in their service of God or others. Those in group 4, who are specifically mentioned as being “in Christ,” seem to have perhaps been more devout – but overall, well over half of the people Paul greets are not given any special commendation.
When we then subtract the individuals who are mentioned as having helped Paul personally and those whom he calls “beloved” (but who we are not told why they are so regarded), the remaining people in Paul’s list are the ones he shows were most actively involved in doing the work of God. These remaining six individuals are said to be “fellow workers,” “those who work hard,” and “those who work very hard.”
We cannot know whether Paul was subconsciously or consciously “grading” these people as he greeted them, but it is clear that they were a minority among the larger group of Christians Paul greeted in his epistle, and that there was a difference in Paul’s mind between the individuals he mentions. It is also hard to imagine Paul – who wrote so carefully and deeply – as not including the public grading of individuals without having a purpose in doing so. Perhaps that purpose was for the good of those whom he greeted, but perhaps it was for our good, also. We can all ask ourselves which group Paul would have included us in.
As Christians we know that the greatest responsibility and opportunity we have in the lives we are given is to love God and our fellow human beings (Matthew 22:37-39). But none of us is perfect in this regard; so how do we grow in love for God and others?
The apostle John gives us an answer to this important question. In his letters, John talks extensively about love, mentioning the concept no fewer than 34 times, including his well-known summary statements such as “…God is love” (1 John 4:8). But John’s teaching on love is not as general as it might sometimes appear.
In his first epistle, the apostle talks about an easily overlooked aspect of the two directions or dimensions of love – love of God and love of people – that must both be present in our lives. In doing so, John answers the question of “How do we increase our love for God and man?” by answering a slightly different one: “How do we know if we love God and others?” He gives us the answer first in terms of whether we truly love God or not. Notice what he tells us:
“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 John 4:20-21).
The proof of our love for God, John says, is that we love others. In the next chapter of his letter, John repeats this fact: “… everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him” (1 John 5:1). But the apostle then reverses the direction of this understanding:
“This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God” (1 John 5:23).
The proof of our love for others, John tells us here, is that we love God. Just as it is not possible to truly love God without loving his children (1 John 5:1), it is also impossible to truly love God’s children without loving him (1 John 5:2). Together, these verses show the two directions that love must work in. In the first case, our love toward God involves – and is proved by – our love of our brothers and sisters. In the second case, we are told that our love for our brothers and sisters is based on – and proved by – our love and obedience to God.
Simple as it may sound, this two-way definition can be tremendously helpful to us as Christians. We can see what John says as both admonition and encouragement. First, there is clear admonition for all of us in the understanding that we cannot claim to love God if we cannot bring ourselves to love all people, and conversely, that we cannot pretend we truly love people if we do not deeply love God. Love of one without love of the other is not genuine love.
But the encouraging side of this equation relates to our original question – “How can we grow in love of God and others?” What John shows us indicates we can increase our love of God by loving people more, and if we want to increase our love of others, we can do that through actively developing our love of God. It may seem counterintuitive, but it is a truth that solidly underlies much of what John tells us.
Why is this? The reason is that unless God is the center of our life – what we love above all else – we will never truly love others as much as ourselves, because without God at the center of our lives, we will love ourselves above all else – we will primarily be “lovers of ourselves” (2 Timothy 3:2). Conversely, if we do not love others as much as ourselves, we are not fulfilling God’s command and our love of him will always be limited.
What John shows us is that as we grow in our love for God, our love for others will naturally increase at the same time. The closer we grow to God, the more he changes the way we think about ourselves – and others – and the more we begin to love others. As we grow to love the children of God more, it is a direct reaction that we begin to be less self-centered and our love for God naturally increases as a result.
John’s words on the two directions of love may indeed seem counterintuitive at first, yet they are profoundly true in showing us how we can know and grow our love for God and others.
The Bible’s book of Proverbs is often said to represent a collection of “human wisdom” and is frequently regarded as a book of practical rather than spiritual insights expressed in short, catchy sayings. Yet this viewpoint vastly underestimates the book.
The value of Proverbs can be seen in the degree to which Jesus and the apostles quote and echo this remarkable book – some thirty-five times. Jesus not only quoted the book directly, but it appears to have connections to even some of his most profound teaching.
At times Jesus built his teaching directly around Proverbs – as we find in Luke 14:7–11 where, at the dinner in the Pharisee’s house, he reminded those present of Proverbs 25:6–7 which shows it is better to take the lower places of honor, and then to be invited to the head of the table. We even find important examples of Jesus’ use of Proverbs in one of the most spiritual of his teachings – the Sermon on the Mount.
The Proverbs on the Mount
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus quotes from or alludes to Proverbs numerous times. For example, we can see the reflection of the proverb “… those who seek me find me” (Proverbs 8:17) in his words “seek and you will find” and “…the one who seeks finds” (Matthew 7:7–8). But the connections are more than incidental. When we look at many of the Beatitudes themselves, we find a remarkable inverse similarity to what Proverbs 6 tells us about the seven things God hates:
What God Hates – Proverbs 6:16-19
The Beatitudes – Matthew 5:3-12
A proud look
The meek
A lying tongue
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
Hands that shed innocent blood
Those who mourn
A heart that devises wicked schemes
The pure in heart
Feet that are quick to rush into evil
The poor in spirit
A false witness
The merciful
A person who stirs up conflict
The peacemakers
This comparison does not include the final, eighth, beatitude “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness …” (vs. 10) because only the first seven beatitudes, like the seven evils mentioned in Proverbs 6, are actual characteristics of the person. And although the Beatitudes cover many of the same ideas found in Proverbs 6:16-19 in a positive manner, we should remember that it was often typical of Jesus’ teaching to recast “negatively” worded concepts in a positive manner (Matthew 22:35–40, etc.). We should also not forget that Jesus compared himself to Solomon and stressed that his own God-given wisdom was greater than that of the ancient king (Matthew 12:42).
Wisdom certainly figures frequently in Jesus’ mountainside sermon, and he ends it by telling his hearers that: “… everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man …” (Matthew 7:24). In the minds of Jesus’ listeners, such a “wise man” would have been no different from the individual held up as an example of right and godly living throughout the book of Proverbs.
This comparison is not to lower the Sermon on the Mount to the level of “human wisdom” or to elevate Proverbs to the level of Jesus’ highest teaching. It simply stresses that Proverbs contains ideas that were clearly part of the scriptural background and thinking of Jesus – ideas that are certainly worthy of our attention and that are often deeper than we may realize.
* For much more information on the book of Proverbs, download our free e-book – Spotlight on the Proverbs – here.
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