Psalm 72

Posted on by Steven Woolley
Throughout scripture God reveals what it means to be a good ruler of people.  Psalm 72, for instance, says these are the characteristics of a good king who has been filled with God’s righteousness: 
  • Rules with righteousness
  • Gives justice to the poor
  • Defends the needy among the people
  • Rescues the poor and crushes the oppressor
  • Delivers the poor who cry out in distress and the oppressed who have no helper
  • Has pity on the lowly and poor
  • Preserves the lives of the needy
  • Redeems the poor from oppression because their blood is precious in his sight
My ultra conservative friends, Christians one and all, object saying that “you just want to take our money and give it tot he poor.”  That common and simplistic answer is dead wrong, but widely believed.  
A few days ago Mr. Romney made a $10,000 bet about something.  I think it had to do with health care.  I can’t make a bet like that, but I’ll give a nickel to anyone who can find  passages in scripture suggesting that God would like us to:
  • Eliminate almost all government
  • Do away with regulations
  • Offer enormous financial incentives to those who are already quite wealthy
  • Give corporations all the rights and privileges of personhood.
  • Invade other nations for specious reasons
  • Live in fear of anything and anybody that is not like us
  • Let the poor sink or swim, it’s up to them

2 thoughts on “Psalm 72”

  1. The interesting thing about my ultra conservative friends is that, with the exception of one, they are not among the very wealthy. However, they are scared to death that the government is going to take what they have and give it to the undeserving poor who have done nothing to care for themselves and are unwilling to make the effort.

  2. What the government should FORCE us to do, and what an individual should CHOOSE to do are completely different subjects. A man who arrives at Heaven's gate expecting entry because he paid his taxes on time every year has missed the moral lesson in true giving. The government does not take from one group and give to another WITHOUT TAKING SOMETHING FOR THEMSELVES in the process. And if you do the math (and I'd be happy to share) … the wealthy taxed at *** 100% *** can't even pay to run the government for 6 months at current spending rates. The Chinese are not paying the lion's share either — we are borrowing against future obligations to Americans to pay for our excessive living today. Your comments display a surprising lack of knowledge of economics and the Word.

Leave a Reply