There were a few different taxes in Ancient Israel, but one of the most fascinating was that of the Temple Tax:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. All who cross over, those twenty years old or more,are to give an offering to the Lord. The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives. Receive the atonement money from the Israelites and use it for the service of the tent of meeting. It will be a memorial for the Israelites before the Lord, making atonement for your lives.” (Exodus 30:11-16)

At first, this might strike us as an unfair regressive tax.  A half-shekel might be a pittance to a wealthy man, while to the poor tenant farmer, this is a great financial sacrifice. All throughout the Old Testament, though, there seems to be an acknowledgment of the different responsibilities that greater or lesser wealth places on those who possess it. Yet here we are faced with a straight, flat tax. Is this a callous requirement neglecting the poor by placing a disproportionate burden on them? Did Yahweh forget the poor here?

In his commentary on Exodus, John Durham suggest something else is going on here:

The sum thus fixed was not by any standard a large amount, but the instruction that rich and poor alike were to give precisely this payment is an important indication of the equality with which all men were received in Yahweh’s Presence. They were all to give equally because they were all to be received and remembered equally; the money was to be used for the expense of the Tent where Yahweh by appointment came to meet them. (Comment on 30:16-17)

Similarly, Craig L. Blomberg says,

The flat rate ensured that even the poorest, who might not be required to give nearly so much via the various tithes, would have to give sacrificially at least here. —Neither Poverty, Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, pg. 47

The equality of tithe speaks to the equality of persons before God. All stand equally condemned before a holy God in need of atonement, and all are equally welcomed into his reconciling presence in the Temple. None can claim greater rights to God’s peace and covenantal blessing, through payment, or inherent extra worth. None ought feel unworthy to come to him in prayer simply because of a lower financial stature. The tenant-farmer’s life is to be redeemed at the same cost as the mighty land-owner’s.

In other words, everybody’s worth a shekel in God’s eyes, which, I suppose, is an Old Testament way of saying “The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.”

Soli Deo Gloria

I was chatting with a friend last night online about the link between the prophets condemnation of idolatry and their abhorrence of social injustice. In the course of things I said to him, “If you think about it, idolatry is a failure to do justice to the beauty of God. From there, it bleeds out into a failure to do justice to the beauty of God’s Image-bearers.” The two phenomena are inseparable–eventually one leads to the other.

Reflecting on Elijah’s condemnation of Jezebel’s treachery against Naboth in pursuit of his property, Eugene Peterson puts some biblical heft to that principle:

When you have a god that is a thing, a god that you can use, an object, neighbors also become things, something to use, objects. With an impersonal god, you end up with an impersonal neighbor. Jezebel certainly did.

The champions of Baal, priests and queen alike, did not have an easy time of it with Elijah. On Mount Carmel Elijah championed Yahweh, the name of God; in the Valley Jezreel Elijah championed Naboth, the name of the neighbor. Elijah was as much a prophet in the valley as he was on the mountain. Elijah lived his life on the margins–marginal to the popular religion of the day, marginal to the power politics of the day. Because he lived on the margins he was unimpressed by what went on in the center: the impressive worship experience put on by the 450 priests of Baal on the mountain, the impressive demonstration of hubristic contempt of a neighbor by the patroness of Baal in the Valley. As it turned out, it was from the margins that Elijah re-centered the life of Israel both in worship of their God, Yahweh, and in respect for their neighbors.

–The Jesus Way, pg. 121

May we be a people who are unimpressed by the worship of the gods of this age–money, sex, power–and therefore impressed with the sacredness of our neighbors. When Money is not god, we will not make our neighbors commodities to be bandied about in of the pursuit of wealth. When Sexual Fulfillment is not god, we will not treat our neighbors as mere bodies to be used and consumed in of our pursuit of pleasure. When Power is not god, we will not treat our neighbors as pawns to be manipulated in our pursuit of power.

When the LORD is God, we will love our neighbor in our pursuit of giving glory to their Maker, in whose sacred Image they are formed.

Soli Deo Gloria

I’m fairly new to the Reformed tradition and still piecing it all together, especially when it comes to the thorny issues of election and sovereignty. In a sense, I’m a reluctant Calvinist; I still prefer words like “Reformedish” to describe myself, yes, because of my identification with the broader tradition, but also because of how slowly I’ve been drawn in. That being the case, I still remember what it’s like to find Calvinism and Calvinists thoroughly off-putting.

There were different reasons for this wariness.

Okay, for the rest of the article, I give my reasons and tell Calvinists not to be terrible. You can read it at The Gospel Coalition.

Last week Christ and Pop Culture ran a series of posts celebrating the life and works of C.S. Lewis. Here’s the Editor’s Note:

November 22, 2013, will mark the fiftieth anniversary of C. S. Lewis’s death. On that day, he will be given a place in Westminster Abbey’s renowned Poet’s Corner. In commemoration of this event, all this week Christ and Pop Culture contributors will be writing about the works by C. S. Lewis that have been most personally significant to them.

I wrote a post on The Problem of Pain:

Of course, the most important thing about the work is that he’s trying to show the philosophical coherence of explicitly biblical thought. Yes there’s a bit of speculation, and no I wouldn’t agree with all of it now, but the reason the work has staying power is because, at core, it’s an attempt to set forth the Bible’s own “answers” to the problem of pain and suffering. This is what philosophy—essentially just thinking really hard—in service of the Gospel looks like: untangling the mess of half-truths, lies, and confusions of thought that get in the way of trusting in the goodness of God declared to us in Jesus Christ.

And the rest of the posts by my brilliant colleagues are all worth diving into as well (probably more so):

The Weight of Glory by Anita Kobayashi Sung:  “Our desires indicate the deep ways we long to be acknowledged and known by God.”

Letters to Malcom by Nick Rynerson: “Prayer can bring tension and yet intimacy. C. S. Lewis helped remind me of its beauty.”

The Four Loves by Jewel Evans: “It is grace in and of itself that enables any of us to be loved at all.”

A Grief Observed by Martyn Jones: “Sometimes all we know of God is his absence, and other times he appears as a scourge.

Perelandra by E. Stephen Burnett: The second “Ransom Trilogy” story captivated me with themes of a virginal paradise invaded by serious, haunting evil.

That Hideous Strength by S.L. Whitesell: “It is a story of permanent struggle between the sacred and profane, between the earth and stone of Britain and the magic and spirit of Logres.”

The Shoddy Lands by Seth T. Hahne: “The lesson is that we should be mindful of the things, people, and ideas in which we invest ourselves.”

Til We Have Face by Erin Straza: “It exposes how we see ourselves and project our notions upon God—often quite erroneously and to our own demise.”

The Screwtape Letters by Erin Wyble Newcomb: “The book opened my eyes to a spiritual plane that I had heretofore neglected—to my detriment.”

Surprised by Joy by S.L. Whitesell: “Surprised by Joy supplied the defect of my Christian upbringing and didactic theology”

The Silver Chair by Geoffrey Reiter (who edited the whole series): “It represents an approach to catechesis, teaching children precepts through memorization—not for the sake of rote knowledge, however, but so that the guidelines sink so deeply into children’s hearts that such commands become, in effect, a part of them.”

Soli Deo Gloria