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Recently, several people have mentioned our frequent use of Micah 6:8 in our materials. They wondered if it was just because it was a popular verse on justice or if we had really thought through what it means to us. It is a good question, because it is a very significant and formational verse for our ministry. The verse says:
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
While I won’t develop it in detail here, we read this text through the lens of Jesus’ Great Commandment, to love God with all of who & what we are, and to love others as ourselves. Jesus said this was the fulfillment of the whole Law & the Prophets. The Law & the Prophets represented righteousness & justice-right relationship with God and right relationship with others. So doing justice is at the heart of God’s ultimate intentions, at the heart of the Gospel.
Through that lens, we read Micah 6:8. Our commitment to “do justice” means that we are committed to both serve with those impacted by the injustice and to address the root of the injustice. Therefore, there is a degree of prophetic confrontation and activism inherent to doing justice. We believe that the justice of God is primarily restorative, so our activism is deeply peace-based and non-retributive. This commitment reminds us that God’s Kingdom is breaking forth into the brokenness of the current world, not just being concerned with a spiritual after-life.
Our commitment to “love mercy” orientates the focus of our justice efforts to be primarily motivated by loving desire for restoration, not condemnation. Demonstrating compassion and mercy is a critical expression of the loving Gospel of Christ. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the mourning- these are at the heart of God, so they should be at our heart as well. However, mercy reminds us also of God’s merciful grace for us, so we must also approach the perpetrators of injustice with mercy as well (though not compromising justice). God’s justice seeks to restore all relationships, because that is the nature of His grace. So too should it be reflected in our commitment.
Finally, our commitment to “walk humbly” reminds us that we are also often complicit in the injustices others suffer. Whether knowingly or not, how we spend our money, where we choose to live and work, how we use our privilege (be it racial, gender, economics, etc.) are connected to the realities of our increasingly small world. We must have the humility to acknowledge, repent and change when necessary. Colonial mentalities still shape well intentioned missions and ministry, which must be continually addressed. Further, this humility reminds us that we are participating in God’s redemptive work that is essential for our own salvation. We are not coming as the great hope for the poor, but we come, in the words of Lilla Watson, because our liberation is caught up with theirs.
This three-fold understanding of Micah 6:8 is central in shaping our Justice Discipleship Training School (JDTS). We are aware of the dangers of short-term missions and maximize the experience to avoid those dangers (NOTE: Our JDTS is significantly committed to the important lessons learned from the book “When Helping Hurts”. It shapes the nature of our program). We are still looking for a few more students interested in participating in this program. Check it out.
Does this resonate with you? Do you understand Micah 6:8 differently? What place does justice have in the Gospel?
From Law To Love – Some Words That Are On My Heart
I couldn’t resist taking this challenge up because I’ve had it on the backburner since the last sermon I attended with you. I love your interpretation of this verse and I will give you what I see in it – or at least what I had tried to say in the service, but couldn’t quite wrap my tounge around it at that time.
I will preface my discussion by saying that I am not a huge fan of taking one verse and expounding on it; as Paul would say, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established;” and Isaiah would also say, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line.” I don’t believe that there are many verses that do stand on their own; so I am always forced to read the verse above and the verse below (and sometimes a little more than this also).
In the beginning of Micah 6, Micah is delivering the word of the LORD to the nations. (As much as “mountains and hills = nations” as illustrated in Habukkuk 3:6: “He stood, and measured the earth: He beheld, and drove assunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow.”) This is right before the time that Judah goes into its captivity to Babylon, which is symbolic of the tribulation and captivity of the end times. Micah is preaching on how to act towards our fellow man (adam in the Hebrew). In that he says “do justly” (KJV) but “love mercy,” he gives the full evolution of what it is to be a Christian, either yesterday or today. It’s a range which starts at the base, the law (justice), and ends at perfection, that is to say God’s agape love (loving mercy).
I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head to connect this to Jesus’ statement that (1) love of the Father and (2) love of each other “is the law and the prophets,” for, if we could truly love Him and each other as He had intended us to, we wouldn’t have need for the law – because, in complete love, no one would ever transgress the law. However, we did (and do) need it, to be given the base line of how we are to treat each other in these flesh bodies.
So, Micah gives the word of the LORD to “do justly.” He doesn’t say to love it, just to do it. Starting point. Step 1.
The word for justice/justly is “mishpat” in the Hebrew (H4941) which was used 421 times in the OT and is commonly translated as justice/judgment/ordinance/manner (like unto having “manners”), and stems from “shapat” (H8199) which is “to do judgment”. Therefore, it is clearly connected with the law: the law at this time being God’s perfect law, as given by Moses. But to us, now living in the dispensation of Grace, has been given a wonderful instructor in Paul, who tells us in Galatians, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” (Not that the law is void, but that those who have faith act towards each other in a manner where they would not come under the penalty of the law.) Therefore, because of the sacrifice of Christ, we are called to move on from just “doing the law” to working faith, for “justice” is done unto us by faith.
However, this only brings us from the law unto faith – and faith and mercy (or love) have yet to be connected if we are to traverse the full pattern of Christianity.
The LORD says through Micah to “love mercy;” “love” being (H160) – ahabah – to have love for an object; the object being “mercy” (H2617) – checed – which is translated as goodness/kindness/faithfulness (and has also been translated as reproach [for we are to love the reproach of God because those He loves, He chastises, and we are also to rejoice when others reproach us for His sake.... but that's a whole other conversation]).
The connection between faith and mercy/love is made by Peter: “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith [pistis - belief in God - as in John 3:16] virtue [arete - moral goodness]; and to virtue knowledge [gnosis - understanding]; and to knowledge temperance [egkrateia - self-control]; and to temperance patience [hypomone - endurance]; and to patience godliness [eusebeia - reverence for God]; and to godliness brotherly kindness [philidelphia - brotherly love - as in the church of philidelphia in Rev. 3]; and to brotherly kindness charity [agape - love - as in 1 John 4:8: God is love].” A second witness to this being Paul again stating (in the great “love” chapter of 1 Corinthians), “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
Here it is, the movement from the law to faith. And then the 8 steps – 8 being the biblical number of ressurection or regeneration – of Christianity from faith to love. It’s one of the hardest things to achieve on the face of the planet, which is why the majority of the Bible is written about how to display this love – and none can do it better than our Father, for He is Love. The bottom line being that while we are to do justly (by the law), it is so much more sought after, so much more desired, and so much more rewarded to love mercy – and to show love. To read on in Peter’s aforementioned words, anyone who can do this will not be barren or unfruitful. And to bear fruit is to bring others to the truth of knowing that Christ is our Saviour, He is risen, and He is Lord (as much as it is us planting the seed, and maybe being lucky enough to water it, but it is God who brings forth the fruit) – which is really his justice from the foundation of the earth: that none should perish, but that all should have eternal life. So, when you “love mercy,” you can’t help but to “do justly;” it’s part and parcel of who you are.
This is how I read Michah 6:8.
Great thoughts, Mike. I would differ on some points (such a the end times connection & dispensationalism), but I appreciate the thorough exegesis you did here. Not to disagree with what you’ve said, I do want to add that most Jewish readers of the Old Testament (from whom we can often best understand the intention of language and context), justice was not only about justification by the law, but about seek shalom in a sinful world. Ultimately the law could not achieve this apart from Christ, which is why Christ said He is the fulfillment of the law- that in and through Him shalom is possible. That justice has very much to do with how we treat others, specifically in respect to those who are on the margins- thus the frequent OT & NT references to widows & orphans, who were the most vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, etc.
In the Great Commandment of Christ, many Greek scholars believe that Jesus was not ranking the two statements in order of importance, but linking them as inseparable. Justice is central to the Gospel, not a by-product of it. Paul’s writings are indispensable, but we mustn’t forget that we must read them through the lens of Christ & His teachings, in which justice played a central role.
Again, great stuff, thanks!
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