Reply #43: Times are different

[Lydia Leftcoast]

Society was organized differently. The Jews in Jesus' times were colonial subjects of a brutal Empire, and before that, in the time of the Israeli and Judean monarchies and the era of the Judges and before that, the era of loosely organized tribes, there was no distinction between religion and the government.

If we lived in little villages and cities of no more than a few thousand and had no hope of getting our government to stop massacring people, much less actually help them, maybe we would make do with private charity alone, too.

However, these government programs came into existence because private charity was NOT doing the job. Read your history.

There is also no Biblical support for the American Revolution or the freeing of slaves, and yet, I'm sure you would agree that these were good things.

I wonder if it's really government programs that you object to, or to the idea of taxes, of not being able to keep every last penny you earn and being taxed for stuff that you yourself don't use. If that's the case, then you are showing unChristian greed. And if you are who I think you are, you have plenty of money to spare.

Given the choice between a government that aimed to make America the biggest bruiser on the planet and a government that aimed to make America a place where no one went hungry or homeless or without healthcare, which one would Jesus choose?