Over the last semester I’ve traveled to one school in the Far East and another in Southeast Asia along the Myanmar-Thai border and taught a course on the relationship of the Christian church to political power. Test your own biblical knowledge on what The Bible teaches on this relationship.

Here follows part of the final exam I gave my students, which covers the five different periods in biblical history of the People of God.

Section One: The Relation of the People of God to the Political Power of Pharaoh in Egypt

1. Question: In my discussions about Pharaoh’s exercise of political power over the Children of Israel I said that he trespassed. I chose this word carefully and used it precisely. What did I mean and how did Pharaoh trespass? (Answer) To trespass means to step over a boundary, to go beyond one’s rightful province, place or proper reach or station. In class we said that if a janitor cleaning the principle’s office heard a knock at the door and quickly sat down behind the principal’s desk and invited the visitor into the room and presented himself as the Principal he would be trespassing because he would be taking to himself duties and a dignity that did not obtain. Pharaoh was the top ruler of Egypt but this did not mean that there were no limitations to his power, even if in Egyptian law and culture no limitations to his power existed. The nature of righteousness is ultimately eternal. It is created by and grounded in God and is not the creation of men and women. The ruled and the rulers must attend to righteous boundaries. Pharaoh had a hard time realizing this (evidenced by his unwillingness to allow the Children of Israel freedom to worship their God and the bondage and exploitation he placed them in). He truly believed he owned them and had a right to complete control over them. It was not mere perversity of spirit that led him to recant repeated agreements to let “his slaves” go and worship. He believed he had total godlike power over them. There are at least three explicit ways the Exodus text reveals he trespassed. First he forbade them to go to the desert and worship their God. As such he claimed spiritual power over them acting as a God instead of a secular governor. He exploited the Hebrews for their labor placing them in what appeared to be irreversible unconditional bondage. They had no future. He acted as if he had ultimate total power over the Israelite people body and soul. In killing innocent babies he acted as if he had capricious power over life itself. From the bigger picture and revelation of righteousness given in Scripture and the emergence of the Kingdom of God Pharaoh trespassed because he exercised his power in areas of life that were beyond the province of his authority.
2. Question: Thinking about what happened to the Children of Israel in Egypt write me a short essay on the precise meaning of justice. When I asked you in class what justice meant you gave me answers like peace, fairness, equality. These are all the fruits of justice but what is the root meaning. Answer: Justice in the Bible has to do with restoring to a person or people what they need to live. By ‘live’ I do not mean merely surviving but live as free, purposeful and self supporting human beings under God. Justice restores the means of life, community and one’s place within community and ultimately one’s place with God. In Justice it is all about providing ground underneath people’s feet so as to build and live life. Sometimes through fault of their own, sometimes through no fault of their own people lose what is needed to live, build and sustain life. Because it includes mercy in its very character, justice turns a blind eye to what a person deserves, and instead graciously provides what they need.
3. Question Where did the Biblical concept of justice come from? How did it come into existence in the Bible and the church in both the Old and New Testament? Where did it start? How was it formed? These are all one question. Add to this question another one. Turning the pages of the Psalms and the Prophets one comes upon references that reveal where the idea of Justice began. Can you find one of these and comment on it? Answer Psalm 103:1-8 is one passage among many that answers this question. In verse 4 & 6 “God works justice for those who are oppressed.” Those who are caught in a ‘pit’ and cannot get out God redeems their life. “He redeems their life from the pit” (vs 4). Justice, in its essential meaning corresponds to those who have lost the means of life (physically, socially i.e. community and spiritually) and who cannot, using their own resources, get these means back again. The bondage in Egypt is a formative example of justice because the Hebrews could not extricate themselves from bondage/enslavement. They were, metaphorically speaking, in a pit and could not get out. Freeing them from bondage was the seminal act of justice in the Bible and this is what Psalm 103 goes on to state. “He (Yahweh) made known his ways to Moses …” (vs 7). Here in this deliverance the God of justice made his debut. Justice with the Hebrews did not begin with hard thinking but a signature act – the Exodus. This signature act of deliverance then becomes reflected on and this is how the conceptual meaning of justice, as it is found in Scripture, was formed.
4. Question: The Children of Israel were freed! Freedom, true freedom, the freedom we meet in Scripture always has two faces. It is like a coin with two distinct and different sides. Please tell me what these two sides are within the Exodus story and expand on them. After you have discussed this two-sided character of freedom within the Exodus setting think of this two-sided concept of freedom within the setting of the Christian life. Answer: Freedom in Scripture is always shaped in a from – to The Children of Israel were delivered from bondage to Egyptian/Pharaoh slavery. But this was followed by a call into a new covenant community where they would live on the land as God’s people with a new God given purpose and righteousness. In the New Testament in Galatians, freedom is freedom from enslavement to the law, but this from the law gives way to living life in a new way – in the Spirit and as a servant to others in love.

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