How Will the World Know?

Psalm 82

A psalm of Asaph.

1 God presides in the great assembly;
    he renders judgment among the “gods”:

2 “How long will you defend the unjust
    and show partiality to the wicked?
3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
    uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

One of the truest lithmus tests of any religion is how they treat the weak and the needy.  In some religions it is taught that the weak and needy have brought this on themselves. If only they believed in God more, they would get better.  In the caste system the family one is born into determines where they stand socially and economically.  The higher up the caste, the more favor you have materially and otherwise.  In a caste system, loosely speaking if you are poor you will always be poor.  You were born that way and will stay that way.  

One of the differences in Christianity, as opposed to other religions, is that Jesus emptied himself and became a servant as he came to earth.  He was born the son of a carpenter in a rural setting, not the place where most people would predict the Son of God would be born.  Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and it wasn't until he was 30 that his public ministry began.  

  

Jesus often taught about serving thet poor and those on the outside. One example is parable of the Good Samaritan. In the story, a man is robbed and left beaten on the side of the road. A priest and the Levite see the man and walk to the other side to avoid him. These were the Jewish leaders. But a Samaritan (Samaritans were hated by the Jews) stopped, bandaged up the man, and took to an inn, where he could recover. Jesus was teaching on "who is my neighbor" and this was the example he used to show what God's love looked like.  

In the New Testament letter of James it says, 

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Christians who follow Jesus need to follow him and empty themselves of pride seeing no one as beneath them. Jesus showed us that true religion is to do the things he did as he revealed God's love and mercy to the world. As the song goes, "They will no we are Christians by our love, by our love.  They will know we are Christians by our love!"