Al Ngu

The bible’s picture of human beings is not as wheelers and dealers in the corporate boardroom, signing contracts with the gods or Ultimate reality in order to get ahead, instead, we are joyful children on Christmas morning receiving unexpectedly lavish gifts from loving parents. Free gift, not contractual obligation, is at the heart of God’s picture of reality, just as it is at the heart of the bible’s picture of redemption.[1]

I think it is absolutely fantastic and overwhelmingly rejoicing to see a God of such generosity and of superabundance in contrast to the transactional calculative economy of mankind. What we see of what God has done in Christ Jesus towards us is just something simply lavishly full of grace that we can’t even begin to comprehend. This is the concept of the superabundance God that works in and  the antithesis towards the way humans bargain and grab kind of economy of lifestyle.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to the world, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) Did you see in this passage that God gives when he loves, not demands. Watkin has described it in like we are just like children joyfully waiting for lavish gifts from our loving parents on Christmas morning. Folks the cross of Jesus Christ is the most glorious and greatest gift of the divine God to humanity, so lavish that the son of God drops blood as a gift to us.

If this principle has followed through, it yields a world in which the poor, the weak, and the aged are not cast aside because they have nothing to put on the table in the great business deal of life, but they are cared for and honored. God gives freely to those who cannot stand on their own two feet, those who cannot cut a deal with him. [2] This is another illustrious communication by Watkin drawing from the Superabundance of God in the redemption of the world through his Son given to this world, that will be the ultimate reality that we live on. And if we do that what he’s saying is the poor, the weak, and the aged will never be cast aside just simply because they cannot contribute to the community in real life.

You see it is truly the case that God delights in freely giving to those who are marginalized, who are in need, who are being bullied by this society. That’s why you see so much in the Bible God demands social justice from his people. Look at what Jesus said, he’s always fighting for the widows, the orphans, and always urging us to give to the poor and helping them. The parable the Samaritan is cutting edge to demonstrate the second greatest commandment to love your neighbor. When Jesus used Samaritan as the neighbor of the Jew, that in itself is ground breaking because Jews don’t mix with Samaritans at that time, Samaritans are being looked down upon socially and societally. So what Jesus is called us calling us to love our neighbors, including people who are very different or socially or economically lower than us. And to help them without expecting anything in return and that’s a kind of love superabundance that Jesus has for us all as he mightily demonstrated on the cross dying for humanity because we cannot keep the covenant of God.

The primacy of the gift provides the pattern for a Society of compassion, of helping the needy when they have no means to pay back, of reaching out to the poor and the ungrateful when they are unable to repay. He lays the foundation for a caring, compassionate society that I suspect we will all like to live in, that we would all like our families to live in, especially in those times when we are aware of our own neediness. [3]

This again shows how our God is a God of compassion of wanting to help the needy when they cannot pay back, and reaching out to the poor and ungrateful when they are unable to repay. That’s the way how our God works, and that’s the way God wants to inculcate in our hearts and spirits, the spirit of Christianity. In this way God is laying down the foundation for a caring compassionate society that he wants us to build, the church must be a caring compassionate society. That’s the kind of society we all want to live in. If we extended politically to our social economic world, I believe therefore a compassionate health care system it’s definitely in place and is needed. We must not let too much of economic market economy drives away the compassion of society. Responsibility goes with the compassionate Society of course, but we must put compassionate society first and foremost because it reflects the compassion of God.

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[1] Chris Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, 64

[2] Ibid, 64

[3] Ibid, 64