Exodus 22:2–4
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
We live in an age that is thoroughly confused about justice. Our modern systems of justice are fundamentally retributive and punitive, but not restorative. We take a thief, a man who has violated another man's property, and we lock him in a concrete box for several years at the taxpayer's expense. And the criminal pays with years of his life, learning from hardened men how to be a more effective criminal upon his release. The one thing that does not happen is the one thing biblical justice demands above all else: restitution. The modern state has inserted itself as the primary offended party. God's law is not primarily about punishing offenders in the abstract; it is about restoring a community that has been broken by sin. God has delivered the Ten Commandments, which are the bedrock principles of His law.