Loving Our Unemployed Neighbor

“No one shall take a mill or an upper millstone in pledge, for that would be taking a life in pledge.”

-       Deuteronomy 24:6

‘Thou takest his life to a pledge: that is to say, thou cuttest a poor man’s throat, when thou takest from him those necessary tools with which he gets his living.’

- John Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, pp. 844-845, Banner of Truth, 1987

The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy contains lots of ancient wisdom. Given as different types of law God’s intention was to preserve and protect His people from harm, in addition to setting them apart from other nations and marking them out as His people. These laws were given for their benefit. In the context of chapter 24 there is a list of miscellaneous laws and among them is a brief law regarding making a pledge or a contract. In this example a pledge or contract is never to be made at the expense of jeopardizing the way a person is able to make a living. In other words, if such a pledge is made that results in a breach of contract the contracting party (debtor) would be left without a means of personal support and provision should the debt go into default. In the above example half of the millstone would be taken away and the debtor would be left with no way to grind his flour. He would be plunged into poverty…or even death.

In these days of COVID-19 I think there is something to be learned from this. While the example is not one for one I think there is a principle to be learned from this Old Testament passage. We must be very, very careful in our desire to protect lives from a virus, to not endanger lives in other ways, by removing the ability for a man or woman to provide for his or her family. The Apostle Paul's encouragement to Timothy makes an even more stark pronouncement...to not provide for one's family is tantamount to a denying the faith, even to the point of being an enemy of God (1 Tim. 5:8). For some, the prospect of losing everything has become a stark and potential reality, but consigning them to God's judgment for their inability to do otherwise is unfair and unloving. By governmental edict we have taken their upper millstone and given them no recourse...no way to provide for themselves or their family. 

It seems that those with loudest voice calling for a stop to all business and enterprise are those that continue to be employed, whether they are in government, or academics, ‘essential’ business, or by other income means. We have shut down large segments of the economy with little thought to the eventual and tragic fallout. The command to love our neighbor is comprehensive. We must love our elderly neighbor as well as our unborn neighbor. We must love our wealthy neighbor as well as our unemployed neighbor. This is an all-encompassing command to be wise in executing things like stay-at-home orders, with the necessary and forceful compunction to ask for how long? Keep those in quarantine who are immune-compromised, but allow healthy people to work to survive. To prohibit someone from working is to consign many to inevitable poverty. In these days of open-ended quarantines we must wisely weigh the risks of all parties involved and get our unemployed neighbors back to work as soon as we can. Quarantines are one way of loving our neighbor, and getting them back to work quickly and prudently is another.  

- DJM

4/6/2020