In His Service: Chapter 1 The Place of Biblical Law in Society

Another Rushdoony book has been released. He continues to educate and honor our triune God years after his passing. Chapter one of "In His Service" speaks to the chaos of the day and gives an easy solution, if only we would heed and do. He points out how God, through His tax (tithe) laws, severely limit the power of the ecclesiastical and civil governments. Who then has the responsibility to action?

"This means that the central area of action is within the covenant family and its members. The family is the cradle of life, man's first church, school, government, vocation. God's law does not allow us to shift our duties onto the state or to the church."

It cannot be argued that society has needs and problems. That need is to be dealt with. "Social financing is a necessity." But Rushdoony points out that most of those duties do not belong to a centralized power that is easily corrupted but to a decentralized covenant people . They are to provide for it. Furthermore, Rushdoony warns: "Wherever the Christian community abandons its necessary task of government and help, other forces take it over.... The purpose of the church's service is not an impressive musical or liturgical treat (even though they have their place*) but to provide marching orders to the soldiers of Christ."

*emphasis is my own

Go here http://www.chalcedon.edu/papers/Taxation.pdf to learn about what the Bible says about taxation and welfare. Here is a clip:

Justice (civil government):
The civil government is biblically charged with administering justice, not health, education or charitable work (Rom. 13:1-7). A Scriptural civil government is supported solely by a half-shekel poll tax that all citizens pay (the Bible says 20 years old males) as a strictly flat tax (Ex. 30:1-16), which keeps the size of civil government small and gives all citizens an equal stake in societal justice.
Health, education & welfare:
According to the Bible, health care, education, poverty relief and charitable work are personal concerns, not institutional concerns, and are to be administered by individuals, not by the state, through the various tithes. The 10% per year social tithe of Lev. 27:30-33 and Num. 18:20-24 is to be individually directed to education and health in the community, and the prorated 3.3% per year poor tithe of Deut. 14:28-29 is to be given directly to the poor without middlemen. When churches and Christians fail to pay God’s tithes and ensure their proper use toward fulfilling society’s needs, the state takes over with disastrous consequences. Prior to state involvement in health, education and welfare, churches built and ran hospitals (Christian ethics were upheld and doctors were respected as Christ’s servants), Christian families and communities founded schools and universities and educated their own children (literacy in America was vastly more extensive), and Christian communities met the needs of the sick and poor.
The poor tithe and eradication of poverty:
The modern state, by waging a secular “war on poverty” while violating God’s laws, has only increased poverty, not reduced it. Deut. 15:4 points out that if God’s laws are obeyed, “there shall be no more poor among you.” Obeying God’s Law of the poor tithe brings God’s blessing upon the people and their productivity (Deut. 14:28-29; 16:12-15). The Bible calls neglect of the poor tithe grinding the faces of the poor (Isa. 3:15). (When Jesus said in Matt. 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me with you,” He was telling the disciples that in their lifetime they would not always have personal face-to-face contact with Him but they would encounter the poor. Christ here was indicting Israel’s violation of the poor tithe, quoting from Deut. 15:11 that “there shall always be poor people in the land” because those who should pay the poor tithe were “hardhearted and tightfisted” [Deut. 15:7].) Jesus told the rich young ruler in Mark 10:19ff he had failed to keep this law, and called on him to pay restitution to those he had covertly robbed through disobedience (similar to the four-fold restitution that repentant tax collector Zacchaeus, in obedience to God’s Law, announced he would pay to those he had defrauded, an action prompting salvation coming upon his house). The young ruler did not covet: verse 19’s unique term defraud not (Greek: apostereseis) is used in Deut. 24:14, Mal. 3:5 and Ex. 21:10 in regard to depriving or withholding from the needy. The amount he had withheld from the poor over the years, after God’s penalties were compounded, amounted to all he had (as Christ’s instruction to him makes clear), so to obey God’s Law and make restitution for his moral failure, he had to sell it all and return the lump sum to the poor (Mark 10:21). As with the woman at the well (John 4:18), Jesus pierced the ruler’s lawlessness. Because God is not a respecter of persons, Jesus focused on a specific sin (sin = transgression of God’s Law; 1 John 3:4) that required repentance. When the ruler persisted in transgressing God’s Law, he continued grinding the faces of the poor. Shortly thereafter we meet a likely victim of such grinding, the poor widow (Mark 12:43ff) for whom two mites amounted to “all she had.” Two centuries earlier her need could have been satisfied because Israel had, despite economically difficult times, maintained on hand the poor tithe offerings for such charitable relief (2 Macc. 3:10 – 600 talents of silver & gold).