Digest of Biblical Civil Law

While the NT teaches that individuals should give to the needy from their personal possessions out of love, the OT teaches that giving to the poor is a matter of civil justice. The powerful, to include civil rulers, have an obligation to give to the needy as their entitlement when they have been harmed by the one giving or by others. The Bible rarely blames the poor for their plight, such as claiming that poverty is the result of not as hard as the wealthy. Rather it usually blames the rich for the plight of the poor and calls for the community as a whole to redress the injustices. (Gen. 4:9, Lev.25:35-36, Deut. 24:14, Mic. 6: 8-12, Isa. 58:1-10, Isa. 1:17, Prov. 14:31, Prov. 19:17, Isa. 3:14-16, Zech. 7:10, Isa. 10:1-3, Eccl. 5:10-12) Therefore liberals and the Democrat Party in the twentieth century, who fought for laws providing welfare and employment rights for the poor, more closely followed God’s will than conservatives and the Republican Party.
- Ray Dubuque, Thou shalt not confuse 'G.O.P.' and 'GOD', http://liberalslikechrist.org/mainpage/godsparty.html (last checked October 13, 2002).