To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. 
—Proverbs 21:3

I wish I could report to you today that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is embracing and acting on its primary calling to restore justice to a world pervasively framed in unrighteousness. I cannot. And if my email inbox is any indication, the central questions on the heart of the average Christian still focus on how to celebrate the Sabbath; what church should he attend; can he eat pork; and who was the man of lawlessness in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. Unless we’re talking about unjust taxation, justice and judgment are far from his mind.

Yet Solomon wrote that “to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice,� and this he said hundreds of years prior to the cross of Jesus Christ. In other words, he was still living in the time of sacrifice, priesthood, and holy days, but like his father, David, Solomon saw past the elaborate—and God-commanded—liturgy of his time. He understood that the ultimate expression of worship was a world restored to justice and righteous judgment. Read the rest of this article...