Luke 6 is one of my favourite chapters in the Bible. A “great number of people” from all over Israel gather around Jesus, for two reasons: to hear Him preach, and to get healed from their diseases. And healed they are, all of them. Demons are cast out. Power is flowing out from Jesus. In other words, there’s full-scale revival. Then He starts to preach:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God!”

In this Charismatic revival scenario, Jesus starts to talk about the poor. He goes on with blessing the hungry, the weeping and the hated. They are blessed. They are loved. The needy, broken and oppressed are healed phycially and spiritually by the compassionate Saviour.

But then the faith healer gets angry.

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort!”

Jesus warns and critizises the rich, the wel-fed and the comfortable. They have to repent. God wants economic equality (2 Cor 8:14), His love basically cannot remain in people keeping their money for themselves instead of giving them to the needy (1 Jn 3:17).

Now, what I love with this passage is the obvious and natural combination of miracles with a divine call for economic justice. It’s a typical example of Holy Spirit activism. How come that we’ve managed to separate healing revivals from global justice? How come that healing revivalist Benny Hinn rather preaches a “blessed are you who are rich” message? How come that Christian activist Jim Wallis isn’t conducting any miracle crusades? It’s quite obvious that Jesus did both things in Luke 6. And we should do what Jesus did (1 Jn 2:6).

Dagen.