UNMUZZLING THE WORKING OX Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn (Deut. 25:4).
The theocentric focus of this law is God as man's employer. What this verse reveals regarding God's requirements for employing an ox, it also reveals about God's relationship with man in man's office as an agent of dominion. Man works for God. God allows man to enjoy the fruits of his labor as he exercises dominion on behalf of God, whether or not a man acknowledges the existence of, or the assignment by, his heavenly employer. What God allows to man, man should allow to his subordinates. This includes his animal subordinates. This was not a land law or a seed law. It was a cross-boundary law.
How a man treats his ox reflects how he treats workers in general. The ox is a symbol of dominion.(1) It serves man as a working agent. It therefore is entitled to special protection. This is why the penalty for stealing and then either selling or destroying an ox is five-fold restitution (Ex. 22:1). For other forms of theft (except sheep), as well as for an ox or sheep found in the thief's possession, it is double restitution (Ex. 22:4).
Man is not a beast. He possesses future-orientation. The ox is not future-oriented. He eats as he works. The farmer who expects an ox to work all day without eating is expecting too much. Even in the case of a hired man, biblical law does not expect him to wait beyond sunset to receive his wages (Deut. 24:15).
Judicial Hermeneutics Rushdoony adopts this verse as an explanatory model for biblical interpretation.(2) He does so because Paul cited this passage in two epistles. In each case, Paul extended the narrow focus of this case law to a much broader concern: the payment of Christian workers who were laboring as teachers. In the first example, Paul reminded the Corinthians that He was an apostle. He was in authority over them. He was therefore entitled to financial support.
Am I not an apostle? am I not free? have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord. Mine answer to them that do examine me is this, Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to forbear working? Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope (I Cor. 9:1-10).
The field to be plowed in this case was the world. Paul was harvesting men. The Corinthians were part of his work of harvesting. Why were they resisting paying him? As surely as an ox was entitled to eat while he worked for another, so was Paul entitled to be paid as he worked on behalf of the Corinthians.
In the second example, Paul defended the right of church rulers to a double portion. "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward" (II Tim. 5:17-18). Double honor in this context meant double payment, i.e., payment higher than what a comparably skilled workman would receive. The elder who devotes all of his time to serving the church should be well-compensated by the members.
What was the biblical origin of the concept of double payment? It has to be the firstborn son's double inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17). The church elder is to be treated as a firstborn son. He performs double service; he should receive double honor and double payment.
From Minimal to Maximal Application
The law governing oxen is a Mosaic case law. These case laws are stated in a narrow context, but they are to be applied more broadly, as Paul's examples indicate. Rushdoony describes the case-law hermeneutics: "These specific cases are often illustrations of the extent of the application of the law; that is, by citing a minimal type of case, the necessary jurisdictions are revealed. To prevent us from having any excuse for failing to understand and utilize this concept [of case law], the Bible gives us its own interpretation of such a law, and this illustration, being given by St. Paul, makes clear the New Testament undergirding of the law."(3) Rushdoony uses Paul's application of this case law as a hermeneutical model which has been validated in the New Covenant.
Rushdoony classifies the ox law as an application of the commandment against theft. This is correct. "If it is a sin to defraud an ox of his livelihood, then it is also a sin to defraud a man of his wages; it is theft is both cases. If theft is God's classification of an offense against an animal, how much more so an offense against God's apostle and minister?"(4) Rushdoony in another place has noted that "Americans want their religion, but they want it cheap." He regards such an attitude as a violation of this case law.
The case laws apply the Ten Commandments in real-world situations. He writes: "Without case law, God's law would soon be reduced to an extremely limited area of meaning. This, of course, is precisely what has happened. Those who deny the present validity of the law apart from the Ten Commandments have as a consequence a very limited definition of theft. Their definition usually follows the civil law of their own country, is humanistic, and is not radically different from the definitions given by Moslems, Buddhists, and humanists."(5)
From Minimal to Zero Application
The hermeneutics typically used by Christian Bible commentators and expositors is this: "If a Mosaic law is not reaffirmed in the New Covenant, it is no longer binding." In other words, a Mosaic law is guilty until proven innocent. This judicial presupposition raises the problem of bestiality, which is prohibited by the Mosaic law but is not mentioned in the New Covenant. If the person committing the act is not married, the "New Testament only" Christian faces a very difficult problem: On what judicial basis should the act be prohibited by the State? It was prohibited under the Mosaic Covenant. Why not today? Furthermore, what is the appropriate civil penalty? It was execution under the Mosaic law (Lev. 20:15-16). Modern commentators handle this judicial problem by not considering it.(6)
An example of this hostility toward the Mosaic case laws is Dan G. Macartney's essay in the Westminster Theological Seminary symposium, Theonomy: A Reformed Critique (1990). He is a professor at the Gordon-Conwell Divinity School. He forthrightly rejects all of the Mosaic case laws, thereby removing the covenantal status of civil government. "Therefore, the New Testament's approach to the Old Testament is not an attempt to readapt or contemporize case law, in the way the Rabbis did. The law, or rather the Old Testament as an entirety, is focused on Christ, and through him it becomes applicable to believers. Thus case law is not directly applicable, even to believers; it is applicable only as a working out of God's moral principles, an expression of God's character revealed in Christ."(7) That is to say -- and he says it -- there is no binding authority of either the Mosaic case laws or their mandated civil sanctions. "Where legal questions arise, he [Jesus] is concerned with the law's internal application, not its external enforcement."(8) "As we have noted, the New Testament gives no indication of the law's sanctions as applicable to any except Christ and, through him, his people. . . . There may indeed be punishment for people within the church (2Co 10:6), but this does not involve civil authority or those outside the church (1Co 5:12), and its only form is various degrees of removal from fellowship (being `cut off' from the people)."(9)
This is the theology of pietism: removing all biblical sanctions from the civil law. This in principle leaves Christians at the mercy of the non-Christians who write the civil laws and enforce them. The pietist prefers man's civil law to God's civil law. So does the covenant-breaker. This agreement has become the basis of an implicit operating civil alliance between Christian pietists and covenant-breakers.(10) Only as the covenant-breakers extend the civil law's jurisdiction to encompass, control, and then immobilize the church do the pietists protest. "That's not fair! You guys promised to be neutral." To which the covenant-breaker responds: "We are completely neutral in the area of religion. Our interpretation of neutrality says that the God of the Bible has no public authority in society. You are saying that God is relevant to some aspects of society, such as the church, or the family, or education, and that you have the right to impose economic or other sanctions in these areas. You discriminate against others who say that the God of the Bible may not lawfully be invoked as the basis of public decision-making. Understand, in our view, everything is public. Nothing is outside the realm of civil law.(11) So, you are not being neutral as we define it. You are trying to legislate morality when you create zones of exclusivism in which your economic or membership sanctions apply. We will no longer allow you to be unneutral."
Step by step, the Christians surrender the doctrine of God's authority in history. Step by step, their enemies push them into Christian ghettos. But ghettos are never permanent. Eventually, like the Jewish ghettos of northern Europe and Soviet Asia, the residents will be removed from these ghettos and sent into different ghettos: concentration camps. They may not be called concentration camps. They may be called government schools. But life in the ghetto is always at the discretion of those who make the laws and enforce them. There is no neutrality. There is no immunity. Two kingdoms are at war. They cannot both be triumphant in history.
Wiser Than God The vast majority of Christians have always believed that they can improve on the Mosaic law. On their own authority, they revise God's law by coming to conclusions in the name of God that deny the specific teachings of God's revealed law. Then they proclaim their annulment-through-interpretation as being in conformity with "the true spirit of God's law" or "the underlying principles of God's law." As part of this improvement, they reject the binding authority of God's law. In doing so, they necessarily become advocates of some system of law proposed by one or another group of covenant-breakers. They refuse to ask themselves the obvious question: "If not God's law, then what?" They refuse to deal with the ethical question: "By what other standard?"(12)
As an example, consider the assertion of Rev. John Gladwin, a defender of central planning, who later became a bishop in the Anglican Church. In a chapter in a book devoted to Christian economics, he rejects the concept of the Bible as a source of authoritative economic guidelines or blueprints. In fact, he assures us, it is unbiblical to search for biblical guidelines for economics. "It is unhelpful as well as unbiblical to look to the Bible to give us a blueprint of economic theory or structure which we then apply to our contemporary life. We must rather work in a theological way, looking to the Bible to give us experience and insight into the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. This then helps us discover values and methods of interpretation which we can use in understanding our present social experience."(13) Furthermore, "There is in Scripture no blueprint of the ideal state or the ideal economy. We cannot turn to chapters of the Bible and find in them a model to copy or a plan for building the ideal biblical state and national economy."(14) He contrasts biblical law unfavorably with theology. He then goes on to praise the welfare State as an application of theological, rather than legal, insights.(15) Theology informs us that "there is no escape from the need for large-scale state activity if our society is to move into a more equitable future at social and economic levels."(16) Clearly, neither the Mosaic law nor the New Testament teaches this, but theology supposedly does. Whose theology? Reinhold Niebuhr's.(17)
So, we are assured, there are no authoritative economic guidelines or economic blueprints in the Bible. On the other hand, there are numerous vague and non-specific ethical principles which just about any Christian social theorist can invoke when promoting his recommended reconstruction of society. All it requires to baptize socialism is a series of nice-sounding pat phrases taken from the book of theological liberalism, which Gladwin offers in profusion: "the bounds of Christian principles of human concern," "the righteousness revealed to us in God himself," "the good," "structural framework of law and social values," "gross and deepening disparities in social experience," "spontaneity of love," "the light of the gospel," and "the most humane principles of social order."(18)
Lest you imagine that Gladwin is an aberration, consider the fact that the two other anti-free market essayists in the book adopted the same anti-blueprint hermeneutics. William Diehl, a defender of Keynesianism's State-guided economy, confidently affirms: "The fact that our Scriptures can be used to support or condemn any economic philosophy suggests that the Bible is not intended to lay out an economic plan which will apply for all times and places. If we are to examine economic structures in the light of Christian teachings, we will have to do it in another way."(19) Art Gish, a defender of small communities of Christians who hold property in common, informs us that "Since koinonia includes the participation of everyone involved, there is no blueprint for what this would look like on a global scale. . . . We are talking about a process, not final answers."(20)
The fact that these statements appear in a book on Christian economics should come as no surprise. These comments are typical of the opinions of humanist-educated Christian intellectuals. Christians who have spent their lives in humanist educational institutions, and who then have fed their minds on a high-fat diet of humanist publications, in most cases have adopted the worldview of one or another variety of humanism. They have felt emotionally compelled to baptize their adopted worldview with a few religious-sounding phrases. But just because someone keeps repeating "koinonia, koinonia" as a Christian mantra does not in any way prove that his recommended policies of common ownership will actually produce koinonia.(21) What produces peace, harmony, and increasing per capita output is widespread faithfulness to God's law.
It is unwise to attempt to become wiser than God. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (I Cor. 1:25). This is why it is our job to become familiar with God's Bible-revealed law. It, not the latest academic fad, is to be our guide, generation after generation.
Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD (Ps. 119:1).
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law (Ps. 119:18).
So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever (Ps. 119:44).
Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight (Ps. 119:77).
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day (Ps. 119:97).
My soul is continually in my hand: yet do I not forget thy law (Ps. 119:109).
I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love (Ps. 119:113).
It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law (Ps. 119:126).
Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them (Ps. 119:165).
I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight (Ps. 119:174).
Despite generations of Christians who have said that they believe in the Bible, word for word, they have not believed in the 119th psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible. They have spent their lives avoiding its plain teaching. The 119th psalm is a witness against the church. Nowhere is this clearer than in the academic field of economics, the original social science, which was self-consciously structured by its founders in terms of theological agnosticism.(22)
Still in Force The law against muzzling an ox is repeated twice in the New Testament, in the context of paying church officers. The person who defends a view of God's law that mandates a New Covenant recapitulation in order for a Mosaic law to be valid can hardly dismiss this case law. What he does dismiss as unproven is Rushdoony's insistence that this case law is a model for the others, i.e., that the Mosaic case laws have continuing validity in the New Covenant era unless annulled by the New Testament.
Paul's application of this law provides commentators with an example. The pietist prefers to operate on the assumption that unless a New Testament author applies a case law, the case law is no longer valid in the New Covenant. But Jesus' language does not validate this assumption: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:17-18).(23) The continuity of God's law is Jesus' hermeneutical presupposition. It is therefore the responsibility of the commentator to provide reasons for the annulment of a particular case law. He may not legitimately assume away continuity. Yet commentators write as though it is somehow the burden of the defender of the case laws to prove each case law's continuing authority.
Beginning with Tools of Dominion, I have systematically begun the discussion of each case law with a consideration of its theocentric focus. If we begin with God and His relationships with mankind, we are on more solid ground exegetically than if we begin with man, his desires, and needs. The Bible begins with "In the beginning God. . . ." not "In the beginning man. . . ." While it is possible to misconceive the theocentric focus of a law, it is also possible to misconceive the anthropocentric focus of a law. It is safer to begin with God, in whose image man is made, than to begin with man, who is continually tempted to see God as made in man's image.(24)
Because of the debate over hermeneutics, the debate over this case law raises several issues. First, must this law be applied literally? If the farmer feeds the animal a diet designed by scientists, should he still obey this law? Maybe the ox likes to eat corn on the cob, plus the cob, but isn't a scientifically designed diet better for him nutritionally? Second, to what extent is Paul's invocation of this law a model for all other Mosaic case laws? Is Paul's wider application of this case law to the affairs of men a model for other case laws? How can we know when we have extended the application of a law too broadly?
Literalism
In modern industrial nations, only Amish and Hutterite farmers use animals to do their plowing. The legal issue of muzzling the ox never arises in the context of mechanized agriculture. But Christian missionaries work with farmers who still use oxen. What should they tell these farmers? Should the farmers muzzle their oxen or not?
The ox should be paid as he works in the field as surely as the pastor should be paid for his labor. If the farmer wants to feed his animal before taking it into the field, that is legitimate. Perhaps then the animal will not eat so much in the field. What is not legitimate is forcing it to work while wearing a muzzle.
The animal is used to eating throughout the day. The farmer is not to force new eating habits on a work animal. If he can train the animal without using compulsion to eat at scheduled times, this is not a violation of this law. What is convenient for the farmer may become convenient for the animal. This is for the animal to decide. In any case, the animal should not be muzzled while it is working in the field.
How Much More!
The case law gives us the rule governing oxen. If it applies to oxen, how much more does it apply to men! Another case law tells us that employers should pay their workers at the end of the day (Deut. 24:15).(25) This enables us to begin to apply this law in human affairs. But this is only the beginning. Paul says that the muzzled ox law also governs the payments that churches owe to ministers. In other words, if it applies to day laborers, how much more to laborers in the word of God!
How do we know when we have extended a case law application too far? First, when we find another case law that places limits on us. Men are to be paid daily, by the end of the working day. So, they need not be paid hourly. Also, this law implies a lunch break. Men work with their hands, unlike an ox. They use their hands to feed themselves. So, they may not be able to work and eat at the same time. But if a man has food in his pocket and munches as he works, this is legitimate unless eating raises risks for others or himself. This law implies that he can lawfully eat a handful of uncooked corn from the stalks of the field. This is affirmed by another case law (Deut. 23:24-25).(26) These two laws also imply that he may eat the fruit of the tree or vine as he works.
The Bible comments on the Bible. The commentator must search the case laws to see if one modifies another. But searching the Bible for authoritative insights into the interpretation of any passage is the commentator's task in every area of exegesis, not just the case laws. The a fortiori (how much more) argument is used by New Testament writers to deal with subjects other than the Mosaic law.(27)
Conclusion This case law governs men's treatment of their working oxen. It also governs churches' treatment of their ministers. In between these two applications of this law lies the general area of employers' relations with their employees. The governing hermeneutical principle here is this: "If this law governs men's relationships with subordinate animals, how much more does it govern their relationships with subordinate men." There is nothing in this case law to indicate that it had something to do with either a Mosaic seed law or a land law. Paul's extension of this law to the payment of full-time church workers indicates that it was a cross-boundary law. It applied outside the land of Israel in Moses' day, and it still applies today.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), p. 525.
2. R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, New Jersey: Craig Press, 1973), pp. 11, 506.
3. Ibid., p. 11.
4. Ibid., p. 12.
5. Idem.
6. I have raised this issue before. Gary North, 75 Bible Questions Your Instructors Pray You Won't Ask (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, [1984] 1996), Q. 26; Westminster's Confession: The Abandonment of Van Til's Legacy (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), pp. 211-14. I have yet to see any critic of theonomy deal in print with this problem.
7. McCartney, "The New Testament Use of the Pentateuch: Implications for the Theonomic Movement," in Theonomy: A Reformed Critique, edited by William S. Barker and Robert W. Godfrey (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academie, 1990), p. 146.
8. Ibid., p. 143.
9. Ibid., p. 147.
10. Gary North, Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion vs. Power Religion (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985), pp. 2-5.
11. Secular humanists do insist on one safety zone: sexual activity.
12. Greg L. Bahnsen, No Other Standard: Theonomy and Its Critics (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991).
13. John Gladwin, "A Centralist Response," in Robert G. Clouse (ed.), Wealth and Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1984), p. 124.
14. Gladwin, "Centralist Economics," ibid., p. 183.
15. Ibid., pp. 125-26
16. Gladwin, "Centralist Economics," ibid., p. 193.
17. Ibid., p. 197. He cites Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932). It is an odd book to cite. It was written by the author in reaction against his youthful fling with Marxism, a book in which he proclaimed that Jesus "did not dwell upon the social consequences of these moral actions, because he viewed them from an inner and a transcendent perspective." Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Scribner's, [1932] 1960), p. 264.
18. See my critique in Wealth and Poverty, p. 200.
19. William Diehl, "The Guided-Market System, ibid., p. 87.
20. Art Gish, "Decentralist Economics," ibid., p. 154.
21. If you wonder what "koinonia" means, you are probably not a left-wing advocate of common ownership. Understand, I am not suggesting that voluntary common ownership is anti-Christian, any more than I am saying that voluntary celibacy is anti-Christian. Paul recommended celibacy (I Cor. 7:32-33). He did so, he said, because of "the present distress" (v. 26). Similarly, the Jerusalem church held property in common (Acts 2:44; 4:32). Shortly thereafter, a great persecution of the church began. The entire church fled the city, except for the apostles (Acts 8:1). This exodus created the first foreign missions program in church history: "Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word" (Acts 8:4). The fact that they had sold their property enabled them to leave the city without looking back, as Lot's wife had looked back. So, for temporary purposes in times of great trial, voluntary celibacy and voluntary common ownership are legitimate, even wise. But to make either practice a recommended institutional model for all times and places is a misuse of historical events. The one institution where common ownership has been productive for longer than one generation is the monastery. However, it takes celibacy to make this system work for longer than a few years. As soon as there is a wife saying, "He's earning as much as you are, but you're far more productive," koinonia ends. In the modern State of Israel, the kibbutz collective farms faded rapidly as important sources of national production.
22. William Letwin, The Origins of Scientific Economics (Garden City, New York: Anchor, [1963] 1965).
23. Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (2nd ed.; Phillipsberg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed, [1977] 1984), ch. 2.
24. Ludwig Feuerbach is a classic example of this form of theological anthropocentrism. See his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841). Cf. Gary North, Marx's Religion of Revolution: Regeneration Through Chaos (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, [1968] 1989), pp. 28-30.
25. Chapter 59.
26. Chapter 57.
27. See, for example, Paul's discussion of the casting off of Israel and the resulting blessings to the gentiles, which he contrasts with the blessings the gentiles can expect when Israel is grafted back into the olive tree of faith. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1965), II, pp. 77-84 (Rom. 11:12-15).
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