As America has moved from a Christian nation to a post-Christian nation, the meaning of words have changed.  Gay no longer means gay.  Equity no longer means equity.  Rather than equity being defined by God’s law ensuring biblical justice, it now is a wealth redistribution scheme mediated through the force of law or through guilt-manipulation.

Recently, talk-show host Bill Maher asked Senator Bernie Sanders what the difference between equality and equity is.  Sanders responded that he did not know. It was a humorous exchange between the celebrity and the senator who is a socialist leader in modern politics.  It was also very revealing.
The word equity is being used as a weapon in the modern woke and cancel-culture movement, but no one seems to be able to define what the word means. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) officers are everywhere to ensure equity, so someone needs to define it.  Even in the church there is an absence of knowledge about the meaning of the word.  I think this is because the meaning has changed over the last 20 years, and the church has not kept abreast of a world that is being transformed right before her very eyes.
The meanings of words do change.  For example, the word gay used to mean happy and delighted. The Flintstones were gay – both Fred and Wilma.  Every episode was introduced by their theme song that invited us to participate in a gay experience. “We’ll have a yabba-daba-do day.  We’ll have a gay old time.”   However, today the word gay refers to sexual perversion.  Similarly, my mother used to tell me to stand up straight; “don’t slouch,” she said.  Today, that might be considered an inappropriate directive.
The meaning of the word equity has changed. There is the old meaning and a new meaning. The dictionary tells us that it means “even, fair, and impartial,” but that is not enough to capture the use of a word in any society. We always need a reference point or a context.
Historically and traditionally in a Christian society, the meaning of the word equity was rooted in the Bible. It appears at least ten times in most modern English translations.  An important text is Psalm 99:4 where the Psalmist says, “The strength of the King loves justice.  You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob (NASB).” Equity was equated with treating people fairly, justly, and righteously in accordance with the Law of God.
For example, regarding crime and punishment in the Old Testament, equity was mandated.  If a man steals another man’s property, he is not to be put to death or sentenced to ten years in prison.  He is to pay back double.  This is equity (fair) according to God’s law.  If a man steals business property, then he is to pay back more than double, not just to restore the that which was stolen, but to compensate for lost income. This is equity (fair) according to God’s Law.
My wife and I watch old British movies on Britbox, and invariably the story involves someone who is put in prison for 10 years for the theft of something like a few items of clothing.  This is not biblical.  It is not fair. Old Britain might have been considered a Christian nation, but they drifted too far from the biblical concept of equity.  In some societies the punishment for theft is to have your hand cut off.  Horrible!  Unjust! The same could be said for horse thievery in early western America.
If a man murders another man the punishment is not probation or life imprisonment, but death.  “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed (Gen. 9:6).”  Murder was a capital offense, when verified by two or three witnesses. We could go on with many other examples, but I hope you understand something of the old concept of equity.  It was rooted in the Bible, especially in God’s law.
Also, it should be noted that justice or equity must not consider race, gender, or economic status in judgment.  Lev. 19:15 says, “Do not pervert justice, do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.”  The symbol of Lady Justice who is blindfolded is appropriate and biblical.
Since we have become a post-Christian society, the meaning of the word equity has changed.  It has been hijacked. Maybe this is the reason Senator Sanders could not define the term.
The modern meaning of equity is probably derived from the world of finance. For example, if you purchase a $500,000 home and pay $100,000 as a down-payment, then you have $100,000 of owner’s equity in the home.  You own one-fifth and the bank owns four-fifths.  In a sense, if it has five bathrooms, you own one of them and the bank owns the other four.  Thus, the word equity has been popularized to refer to wealth.
In modern parlance, equity has come to mean the transfer of wealth due to injustice in the past which has resulted in disparity between different groups of people. This transfer is accomplished by either force (government statute or corporate directives), or simply by guilt-manipulation.
It should be noted that wealth is more than just money. Wealth can include positions of power or privilege. Certain other symbols of wealth such as talents and godly parents cannot be transferred, but this does not stop the woke movement from transferring all they can. The goal of modern equity is to right every social wrong by the transfer of wealth, without any reference to biblical law or ethics.
Modern equity is a redistribution of wealth scheme which must first be enforced by civil government.  For example, in the City of San Francisco, shoplifting of merchandize under the value of $950 has been decriminalized, and any retailer that seeks to apprehend such thieves can be sued. You can walk in a store, steal property, and walk out and go home.  No one is allowed to stop you.  You don’t have to go before a judge.  You don’t have to return the merchandise.  Theft is now considered to be an act that creates equity, not disparages it.  It is a state enforced equity in direct opposition to the definition of biblical equity.
The Supreme Court recently declared Affirmation Action as unconstitutional.  Again, this was a law that sought to promote the redistribution of wealth based on race or minority status rather than on merit.  Remember that wealth is more than money.  It includes position and power.
Also, the forgiveness of student-loan debt was another equity scheme to transfer wealth by law from one sector of society (many of those who chose not to go to college) to another sector (students in debt).  Reparations is one more scheme to transfer wealth from one class of society to another – again by force of law.  From a biblical perspective, reparations is just another form of theft – sanctioned by government force.
In addition to the implementation of modern equity by the force of law, the other major scheme to transfer wealth is simply guilt-manipulation.  Because some white men owned slaves in the South, all white men today are perpetrators of injustice or inequity.  If you can make another person feel guilty, they will become putty in your hands.  This seems to be the goal of the modern social justice movement.  Guilt is associated with the color of your skin or into what family you were born.  White men are guilty, period!
I must admit, that as a white man I am privileged, but this privilege comes by the grace of God, and not because there is any inherent goodness in me more than what exists in any others.  We are all wretched sinners because of our connection to Adam.
It is also interesting to note that within the structure of the white race there are inequities. I was raised in Appalachia where the sun hardly shined (because of the mountains), and where there were few dentists.  We wanted to improve our way of life, but we never wanted to do it with handouts from the civil government or by the force of law.  The Peace Corps was never welcome in our town.  We wanted to climb out of our poor condition, but only through merit and hard work.
As America has moved from a Christian nation to a post-Christian nation, the meaning of words have changed.  Gay no longer means gay.  Equity no longer means equity.  Rather than equity being defined by God’s law ensuring biblical justice, it now is a wealth redistribution scheme mediated through the force of law or through guilt-manipulation.
The gospel is the only answer to this change in America.  Only the gospel can right what is wrong.  Only the gospel can put fathers back into the home.  Only the gospel can give men the drive to use their gifts to the fullest for the glory of God.  Only the gospel can give privileged men humility and give marginalized men a hope of advancement in a society such as ours.
It appears that the church is choosing to avoid the cultural battles of our day because we have left the public square, and because we have retreated from leading our people in understanding the issues in the modern culture wars.  Understanding the hijacking of the word equity is necessary in order to participate in that war.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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How would you know where Jesus is? Answer: by remembering who He is! This is also the only record we have in Scripture of Jesus ever being scolded by His human parents. But, if we believe in the doctrine of the sinlessness of Christ at age twelve, then it was a scolding He did not deserve. But Gothard’s view assumes He did deserve it since he had already gotten out from under their “umbrella of authority.” Fortunately, Luke is telling this story instead of Gothard. And as Luke tells it, the sinless Christ, at age twelve, answered His parents’ question with His own questions: Don’t you know who I am? And don’t you know that who I Am dictates where I am?

Editor’s Note: Bill Gothard’s unique and at times, unbiblical teachings have impacted churches, homeschool groups, and Christians far beyond the over two and a half million that have attended his Basic Seminar. If his teaching on authority is applied consistently, Jesus was a sinner, visualization is “one of the most basic aspects of faith,” and First Century authoritarianism is the biblical model for Christians and the church. We decided to post an excerpt of our updated and newly released book, A Matter of Basic Principles: Bill Gothard and His Cultish Teaching. This comes from chapter three, “The Emerald City.”
The Links in Gothard’s Chain of Authority
Gothard teaches that God had three primary purposes for instituting human authority:

“To [help us] grow in wisdom and character;”
“To gain protection from destructive temptations” (as outlined above); and
“To receive clear direction for life decisions.”1

To prove his point, Gothard writes:
The only recorded incident in the life of Christ between the ages of two and thirty was a discussion with his parents, which involved authority. This occurred when He was twelve. Should he follow His spiritual calling and be about His Father’s business (Luke 2:49), or should he become subject to His parents and leave His ministry at the temple? He did the latter, and the following verse reports, “And He increased with wisdom and stature, and found favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).2
Here Gothard took a story from Luke, designed to illustrate the identity of Christ as the Son of God and Messiah. But in his hands, it becomes a story about internal conflict within the Lord Jesus over whether to obey the parental authority of Joseph and Mary so he can fit it into his system. However, there is nothing in Luke 2:41-52 that even remotely implies that Jesus was struggling with the issues Gothard mentions here. He reads these ideas into the passage, giving unwary readers the impression that they are in the text itself. As illusionists quickly distract their audiences from what they are actually doing, Gothard quickly moves on without providing readers with a verse to back up his assertion.
He apparently doesn’t realize the theological problems that result from this sleight-of-hand. If Gothard’s interpretation is correct, Jesus deliberately remained behind in the Temple against what He obviously knew (since He was God) to be his parents’ wishes as His authority. This would mean that even before the boy Jesus had resolved His supposed “inner-conflict,” He had already sinned! This, of course, directly contradicts biblical teaching on the sinless nature of Christ.
The notion that this is a story about Jesus resolving His own internal conflict is also at odds with its climactic scene (which Gothard oddly omits). Luke records this in verses 48-49:
And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.”
And he said unto them, “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
This sure doesn’t sound as though Jesus decided against being about His Father’s business! He clearly stated He must be about it! Why does Gothard contradict Jesus’ words by stating He chose against being about His Father’s business by being subject to His parents? And where does the text teach that being about His Father’s business and being subject to His parents are incompatible so that He cannot do both at the same time?
Luke’s climax also does not uncover any sort of “inner conflict” Jesus may have experienced. On the other hand, he portrays Joseph’s and Mary’s inner conflict quite vividly. We can read and re-read this passage countless times, but we’ll never find Gothard’s teachings— however, we may find Luke’s.
Luke is telling a story in narrative form. Narratives are often about conflict and resolution. In this case Gothard reads into the text the wrong conflict and is teaching a false resolution. When you read this kind of story (or hear it, or see it in a movie), you can tell what it’s about by following the key players in the conflict. A good storyteller knows how to focus your attention on the conflict to build suspense so that the conflict’s resolution makes a memorable impact on the readers.
Everyone who has children or young siblings can relate to the terror of losing track of one’s young charge, even for a brief period of time. Joseph and Mary were a full day’s journey away before they realized Jesus was missing (v. 44), and it took them three days to find Him after they made it back to Jerusalem (v. 46)!
Luke supplies these details because this is what the story is about. He wants his readers to ask the same question Joseph and Mary were asking: “Where could Jesus be?” He wants them to feel the same range of emotions any parent would feel because the lesson for the reader is the same as it was for Joseph and Mary.
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It is clear that scripture calls us to a higher standard in setting goals. The goals we set as Christians must be in accordance with God’s will and under his leadership. So, in James 4, James is not saying that we should not set goals. What he is saying is that we should set goals and make plans as God leads, but hold them loosely: “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that’” (Jam. 4:15). Herein lies the balance of the Christian life: although Paul set Christ-centered goals and developed specific plans to achieve them, he was also sensitive to the Lord altering his plans.

If you knew without a doubt that you could not fail in accomplishing one major goal, what goal would you set for your life?
I have heard this question for years in business circles when the subject of goal-setting comes up. It’s also one I think about between Christmas and the new year as I pray and think through what God wants me to accomplish in the coming year.
For those who have put their trust in the Lord, maybe a better question is, “Should we as Christians set goals?”
Over the years, I have heard many answers to that question. In the recent past, the answer from the church has usually been “no.” I have heard sermons expounding the dangers of fleshly zeal tied to spiritual goals. James is often quoted to support this argument:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (Jam. 4:13-15 ESV)
Yet today if you google the question, “Should we as Christians set goals?” the search yields about 159,000,000 results, many of which provide detailed instruction on how to make your goals a reality.
Two Ways to Look at Setting Goals
With goal-setting, like many issues, it’s easy to fall into two dangerous extremes.
The first extreme is to choose not to have any goals or plans. These people aim at nothing and hit it with amazing consistency. They claim to always want to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, who they suggest only leads people in a spontaneous way. Although this may seem spiritual, they are not really using their God-given intellect to set good goals, plans, and decisions.
The second extreme is when people develop such rigid goals and plans that there is no room for the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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