Reverent De-Slopping
By Anthony Casperson
5-9-26

“Why’d they change it, and make it worse?”

That was basically my question earlier this week about a certain company’s product. (I’m not naming the company because putting them on blast is not my purpose here.)

My frustration arose because I’d used the product for a long time, and had learned how to get what I wanted out of it, but now it’s incredibly difficult to get the same result—if that’s even possible at all. I can spend twice the time with it, but still only get about half of what I used to be able to do. That’s a four-fold loss of productivity, for those counting.

In the discussion where I asked this question, the response I got only frustrated me more. The opinion given for my question was that the company had at one time wanted to help people, but recent corporate requirements caused them to value the bottom line more than the customer’s time and needs.

And a number of you just said something like, “Welcome to the world of corporate commerce.”

Some of that mentality is true. Greed has taken hold of many. “Investors” are only invested in how much money they can grab while providing slop for “consumers.” Like a stereotypical lunch lady, they plop a scoop of mystery substance, without real regard for the value to the one partaking of it.

(And part of me wants the word “slop-ster” to become the term for “investors” for long as customers continue to be called “consumers,” but that’s not the direction this blog is supposed to go, either.)

Instead, I wondered why greed seems to be more and more on the rise in our culture. Sure, some of it might be attributed to rose-colored glasses that misremember the past. I might also have had too innocent of a view of the world when I was younger. But my time reading the word of God this week fortified my thought that some of this shift toward greater greed has to do with a lack of moral duty.

With culture’s view of morality being a subjective thing decided upon by whatever the consensus-du-jour is right now, there’s a tendency toward people doing whatever it is they can get away with before they receive some detriment. This is a punitive perspective on moral deeds. “How far can I go without being punished?”

But there are a few problems with this perspective. The requirement of someone in leadership needing to catch the person in the act of harming another leads that list, especially when numerous misdeeds can be performed in secret. And that’s not even talking about what happens when the one doling out the punishment can be bribed or blackmailed into silence. After all, governmental leadership can be just as greedy as corporate leaders.

Rather than taking a punitive perspective on morality, we should have a sense of oughtness that comes from moral duty. You might ask what provides that moral duty. And the answer can be found in the very verse I was reading during my morning devotions this week.

I’ve been finishing up reading through Leviticus, and came across Leviticus 25:17. The context for the verse shows God explaining the Sabbath year to the Israelites. Every seventh year, the people of Israel were to let the land have a rest from providing crops. But then, after seven of these Sabbath years, the fiftieth year was to be a special Sabbath called the “Year of Jubilee.”

God then spoke of how business deals concerning the sale of land was to interact with this fiftieth year. The land essentially reverted back to the original tribal ownership, but the deal could include some agreement between the parties involved. However, the price for this agreement would totally depend upon the produce of the land. More productive years meant a higher price, and similarly with the less productive years.

And it’s at this point that we get verse 17. “You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.”

While I’ll be among the first to admit that this command is specifically for the people of Israel as long as they lived under the Law of the Mosaic Covenant, this command does show us the type of God we followers of Jesus also serve. And since the command is based off of Yahweh’s being, it shows the general sense of good for those seeking to serve him, regardless of the covenant under which we live.

Notice that the primary reason why God’s people shouldn’t oppress one another is because of our fear of the Lord. The blog series we’ll be going through after next week’s anniversary blog will discuss more about the “fear of the Lord,” but suffice it to say right now that this is our sense of respectful duty toward the God we serve.

Thus, our interpersonal dealings should seek each others’ good merely for the fact that the other person is also an image-bearer of Yahweh. We ought to treat each other as if we were dealing with God himself.

Leviticus 25:17 falls right in line with Jesus’ answer as to what the greatest commandment is. The command to love Yahweh with our entire being and to love our neighbors as ourselves is the same thing as “Fear the Lord, and don’t wrong one another.”

Ultimately, this ties back to the idea that as image-bearers of God—as representatives of Yahweh on this planet—how we treat each other reveals how we think we can treat the Creator of the universe. Viewing a human being as nothing more than a “consumer” we get money from as long as we fill their slop slot reveals a total disregard for the King who should be sitting on the throne we usurped.

Instead of that dreadful image, we should view one another with a desire to aid and help. Sure, some of that help might come with compensation. But it should never be with greed or a desire to milk out every last cent. It should come from a posture of humility.

This posture is clearly shown in Ephesians 5:21 where Paul tells followers of Jesus to “Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.” We should seek each others’ well being because of what Jesus did on the cross for us. We didn’t deserve the grace he showed us on the cross. And we could never pay off the true price he paid for us.

Because God did so much for us through Jesus, we ought to seek the benefit of others merely because it is the godly thing to do.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we have to fall to financial ruin for others. Leviticus 25:17 and its context tells us that God accepts business exchange for a fair price. Neither side of a business deal should oppress the other to a financial burden. A cost for a product isn’t the problem.

Oppressive greed is.

And greed’s not something that’s easily legislated, due to humanity’s tendency toward selfishness. Instead, it takes a change toward moral duty to overcome it. Only a respectful fear of Yahweh causes humans to treat each other with that same respect.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, let’s put these parallel verses into practice for our dealings with others. Also, let’s pray that those who have yet to bow before the cross come to the point where they accept the truth of Jesus.

Out of reverent fear of our Lord, let’s treat each other as more than “consumers” of our slop. Let’s show each other the same respect that never seeks to oppress, especially not for our own gain.