To visualize the way public justice systems in the developing world "work" for hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people, I find myself thinking about the old broken-down truck that always sat rusting and decomposing amidst the weeds in the back corner of my grandfather's raspberry farm when I was a kid. If you asked him if he had a truck, he'd say, "Sure." And he could point to things on the truck called an "engine' and "tires" and "steering wheel"—but if you asked him if it worked, he'd smile slightly over the absurdity and say, "Oh, no. No one had driven it in decades. No raspberries have been hauled, no supplies have been moved. In fact, I best not go near it," he would advise, "It's just a hide-out for snakes and spiders now."

Likewise for the great mass of poor people in the developing world, if asked about the public justice system, they could probably point to things in their country called "police" or "courts" or "laws" or "lawyers:' But these things are useful to them in the same way the "truck" was to grandpa—and that is, not at all. Just as my family had no experience of anyone ever making use of grandpa's truck for trucking, the poor in the developing world have no life experience of the justice system being a useful source of justice for them. In fact, police, courts, laws and lawyers have become, like the rusty truck in the weeds, mysterious at best and dangerous at worst.

Editor's Note: Many people in the Western world assume that poverty is caused by lack of resources. But in his book The Locust Effect, Gary Haugen argues that for millions of people around the globe, poverty is fueled by violence and man-inflicted suffering. Haugen writes, "The relentless threat of violence is part of the core subtext of their lives, but we are unlikely to see it, and they are unlikely to tell us about it. We would be wise, however, to not be fooled—because, like grief, the thing we cannot see may be the deepest part of their day."

For instance, the District of Columbia spends about $850 per person per year on police. In Bangladesh, the government spends less than $1.50 per person per year on police. In the U.S., there is one prosecutor for every 12,000 citizens. In Malawi, there is one prosecutor for every 1.5 million citizens. New York Times columnist David Brooks writes, "Unless cruelty is tamed, poverty will persist."

Here are some possible preaching angles: (1) Compassion; Poverty; Justice; Injustice—The story about the broken down truck shows what we take for granted but which millions of people don't have—a justice system that actually works. This should give us even more compassion for the plight of the poor. (2) Violence; Cruelty; Oppression—As we address poverty, Christians need to understand that we also need to address larger issues of violence and oppression, or the poor will remain stuck in poverty. The Bible has a lot to say about the poor who cry out to God against their violent oppressors.