Entitlement is a prevalent concept in our society today. In the media there is a lot of talk about entitlement to high-quality public education, affordable health care, and tax-paid government aid such as Social Security and Medicare. It’s also common for people to feel entitled to a certain kind of job after achieving a college education, or feel entitled to a promotion or a raise because of their quality of work or time spent on the job.
However, most of us have learned from experience that a person’s entitlement is not always granted. If an entitlement is founded on a material basis, by the very definition of materiality there will be limits to what can be supplied. There may be an unexpected shortage, or an unequal or unfair distribution, or even dishonesty that can cheat those who are rightfully entitled.
Take, for example, the Bible story of Esau and Jacob, which begins in chapter 25 of Genesis. These brothers were twins, but because Esau was the older, he was entitled to a much greater inheritance than Jacob. His entitlement was based on matter, so it was finite and limited. Moved by jealousy, Jacob twice tricked Esau out of his rightful entitlement, so Esau lost his birthright and his blessing—the inheritance that was legally his. And once it was lost, no matter how unjustly, he could not get it back.