Alcoholics Anonymous, Amends, Restitution, and Bible Origins

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Alcoholics Anonymous, Amends, Restitution, and Bible Origins

A.A. Bible Refresher: Steps 8 and 9

Dick B.
© 2009 Anonymous. All rights reserved

The making of amends and restoring for things wrongfully taken are rooted in the Bible. And there are particular verses from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, from the Gospel of Luke, and
from the Book of Numbers that provided what Dr. Bob was later to state were the basic ideas
studied by A.A. cofounders long before the Steps were written and the Big Book was published.

Making Amends and Restitution Is a Vital Part of Recovery Fellowships

You can see from the basic Bible sources about to be listed that God’s will, as expressed in the Old Testament and in the words of His Son Jesus Christ, required reconciliation with, and amends to a wronged adversary. And the intensive training of Dr. Bob in the Bible as a youngster in St. Johnsbury, Vermont is now well documented. As of late, the same is true of Bill Wilson’s Bible study as a boy in East Dorset, Vermont and in his four-year Bible course at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont. The commandments of God and the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ teachings were not news to these cofounders of A.A.

The Original Akron Christian Fellowship that Bill and Bob founded in 1935 embraced the requirement of restitution.

So did the so-called word-of-mouth six ideas that Bill Wilson and his wife Lois described as existing prior to the publishing of the Twelve Steps in 1939.

A.A.’s Big Book added Steps Eight and Nine to the process and gave explicit instructions as to how amends were to be made. Moreover, the same “continuance” process was involved in the instructions for taking and practicing Step Ten.

And, as a personal note, I can say that taking Steps Eight and Nine and practicing Step Ten became important elements in the new life I was able to establish after attaining sobriety in 1986.
They were involved in restoring relations with my family, my minister, my friends, my former law associate, the Internal Revenue Service, and the criminal court in which I not only pleaded guilty but made a very substantial restitution to the entity harmed. It is my belief that the new life in sobriety does not really begin until the old wounds are bandaged and healed.

And here, for what assistance it may render to Christians and other Bible students in understanding what God’s Word had to say to the pioneers who studied it, are the verses
specifically and frequently mentioned in the materials they used..

The Basic Amends Ideas Early AAs Studied in the Bible

Matthew 5:23-24 (part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount):

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee: Leave there thy gift before the alter, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Matthew 5:25 (part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount):

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge3, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou has paid the uttermost farthing.

Luke 15:11-31, 19:1-10 (Jesus’ accounts of the Prodigal Son and of Zacchaeus, the tax collector)

In the early 1930’s, the British journalist, A.J. Russell, wrote For Sinners Only. Russell wrote an entire chapter on “restitution” and much on Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr. Russell covered all sets of verses we have covered here, and his book was very popular in among Oxford Group adherents, was widely circulated among Akron AAs, was often recommended by Bill Wilson’s mentor Rev. Samuel M. Shoemaker, Jr., and was specifically suggested by Dr. Bob’s wife Anne Smith for reading by AAs and their families.

For Sinners Only referred to Jesus’ Prodigal Son story in Luke, Chapter 15. And Russell wrote: “Sending prodigal sons back to the earthly as well as their Heavenly Father is a specialty of the Oxford Group.”

For Sinners Only also cited the conversation between Jesus and Zacchaeus recordexd in
Luke 19:1-10. Zacchaeus had told Jesus that if he had taken anything from any man by false accusation, he had restored the man forefold. Jesus responded approvingly, “This day is salvation come to thy house.”

Numbers 5:5-7 (“he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add unto it the fifth part thereof, and give it unto him in respect of whom he hath been guilty”)

The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: “When a man or woman wrongs
another in any way and so is unfaithful to the LORD, that person is guilty and must confess the sin he has committed. He must make full restitution for his wrong, add one fifth to it and give it all to the person he has wronged.”