Title: In
the World and To the World but not of the World
Subtitle: Reconsidering
Citizenship, Identity, Mission upon “Conversion” unto the Lord Jesus Christ
Author: Christopher
Travis Haun for http://rethinker.net/ekklesia/mission-Identity
Update: November
2008 (unfinished)
Copyright: This
rethink may be reproduced and distributed freely so long as neither changes nor
charges are made in the process
Feedback: Please
feel free and encouraged to email any suggestions or questions to
cthaun[at]hotmail[dot]com
“. . . I have given them your word and the world has
hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world
but that you protect them from the evil one.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into
the world. . .”
(Jesus in
John 17)
Summary:
When a citizen of any of
the kingdoms of this world truly converts (repenting from sin and idols unto
God and investing his or her faith into the Lord Jesus Christ) he is
essentially given a new identity in a new family and a new kingdom. While he retains an earthly citizenship, he
becomes part of a heavenly kingdom. This
rethink attempts to explore the ramifications of that new citizenship. Special focus will be given on matters of
participation in international wars and the politics of the nations. Special focus will also be given to the
mission of the Church in the world today.
All viewpoints in the Christian spectrum from Mennonites and Monastics
to Theonomist-Reconstructionists and Patriot-Militias will be considered;
however, only the paradigm of Christ and the Apostles will be granted
authority.
Index of Meditations in
this Rethink:
A Change of Kingdoms
·
John 17 – in the world but not of it
·
John 18 – a kingdom not of this world
·
Philippians 3 – but our Citizenship
is in Heaven
·
1 Thessalonians 2 – called into His kingdom
·
Colossians 1 – rescued us from the dominion of darkness and
brought us into the kingdom of the Son
·
The "Epistola ad Diognetum"
A Change of Wars
•
2 Corinthians 10 - though
we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
•
Philippians 2:25 – Epaphroditus, my fellow soldier
•
Philemon 1:2 – Archippus our fellow soldier
•
2 Timothy 2 – like a good soldier of Christ Jesus
•
1 Timothy- fight the good fight (of the faith)
•
Ephesians 6 - For our struggle is not against flesh and blood
A Change of Missions -
The Great Commission – The Ambassador Commission
§ Matthew 28:16-20
§ Luke 24:44-51
§ John 20:21-23
§ Acts 1:8
§ Ephesians 6:19-20
§ 2 Corinthians 5:11-21
§ 2 Corinthians 10:5
§ 1st Timothy 2:3-7
The Usual Objections (and
my responses)
John 17 –
in the world but not of it
There is always some price to pay for the crime of
turning to the Lord Jesus Christ. For
some that price is very high. It is not
at all uncommon for converts in many parts of Eastern and Middle Eastern lands
today to be disowned by the family and banished from the society when their
lips finally dare to confess Christ.
They will probably be given nothing on the way out except the clothes on
their back, the father’s stern promise of death if they return, and perhaps a
beating by their cousins for the shame they’ve caused the family. In Western lands the price tends to be cheap
by comparison. In what amounts to little
more than joining a new club, the Western convert to Christ might be a slight
amount of ridicule the western convert may face from some minority segments of
society; but they will find general acceptance among the majority. There will be minor social pressure exerted
for changes in behavior and speech. For
the original disciples of Jesus, the price was expensive of course. History proved that Jesus wasn’t
exaggerating when he warned them that to follow him was tantamount to a daily
risk of death by Roman crucifixion. The
next few generations of Roman Christians also paid high prices in blood and
tears for their allegiance to Christ; persecution came from ten successive
Roman emperors and resulted in thousands of Christians being executed by the
State. Things changed dramatically for
the Roman world in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine made gave the
dominant form of the Christian church a ‘shot-gun wedding’ to the State. Ever since then it has been painless for
those in nations which came out of the Greco-Roman matrix to feign some allegiance
to Christ. For those in western nations
it can at times be difficult to not equate citizenship in their nation with
citizenship in the kingdom of the Christian God.
Jesus’ closest disciple, John,
described how the world hated Jesus and would also hate his true
followers.
"If the world hates you, keep
in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not
belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than
his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. . . “ (John
15)
Out of the world? Do you call yourself a Christian? If so, do you feel at home in this
world? Do you fit in well with this
world you find yourself in? Are you
basically the same as everyone else around you? Or do you feel that sense of having been
called out of the world? Do the
worldlings sense that there is something different about you and not approve of
it? What kind of a Christian are
you—one who was chosen out of the world or one who remains in and of the
world?
Hated? Jesus and his Apostles were hated and
rejected by the majority. But they were not hated for the reasons Christians
are generally hated today. Today are
not Christians generally hated for their roles in national and international
politics? They’re hated internally for
trying to interfere with their liberties and they’re hated abroad for trampling
other peoples to securing their economic interests. These reasons have nothing to do with Jesus
or his Apostles; if anything Jesus was hated for trying to get people to change
at the heart level before offering them any geo-political advantage.
Again in John 17 we see
Jesus making a strong contrast between him and “the world.” Here we are given the inestimable privilege
of seeing how our Lord prayed to his Father for his disciples when his days on
earth were nearing an end.
"I have revealed you
to those whom you gave me out
of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed
your word. Now they know that everything you have given
me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me
and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they
believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not
praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has
come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the
world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the
power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by
that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction
so that Scripture would be fulfilled. I am coming to you now,
but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the
full measure of my joy within them. I have given them
your word and the world
has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but
that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as
I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth;
your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the
world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too
may be truly sanctified.” (John 17)
We cannot just say that
this prayer for the original eleven disciples-apostles was only for them. Our Lord continues immediately to establish
continuity between that original generation of disciples and subsequent
generations of called-outs who hear and accept the message of the Apostles.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those
who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be
one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe
that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that
you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in
them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know
that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I
am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me
before the creation of the world. Righteous Father,
though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have
sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue
to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and
that I myself may be in them."
Here we have the
high privilege of seeing the reality of true conversion from God’s
perspective. Here we see the Son of God
talking to the God. We get to hear
insider information with words that mere men would never have spoken. The true convert to Christ begins just like
everyone else: he or she is just another worldling existing in the sphere of
this sea of humanity called “the world.”
At some point in time, God changes that. God takes the worldling out of “the world”
and gives him or her to Jesus. The
worldling hears and accepts the words of Jesus—really accepts them on a deep
level rather than on some surface level no doubt--and is given to Jesus by
God. The true convert belongs to God and
Jesus rather than to the world.
Interestingly, Ekklesia, the Greek word usually
translated “Assembly” and “Church” literally means, “Out-Called.” An etymological argument could readily be
made that the church is the group of “called out ones.” When reading “assembly” or “congregation” in
the Old Testament books in most English translations the underlying Greek word
(from the pre-Christian Septuagint translation of the Hebrew) is Ekklesia. When reading the word “church” in the New
Testament in most English translations, the underlying Greek word is
Ekklesia. While it is true that the
evolving nature of language makes etymological arguments very logically weak,
it may still not be an accidental choice of words. Just as Abraham was called out of the
polytheistic world of Chaldea to create a new nation of people who were to be
holy and radically different than their neighbors in the fertile crescent, so
too the true Christians are those who are called out of the world to be holy
and radically different than their neighbors in the rest of the world.
Also from our Lord’s
prayer in John 17 we get the apt cliché “in the world, but not of it.” That seems to roll off the tongue more easily
than. . .
“of
God and of Jesus, but not of the world anymore;
in
God, in Jesus, in the world,
sent
to the world.”
For those of us who are
keen on finding our way back to the original and biblical Jesus and the
original and biblical Church, I propose we need to recover that sense of being
different from “the World.” We need to
begin with recovering the difficult balance between being taken out of the
world, being left in the world, being sent to the world, and somehow not being
of the world.
Throughout history, those
who have hungered and thirsted for reformation and restoration of the visible
Church back into something more closely resembling the churches described in
the New Testament have been driven by the problem of the worldliness of the
worldly church.
Worldliness? Simply put, when you look at the Worldlings
around you and then look at the Churchians around you, and have trouble telling
them apart, the visible church has succumbed to worldliness. When the two camps are doing the same things
and using the same tools, that’s one angle on worldliness. Also look closely at the churches described
in the New Testament and then look at the churches today and the churches in
our history books and see which differences you can see. Each one of the NT churches had their own
struggles with varying forms of worldliness, to be sure. But when you compare them to the churches of
our history books, some huge differences should be obvious.
John 18 – a kingdom not of this world
It is written that God
sent his son to this earth in the fullness of time—at just the right time. The world Jesus was sent into had an intense
political dynamic which makes up one element of this fullness. The political context needs to be set briefly.
The Israelites were a
freedom loving people. Every year they
celebrated Passover to help them never forget how God delivered them from 400
years of cruel slavery in Egypt. But by
the time Jesus was put into the Israelite scene, Israel was subject to a cruel
overlord named Rome. The oppression
upon the people made them long for a new Moses to come and deliver them out of
the dominion of the Romans. The hope was
strong that Messiah would appear as prophesied to restore the Davidic kingdom
to Israel. Israel would be free from
the Roman yoke; moreover, the Jewish Messiah-King would rule all the nations
(including Rome and Persia and Egypt) from Jerusalem. They understood kingdom as a geo-political
salvation.
Into this Roman-occupied
Israel lands a wandering Rabbi. His
parents named him Yeshua, which in Hebrew means something like, “Salvation is
from God.” This rabbi traveled
Palestine for about three years of his adult life performing miraculous signs
and teaching. The gospel of the kingdom
that was preached in that day to the Israelites was one of repentance and
kingdom: If the Jews of Israel would
repent (repent basically means to turn from idols to God, turn from injustice
to the oppressed to compassionate justice) and accept Jesus as the Messiah,
then Jesus would establish the geo-political Kingdom. [I’ll substantiate
this claim in another rethink later and add a reference here.] Thousands of Jews begin to wonder seriously
whether the new Moses and the new David rolled into one had finally
arrived. But ultimately the Jews on the
popular level accepted him only as a good prophet—not the ultimate Prophet, the
ultimate Priest, and the ultimate King.
The rulers of Israel also rejected Jesus as the King of Israel for
various reasons. One such reason, stated
by John is that the leaders of Israel judged that “it is better for one man to
die than for the entire nation of Israel to perish.” (John 11:45-53.) This makes a lot of sense, humanly speaking,
for, as anyone familiar with the basics of the history of the Roman Empire can
attest to, the fact that the way to get the mighty Roman sword unsheathed was
to dare to challenge its authority. The
leaders of Israel in part rejected Jesus as their King primarily out of fear of
Roman retaliation.
So the leaders of Israel
delivered Jesus to the regional representative of Caesar in Caesarea with the
accusation that Jesus was claiming to be the King of the Jews—something that
Rome wouldn’t take kindly to since Caesar had not appointed him to take Herod’s
place. Before Pontus Pilate, the
regional representative of Caesar, capitulated to the pressure from Israel’s
leaders, he asked Jesus if he himself actually claimed to be a king. Pilate had heard the leaders of Israel say
that he was claiming to be a king. But
Pilate was giving Jesus a chance to deny the accusation.
Pilate: “Are you king of the Jews?”
Jesus: “My kingdom is not of/from this world. If it
were, my servants would rise up and fight to prevent my arrest by the
Jews. But now my kingdom is of/from
another place .”
To read the fuller context of the
trial, read John 18 here: John
18:28-40. Read it and meditate
upon it. Then decide for yourself:
·
At the time of Christ’s trial, did Christ himself
believe his kingdom was worldly or otherworldly?
·
At the time of Christ’s trial, should Christ’s true
disciples have taken up swords and the weaponry that the nations of this world
use to create and uphold their earthly kingdoms?
·
Should the followers of Jesus unsheathed their swords,
kill Judas and some of the Temple Guards in the garden?
·
Should they have fled in the night from the mob with
Jesus to hide in caves while raising an army among the zealots, proceed to
throw a coup de etat in Jerusalem, and start a guerilla war with the
Romans?
The answer to these questions,
according to the disciple Peter at the time would have probably been YES. Peter drew his sword when the Temple Guards
moved to arrest Jesus. He tried to kill
one of them. He probably thought he was
doing God’s will. But Christ rebuked
Peter saying, “Put away your sword.”
Jesus even proceeded to heal the injured guard. (Matthew
26; John
18:10-11)
To my sense of reason, the answer
to those questions is a resounding, surprising, unequivocal NO. The conclusion
seems logically inescapable to me that if you were a disciple of Christ in the
time this was said that you should NOT unsheathe your sword against anyone in
the name of building the Kingdom of God.
It is no logical stretch for me to also conclude that those who do fight
with worldly weapons in this world for various noble-sounding causes are NOT
fighting for the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So what changed? Why it is that by AD 400, the Churchians are always fighting--fighting pagans in the
attempt to convert them, massacring Jews, fighting Muslims for control of the
Silk Road, and fighting themselves again.
What accounts for this change?
The burden of the proof is upon
those Christians who use the sword in this world. Did Jesus say that this kingdom he was starting
would start without the use of the worldly weapons (swords, spears, guns,
bombs) and then at some point the nature of his kingdom would shift such that
his servants were expected or entitled to use worldly weaponry? The majority forms of the visible church
today seem to talk and act as if such a change occurred. And indeed the change did occur. But could the changes have occurred because
of the influence of men like Emperor Constantine and theologian Augustine of
Hippo? It did not happen because of the
New Testament. Could it be because of
the problem of worldliness? Could it be
that the majority forms of Christianity shifted from “in the world but not of
the world” to “in the world and of the world” not because Jesus changed the
plan but because the Christians changed kingdoms?
The bottom line is that if you
are using a sword to try to accomplish something, it is not Christ’s kingdom
you are working for. You may argue
biblically that the Israelites were fighting for their theocratic kingdom when
their oracles told them it was God’s will to take sword and spear against their
neighbors. But I see no room for someone
who claims to be a Christian to say they are using the sword to help establish
the kingdom of Jesus on the earth. The
opposite is true: when the visible
Church has used the sword of the world—and by the symbol of “the sword” I
include more than but also not less than the executive branch of the
government—the counterfeit kingdom has been propagated.
Paul echoes the change in
citizenship when writing his disciples.
. . . Join with others in
following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the
pattern we gave you. For, as I have
often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is
their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior
from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring
everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will
be like his glorious body.
1 Thessalonians 2
You are witnesses, and so
is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.
11For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own
children, 12encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God,
who calls you into his
kingdom and glory.
Colossians 1
And we pray this in order
that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way:
bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11being
strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may
have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father,
who has qualified you to
share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13For he has rescued us from the
dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The Apostle Paul also
maintained his Master’s sense of heavenly citizenship and a heavenly kingdom
while living on earth. He attempted to
pass it onto his disciples.
I encourage you to
meditate upon this in prayer and daring thought.
Then ask yourself…
Where is your primary citizenship?
Is your mind on earthly things?
Where is your hope
invested? As you ponder what your hopes
and faith are invested into, are you an enemy of the cross of Christ? Or do you have hopes for both worlds and
saviors for both worlds?
This is not a matter of
being “so heavenly minded they were of no earthly good.” Let us not fail to see that they are not
removed from the world. The earliest
Christians did not retreat from the world into monastic communities or into
Amish-like settlements. Upon conversion
there is no impulse to move out of the ungodly cities to create utopian farms
in the suburbs. They stayed in the
cities and made reaching their cities and neighboring cities into their
mission.
This “in the world but
not of it” type mindset was not just for Jesus and the first two generations of
disciples. An unknown Latin author in
the early part of the second century reveals that this mindset and reputation
was still going strong in the year 200 AD among the disciples of Christ Jesus.
"The Christians are not distinguished from other men by country,
by language, nor by civil institutions. For they neither dwell in cities by
themselves, nor use a peculiar tongue, nor lead a singular mode of life. They
dwell in the Grecian or barbarian cities, as the case may be; they follow the
usage of the country in dress, food, and the other affairs of life. Yet they
present a wonderful and confessedly paradoxical conduct. They dwell in their own native
lands, but as strangers. They take part in all things as citizens; and they
suffer all things, as foreigners. Every foreign country is a fatherland to
them, and every native land is a foreign. They marry, like all others;
they have children; but they do not cast away their offspring. They have the
table in common, but not wives. They are in the flesh, but do not live after
the flesh. They live upon
the earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey the existing laws, and excel the laws by their
lives. They love all, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown, and
yet they are condemned. They are killed and are made alive. They are poor and
make many rich. They lack all things, and in all things abound. They are
reproached, and glory in their reproaches. They are calumniated, and are
justified. They are cursed, and they bless. They receive scorn, and they give
honor. They do good, and are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they
rejoice, as being made alive. By the Jews they are attacked as aliens, and by
the Greeks persecuted; and the cause of the enmity their enemies cannot tell.
In short, what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world. The
soul is diffused through all the members of the body, and the Christians are
spread through the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but it is
not of the body; so the
Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world. The soul,
invisible, keeps watch in the visible body; so also the Christians are seen to
live in the world, but their piety is invisible. The flesh hates and wars
against the soul, suffering no wrong from it, but because it resists fleshly
pleasures; and the world hates the Christians with no reason, but that they
resist its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh and members, by which it is
hated; so the Christians love their haters. The soul is inclosed in the body,
but holds the body together; so the Christians are detained in the world as in
a prison; but they contain the world. Immortal, the soul dwells in the mortal
body; so the Christians
dwell in the corruptible, but look for incorruption in heaven. The soul
is the better for restriction in food and drink; and the Christians increase,
though daily punished. This
lot God has assigned to the Christians in the world; and it cannot be
taken from them." -- The "Epistola ad Diognetum." From Phillip Schaff’s History of the
Christian Church; Volume 2 – Ante-Nicene Christianity – AD 100 - 325. (online: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.ii.html)
The War Passages
It is not that apostolic
Christianity is pacifist and against warfare; the Christ-centered, Apostolic
tradition was thoroughly militant. The
war motif may have been Paul’s favorite analogy for the proper Christian life. But the war it focused on was never a war
against people; the war was always for people.
Consider how Paul described the mission of his team of commandos:
. . . some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as
the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On
the contrary, they have divine
power to demolish strongholds. 5We
demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ. . . 7You are looking only on the surface of things.
What room is there left for people who wish to be servants of the kingdom
of Jesus to use the weaponry and the strategies and the that the worldlings
use? What room is there for citizens of
Christ’s kingdom to participate in the wars of the worldlings? For
citizens of Christ’s kingdom, for those who wish to fight on the side of Jesus
and his Apostles, the real war is one of thoughts, the knowledge of God,
arguments, reason and faith. Do you
think Christians should devote their energies and time and money into the wars
and campaigns of this world when Christians have a more important war to fight?
But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus,
my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier,
who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.
To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, to Apphia our
sister, to Archippus our
fellow soldier and to the
church that meets in your home. . .
1You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is
in Christ Jesus. 2And the things you have
heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will
also be qualified to teach others. 3Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ
Jesus. 4No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian
affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.
Here we have a powerful indication that the real war was not
just for the Apostles Jesus chose directly.
Here we see one of the Paul’s disciples being part of that war. And we see clearly again that the war is
about entrusting apostolic teaching to reliable men who then teach it to
others! The war is best fought by
planting churches where apostolic truth is taught. This is discipleship. This is the gist of true church
planting. This involves no swords of
steel. This is Christ teaching the
Apostles, the Apostles teaching disciples like Timothy, Timothy teaching
“reliable men,” and then reliable men teaching others. This is a war of
teaching. Please don’t miss the hint
that any other mission may be what really qualifies as “civilian affairs.” The irony here is that when Christians begin
to participate in the wars of this world using the weapons of this world, they
have ceased to be involved in kingdom affairs and have become involved in
civilian affairs.
Earlier Paul encouraged his coworker and disciple Timothy to
“fight the good fight.”
Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with
the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the
good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience.
Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. (1
Tim 1:18)
Here it seems that the “good fight” again has nothing to do
with weaponry of this world. It probably
has its chief reference in the “trustyworthy saying” that preceded it:
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the
worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an
example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
If this is so, here is another reference that the real war
that really matters in this world and in the heavens is the good news about
Jesus displaying his unlimited patience and mercy to sinners such that many may
believe upon Jesus and, as a result, receive the gift of eternal life. Similarly, in 1st
Timothy 6, Paul ties “fight the good fight of the faith” (v.12) with taking
hold of eternal life (v.12), fleeing from greed, pursuing righteousness,
godliness, faith, love and gentleness (v.11); it also is tied to enduring until
the Lord Jesus returns (v.14). Here the
language of fight is strong and it is sincere.
But there is no room here either for fighting the earthly wars for
earthly commanders. This fight is for
“God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords”
(v.15). Between the two “fight the good
fight” passages, Paul gave soldier Timothy his marching orders in this
way:
9This is a trustworthy saying that
deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and
strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all
men, and especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. . . set an example for the believers in speech, in
life, in love, in faith and in purity. . . devote yourself to the public
reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. . . Be diligent in these matters; give yourself
wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch
your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will
save both yourself and your hearers.
The good fight that the soldier of Christ Jesus is to fight involves (1)
hope in God, (2) exhortation and teaching by church leaders, (3) church leaders
setting good examples of proper living for the believers, (4) the public reading
of Scripture in the churches, (5) evangelistic preaching/proclamation [of the
Scriptures], (6) teaching [of the Scriptures], (7) doctrine, and (8)
salvation. Where can we find room for
the unsheathing of the sword or the loading of the gun for the wars of this
world? Where is there room for
involvement in national and international politics for warriors who fight this
war?
Finally, be strong in the Lord
and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take
your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this
dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so
that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and
after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled
around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with
your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this,
take up the shield of
faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil
one. Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds
of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on
praying for all the saints. Pray also
for me, that whenever I open
my mouth, words may
be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the
gospel, for which I am an ambassador
in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
For those of us who would fight for Christ’s kingdom
in the manner of the Apostles, who is our struggle against? Is our struggle against Communists/
Socialists, Terrorists, Jihadists, and/or Extremists? Is our struggle against any group of people
at all? No, our struggle is against a
supernatural army. What weapons are we
to use in our war? Swords? Guns? Bombs? Missiles? Weapons of this
world? Clearly not. The real war, if the Apostles are to be
believed, is one involving faith, the gospel message, salvation, righteousness,
the word of God, and prayer. The real
war is not against people but to and for all people. For those men who would take on the
unfinished work and war of the Apostles, all men become your prize but none
become your enemy. The war is one of
being an ambassador for Jesus with the gospel—words of good news about Jesus—to
all men. This is not a war for cowardly
pacifists. This is a war requiring
courage from God to accomplish.
Why is it that we do not read in the New Testament
that Paul’s disciples joined the Roman Legions to help quash the guerilla
warfare and terrorism of the Picts against the Romans in Britannia? Why didn’t the disciples of the Apostles
matriculate to the Judean wilderness to start their own patriot rebellion
against the Roman overlord? A huge part
of the answer is that they were already soldiers of a Commander in a different
war. They belonged to a different
kingdom. They were drafted into a
different war—a far more important war which all our earthly wars are but a
mere shadow of. While they gave respect
to Caesar, they knew they ultimately answered to a heavenly Commander and
Lord. When you have been conscripted
into a heavenly war, why stoop to make earthly war? Among missions minded Christians, there is a
memorable phrase: “If God has called you
to be a missionary, don’t stoop to become a King.” I’d argue that the force needs to be
stronger: Those who truly belong to
Christ’s kingdom and who hunger and thirst to serve Christ in this world have
the most important war to fight and shouldn’t waste time with the earthly
wars. To put it even more strongly, when
the Commander has given you the commandos their orders to fight in the heavenly
front, it is subordination to then try to fight in the earthly front.
What was the mission/war given to the Apostles and
the Church? This has already been
answered by the passages above (2 Corinthians 10, 2 Timothy 2, Ephesians 6).
But in our post-Constantinian world, the point needs to be reinforced.
The Great Commission
Matthew 28:16-20
16Then the eleven
disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to
them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations {people groups}, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded
you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Luke 24:44-51
. . . they found the Eleven . . . Jesus himself stood among them . . . 44He said to them, "This is what I
told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is
written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms."
45Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
46He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise
from the dead on the third day, 47and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in
his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these
things. 49I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay
in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
50When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his
hands and blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he left them and was
taken up into heaven.
John 20:21-23
19On the evening of that
first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked
for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be
with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The
disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21Again Jesus said,
"Peace be with you! As
the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he
breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive
anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not
forgiven."
Acts 1:8
. . .
giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 8 ”. . . But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;
and you will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.”
Ephesians 6:19-20
19 Pray
also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I
will fearlessly make known
the mystery of the gospel, 20 for
which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it
fearlessly, as I should.
2 Corinthians 5:11-21
11 Since,
then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to
God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend
ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us,
so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what
is in the heart. 13 If we are
out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is
for you. 14 For Christ’s love
compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all
died. 15 And he died for all,
that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died
for them and was raised again. 16 So from now on we regard no one
from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this
way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has
come! 18 All this is from
God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to
himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed
to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were
making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be
reconciled to God. 21 God made
him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 10:5
5 We
demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the
knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to
Christ.
1st Timothy 2:3-7
. . . God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of
the truth. 5 For there
is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all
men—the testimony given in its proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I
am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.
These passages talk about what is known commonly as
the Great Commission. I think of it as
the mission that Jesus gave the Apostles and the Church to focus on while
sojourning in this world. It is a
mission of being Christ’s ambassadors in this world. And the nature of the ambassador reinforces
the notion that we are of another kingdom.
By definition, an ambassador is a messenger sent by the king of one
distinct kingdom to another kingdom ruled by another king. The ambassador is sent to speak for his king
to the other king in the other kingdom.
Main Entry: am·bas·sa·dor
1: an official
envoy ; especially : a diplomatic agent of the highest rank
accredited to a foreign government or sovereign as the resident representative of
his or her own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often
temporary diplomatic assignment2 a: an authorized representative or
messenger b: an unofficial representative <traveling abroad as ambassadors
of goodwill>
The word Apostle and the word Ambassador are the
same word to me. When I read “Apostle”
my mind usually crosses it out and replaces it with “Ambassador.” The words are interchangeable. The Apostles were given the high authority
and high mission of speaking for King Jesus to the citizens of this world.
Because God wants all men to be saved and to come to
understand the truth, the Apostles were sent by Christ into the world as his
ambassadors, heralds, messengers, criers, witnesses.
They went in part because the man who sent them had
been given "all authority in heaven and earth" but also because
"the love of Christ compels us."
Their mission was to deliver a message centered on the interwoven themes
of God reconciling men to himself, of Christ suffering death for the sake of
all, Christ rising from the dead, repentance from sin, forgiveness of sins, not
holding peoples' sins against them, Christ taking our sin, God making men
righteous, Jesus being the mediator between God and men, Jesus being a ransom
for all men. This was a mission of
teaching of the true faith, of making disciples, of baptizing disciples, of
teaching disciples, of opening minds to understand the scriptures, of
fearlessly making the gospel known with words from their mouths given by God,
of persuading men to be reconciled to God, demolishing arguments and
pretensions that are set against the knowledge of God, taking captive every
thought to make it obedient to Christ. The Apostles were sent to the entire
world--to the ends of the earth, to all nations/peoples. They were given divine power and words for
this mission and it seems like this was all to go on “till the end of the age.”
This was the mission of the first disciples. It also was the mission of their
disciples. It was also the mission of
the “reliable men” among the third generation of disciples so that the truth,
the faith, the discipleship could be passed to subsequent generations. I propose that it is also the true mission of
the true church in the world today. I
propose that those of us who would like to have fellowship in the mission of
the Apostles need to begin to follow the Apostolic examples. By contrast, the Churchians who work for
getting their favored political candidates into offices of wordly power and
toward getting their political agendas advanced are neither working for the
kingdom of Christ nor following the Apostolic examples.
The mission of the church in the world today is not
to transform society by imposing Christian values at high levels upon those who
are not truly Christian. Enforcing
Christian laws upon the worldlings does not make them Christian. The mission of the church in the world today
is not to create Christian nations or Christian civilizations but to create a
Christian counter culture inside of every worldly culture.
When Luke tells the story of the Apostle Paul, we
see the same things.
Acts 14
14 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went
as usual into the
Jewish synagogue. There they
spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe
stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there,
speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by
enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. 4 The people of the city were divided;
some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5 There was a plot afoot among the
Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone
them. 6 But they found out
about it and fled
to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7 where they continued to preach the good news.
Acts 15
21 They preached the good news in that city and won a large
number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and
Antioch, 22 strengthening the disciples and
encouraging them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many
hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said. 23 Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in
each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom
they had put their trust. 24
After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, 25 and when they had preached the word
in Perga, they went down to Attalia. 26 From
Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace
of God for the work they had now completed. 27 On arriving there, they gathered the
church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the
Gentiles. 28 And they
stayed there a long time with the disciples.
The Apostolic mission was obviously to go into places
where Christ had not been clearly announced and clearly announce him. It entails speaking effectively,
persuasively. Even then not every one
will believe. It involves “speaking
boldly for the Lord.” It is about
delivering a message. It is about
preaching the good news. It is about
winning disciples and planting churches and appointing elders. It is about
people putting their trust into the Lord.
It is about Jews and non-Jews coming to faith and remaining true to that
faith. And when the worldlings hatch
their plots to kill the messengers, what do the messengers do? Do they unsheathe their swords and defend
themselves? No, they flee to the
surrounding countryside and preach some more.
1st Timothy 2
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession
and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may
live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our
Savior, 4 who wants all men
to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all
men—the testimony given in its proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a
herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a teacher of
the true faith to the Gentiles.
Here is one of the
few outstanding passages in the New Testament which addresses what the
relationship of the Christian is supposed to be to the earthly potentates. It can be said with certainty here that the
disciple of Christ is supposed to pray for all leaders at all levels. I should be praying for the leaders at the
community level, the town level, the city level, the county level, the state level,
the federal level.
I would be confident
in stretching the application further.
We should be praying not just selfishly for the leaders who affect us
personally and our families but for leaders in other countries who are
affecting my global neighbors who I’ve never met. Also I don’t think there is any necessary
restriction here where Christians in the USA are to only pray only for their
President and National Congress and State Congress while Christians in China
are supposed to pray only for the leaders of the national and provincial
leaders of China. Rather I suspect that
the Christians should pray for all kings and all those in authority
everywhere. So I would urge Christians
not just to pray selfishly for the leaders that make decisions that affect them
but Christians should pray for all leaders everywhere.
I suggest we not see
verses 1 and 2 in isolation. When Paul
wrote this, there were no verse markings; there was a flow of ideas. And although our minds may naturally assume
he is changing subjects between verse 2 and verse 3, to do so violates the
context and flow, I believe. Verse 3
clearly connects verses 1 and 2 with what follows. Why is praying for leaders good? “This is good [because it] pleases
God...” And why would it please
God? Because he is “God our Savior. . .”
What does God our Savior want? Does he
want Christians to establish a modicum of moral decency in the rule of law? Does he want Christians to fight for freedom
of religion? Does he want Christians to
overthrow the secular government and establish a theocracy? No.
Paul makes it very clear what God really wants in this world: “[he] wants all men to be saved and to come
to a knowledge of the truth.” We
should pray for our leaders in such a way that their decisions in the world
enable men who function as “heralds and apostles” and “teachers of the true
faith” to be enabled to share their message with those who need to hear. The prayer is not that the leaders will compel
their subjects by law to practice some Christian values. The prayer should be that leaders and their
decisions do not get in the way of the mission that really matters to God in
this world: that the men who God sends
to be ambassadors to the lost world get to share the message of salvation. Which message is that? “For there is one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all
men.” That is the message our prayers
are meant to be for. Let us pray for
leaders that they help create a world where the gospel can be delivered and
heard.
Here I predict that
some thoughtful people might raise the question, “Well, surely voting is no
sin. In Paul’s day they had no option to
vote but we do. Things are different for
us here and now in our democracy. So
what if we apply this truth of 1st Timothy 2 about prayer for
leaders to the way we vote? What if we
vote the way we pray? If we should pray
that the gospel finds avenues and open doors in this world, then it is no
logical stretch to then say we who have the precious option to vote should
likewise vote for whichever candidates seem most sympathetic to our gospel of
the ransomed mediator.” Honestly I
respect such an argument. I think it is
worth considering. As long as we do not
allow voting and politics to become our hope in this world and do not allow it
to become and idol, yes, I agree that voluntary voting probably is not a sin in
and of its self. And there are times
when it is clear that one political candidate is anti-Christ and another is
sympathetic to religious freedom. I
admit that in such instances it is hard for me to say that those Christians who
can vote should or shouldn’t vote. That
may be above my wisdom. It may just be a
matter of Christian liberty. Those who
vote (so long as politics is not their hope and idol) should be free to do so
and those who do not should not be denounced as traitors. The main reason I do not attempt to apply the
“vote the way we pray” principle here personally is that we humans do not have
enough wisdom to make decisions about which leader will be best for the
propagation of the gospel. When we PRAY
for God to use his sovereign power to pull the puppet strings the world leaders
wear, we can rest in assurance that God has the wisdom and power and timing to
make the leaders do what needs to be done for the sake of the mission of the
church spreading the good news through the world. God knows what needs to happen; we do not. We would always vote for the candidate who
seems the most sympathetic to the gospel and other “Christian values.” But it may just be that God may know that the
Church needs a bit of the purification that persecution brings. It may be that when the gospel is outlawed
and the modern apostles are jailed, perhaps the gospel actually has a greater
chance of impacting our culture.
Perhaps, perhaps not. We don’t
know. And that’s my point. We don’t know what is best. We don’t really know how to vote. We do know how to pray. God knows what to do from there.
Once again we see how
the REAL mission of the church in the world today is not to transform society
through political action on high levels; the mission God would have us focus on
is to transform segments of our society by proclaiming the good news (about the
ransom and mediation) to the elect scattered through the world. Many will reject our preaching of the good
news. A minority, the elect, will
receive the good news with joy and it will go on to transform their lives. The gospel is not meant to transform immoral
worldlings into less immoral worldlings.
The gospel is to transform the elect worldings into elect called-out
ones. The gospel is not meant to make
societies look like the church is supposed to look like; the gospel is to help
create a church (ekklesia is called-out) community to act as a counter-culture
within the world. Once again we see in 1st
Timothy 2 how it would be bucking orders to focus on a worldly mission when we
have clear orders to participate in the mission of spreading the gospel and building
the church.
Note how the praying
for kings and leaders isn’t limited just to the selfish motive of allowing us
to live peaceful and quiet lives. It is
tied to God wanting all men to be saved.
It is tied to the mission of giving a testimony about Christ Jesus and
teaching the true faith in a missionary capacity. Again I see yet another echo of the truth
that the mission of the Church in this world is not one of gaining worldly
power and attempting to force moral and ideological transformation upon the
Worldlings. Rather it is one of
supporting missionaries who go out and teach among the nations, planting
churches, planting that counter culture among all the nations?
I would suggest that Christians
in the USA have been wrong to support the pre-emptive wars of invasion against
other Afghanistan and Iraq. I’m not here
to debate whether the invasions were or were not a good thing for the
freedom-loving nations of the world in the long term. I no longer care about such earthly matters as
they’re beside the point. The real point
is that the mission of the church in this world is one of being ambassadors,
being witnesses, being preachers and teachers and persuaders. Our weapons are two: the Scriptures (the written Word of God) and
Prayer. Real Christians would have been
investing their hearts and prayers and money and effort into the mission of
global evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Wordly Christians invest their hearts and money
and voices and sons into the worldly mission of defending the American way of
life.
Is there any hint
here of the need for Christians to work their way into places of power and
influence so that people can be forced with the sword to not practice abortion,
adultery, fornication, witchcraft and such?
The sword is not just a symbol not just of military force but of
judicial, legislative, and executive government. Is there the slightest hint that the
called-out ones should attempt to force some of their values over their
worldling neighbors?
No. There is not the slightest hint of
it. Rather I see quite the
opposite.
Is there even any way
to extract out of this passage that Christians living inside of nations with
representative governments should vote for one political candidate rather than
another? I’m going to suggest not. Here it is clear that Christians are supposed
to pray for kings and presidents and earthly leaders. There’s that prayer word again. It keeps showing up in our list of weapons we
are told to use.
To be continued…
===========================next
phases==============================
Colossians 3:
Since,
then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on
earthly things. 3 For you
died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who
is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put
to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual
immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is
coming. 7 You used to walk in
these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all
such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from
your lips.
You are told to put your
earthly nature to death. You are not told to try to use law and government to
try to put to death the earthly nature of others.
Ephesians 2:1-10
As for you, you
were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live
when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the
air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one
time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires
and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us,
God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made
us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace
you have been saved. 6 And
God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in
Christ Jesus, 7 in order that
in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,
expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can
boast. 10 For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.
This passage offers a great glimpse at
conversion. There was a time where we
used to belong to the world. We followed
the ways of this world, of the Satan and the demons, and of the sinful
nature. We were in the world and we were
of the world. But God changed us. We are to do good works now. Think about what a good work is. Do good works ever damage people? Let us be careful to not follow the ways of
the world.
Matthew 4:
... the adversary [Satan] took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and
showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I
will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the
Lord your God, and serve him only.'"
This encounter brings up an important question. Why did Jesus not say, "Hey, wait a
minute, Trickster. Those kingdoms are not yours to give! Try something
else!"? It brings up some
interesting questions. Who owns the kingdoms of the world--including the
kingdom known as the USA? Why did Paul refer to the Satan as "the god of
this world?"
Should those who follow Christ attempt to transform
the kingdoms that belong to the Satan into kingdoms that partially belong to
the Christ?
Or should those who follow Christ strive to practice
an unearthly standard of self-sacrificing love, justice, and holiness in the
invisible kingdom of Christ that transcends the national boundaries of the
kingdoms that the Satan owns?
Part of my hope is that someday--perhaps ten years
from now or perhaps 10,000 years from now--the Christ will return to destroy
the worldly kingdoms (as Daniel's prophecy predicts) and set up his own
geopolitical kingdom of perfect justice. Until then, Christ's kingdom is not
geopolitical in the usual sense. For now, as i see it, and as Christ put it,
his "kingdom is not of this world."
I would wish that Christians could focus their
energies upon this kingdom that is "in the world but not of the
world." What if the Nations do continue to do their nasty things (war,
intrigue, putting themselves first) as they've done for millenia while the Church--the
collective and international network of disciples who believe in and follow the
biblical Jesus--does what it is supposed to do?
Would you want to get involved in national politics
if you knew that the Satan is the lord of all the nations?
1st Corinthians
7
17 Nevertheless,
each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to
which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he
was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he
was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and
uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. 20 Each one should remain in the
situation which he was in when God called him. 21 Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it
trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 22 For he who was a slave when he was
called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man
when he was called is Christ’s slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not
become slaves of men. 24 Brothers,
each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him
to.
Apply this attitude
to the revolutionary war for example.
Should the Christians in the American Colonies have revolted from the
travesty of “taxation without representation” by their British Lords? This is a revolutionary attitude. This is the attitude of a man whose
citizenship is primarily in another world.
This is an attitude which says it’s no big deal if I am a slave to a
human master. Don’t let it bug
you. Definitely don’t start a war over
it. But if there is a convenient and
bloodless door, yes, feel free to take it.
I am challenging the
idol of Freedom which almost all Americans worship. I myself appreciate and even love the
freedoms I have had in the USA. However,
I do not believe true Christians should have participated in the revolutionary
war against England back in the 1770s.
And as the constitution-based government in the USA continues to be
edged out by an Oligarchy and their subtle revolution, true Christians should
not participate in militias or armed counter-revolution against the
revolutionaries. What do you think?
Ephesians 6:
5 Slaves,
obey your earthly masters
with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey
Christ. 6 Obey them not only
to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing
the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve
wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because you know that the Lord will
reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. 9 And masters, treat your slaves
in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their
Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
I think this could be applied to all of us. To some degree we are slaves of the
government we find ourselves under. We are
supposed to serve them when they command us to do things that we don’t want to
do. But how far can this truth be
pressed? Can it, for example, be pressed
to the point that Christians should willingly accept the draft notice and enter
a war as a combatant? Good
question.
1st
Corinthians 5 and 6
It is actually reported
that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur
even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you
rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man
who did this? 3 Even though I
am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed
judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. 4 When you are assembled in the name of
our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is
present, 5 hand this man over
to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on
the day of the Lord.
6 Your
boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the
whole batch of dough? 7 Get
rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really
are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not
with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without
yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I have
written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this
world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case
you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing you that you
must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually
immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With
such a man do not even eat. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the
church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked
man from among you.”
If any of you has a
dispute with another, dare
he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?
2 Do you not know that the
saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not
competent to judge trivial cases? 3
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of
this life! 4 Therefore, if
you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little
account in the church! 5 I
say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise
enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother goes to law
against another—and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits
among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why
not rather be cheated? 8 Instead,
you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.
9 Do you
not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male
prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor
drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were.
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Should a Christian be involved in politics? Yes, church politics. Not worldly politics. The church should have its own court and
judges. We are to judge those inside the
church. But are we to judge anyone
outside the church? Obviously no. And if we are not to judge them, it is no
stretch to say we should not try to enforce our sense of morality on them. If you consider yourself to be “in the
church” you should not try to place those outside the church under the
government of the church. You will judge
the world in the future. But not in this
present era. Meditate upon this. This is one of the lost truths of the new
testament. Consider how to apply this mentality
to international affairs. Also apply it
to our local church assemblies. Do the
elders there judge cases between believers?
I can extrapolate from this passage that it is not
proper for the Christians (the so-called “moral majority?”) to attempt to
influence legislation to be enforced upon the Pagans. If we are not to judge the worldlings, then
I take it to be no stretch at all to say that the Christians are not supposed
to exercise any legislative, judicial, or executive force directly or indirectly
against the Worldlings.
But there is even more here. The church is supposed to set up its own
judges to judge cases between believers.
The local church is supposed to have its own courts that serve as firm
alternatives to the public courts. This
does not smack of dual-citizenship to me.
This to me sounds like the local churches are supposed to have their own
parallel culture. It’s not s subculture;
it’s a counter culture?! An alternative
culture that exists outside of the world system and competes with it.
This is deep stuff.
I’m going to be pondering this one for a long time, I think.
Like all of our churches today, the local assembly
at Corinth was not creating this counter culture court system like they were
supposed to. Perhaps this was because
they didn’t have a strong synagogue background like other churches we read
about in the New Testament. Apply this
to all the churches you have become familiar with. When have believers in your church had a
dispute and met with either elders or even “the least among you” to help
arbitrate the dispute? All of the many
evangelical churches I am familiar with do nothing of the sort. So please drink deeply of this cup of
meditation and try to decide if we have not become used to an anemic sort of
church which offers no alternative to the world.
Next, please try this mental exercise. Try replacing the word “lawsuits” with some
other process involving law, government, andor military force. So start here:
The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means
you have been completely defeated already. Why
not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
And replace “lawsuits” with “pre-emptive war,” for
example.
The very fact that you have supported a pre-emptive
war among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
You might at first feel like this is comparing
apples and oranges. To me, however, it
is comparing a walnut with a walnut tree.
To me believers participating in public (worldly) courts and believers
participating in worldly wars are different more in magnitude than in
type. If you can stretch the application
with me like this, what then is the conclusion one might draw about Christians
who willingly support wars with their voice, with letters to their congressmen,
with support for their president who instigated the war, with the send off of
their sons into military duty? What
must we conclude for the Christian colonists in North America who supported the
revolution against Great Britain over the abuse of taxation without adequate
representation? What must we conclude
about the thousands of Christians in who willingly took up musket and canon
against thousands of other Christians in the so-called Civil War over matters
such as States rights and Industrialization?
To me if Paul can rebuke the Corinthian believers for being so worldly
that they are “completely defeated” over such a small worldly thing as a
lawsuit in a public court against another believer, how much greater in
magnitude is the “defeat” for a Christian who joins or supports a worldly war
against other professing Christians?
And what about those millions of American Christians
who raised their voices for “justice” (or arguably revenge) after September 11th,
2001, when four airplanes were hijacked by Arabs and crashed into American
icons? Why avenge the wrong? Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
What business is it of mine to judge those outside
the Church? Wow. Think about the Inquisition against the Jews,
heretics, waldensians, Anabaptists and such in the light of this
statement. Think about the moral
majority and Christian right. The last
1700 years of Christian history is shown to be antichristian by this
passage.
1Cor 1 and 2 and 3 and 4
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence
of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the
philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the
world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the
foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and
Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but
we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, 24 but to those
whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God. 25 For the
foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is
stronger than man’s strength.
26 Brothers,
think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human
standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of
the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame
the strong. 28 He chose the
lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are
not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in
Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness,
holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore,
as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”
When I came to you,
brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to
you the testimony about God. 2 For
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him
crucified. 3 I came to you in
weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not
with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,
5 so that your faith might
not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. 6 We do, however,
speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age,
who are coming to nothing. 7
No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and
that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for
if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. . .
12 We have not received the
spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God,
that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words
taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual
truths in spiritual words. 14 The
man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of
God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because
they are spiritually discerned. . .
. Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere
infants in Christ. 2 I gave
you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are
still not ready. 3 You are still worldly.
For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are
you not acting like mere men? . . .
18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this
age, he should become a “fool” so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is
foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their
craftiness”; 20 and again,
“The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about men!
All things are yours, 22 whether
Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the
future—all are yours, 23 and
you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. . .
8 Already
you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and that without us!
How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you!
9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on
display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena.
We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to
men. 10 We are fools for
Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are
honored, we are dishonored! 11 To
this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally
treated, we are homeless. 12
We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we
are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when
we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the
earth, the refuse of the world. 14 I am not writing this to shame
you, but to warn you, as my dear children. 15 Even though you have ten thousand
guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became
your father through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you to imitate
me. 17 For this reason
I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord.
He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I
teach everywhere in every church.
Are you trying to do things in human strength? God apparently preferred to chose the weak
people of the world to be called out into his Church. Why then would the church seek to become
influential and powerful in wordly ways?
Let the world do things their way—intrigue, swords, back-stabbing,
politics, manipulation, deception, strong arm… let the church be the church,
the opposite of the world. Do not seek
to become influential and wise and noble by human standards. Continue to aspire to human weakness so that
the strength of God may be shown to be powerful. And so that we cannot boast about the kingdom
we are creating. We pray and we witness
and we disciple. We use words… words to
God, words to one another, words to the worldlings. To complain that this is weak is to only
complain that we can’t be patient enough for God to do things his way?
Are you imitating Paul? Or are you aspiring to be a Corinthian?
===============Objections=============
Objection:
One weakness in this argument so far is that becoming
a member of the kingdom of Christ very obviously includes a demanded change of
moral habits but it does not obviously demand any change in political
behavior. Yes, it affects the moral
realm. But perhaps it does not affect
the political realm? Col.3, for example, says the logical
conclusion for having heavenly citizenship is to:
Put to death, therefore, whatever
belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires
and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because
of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the
life you once lived. 8 But
now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice,
slander, and filthy language from your lips.
How can you pull out matters of national and
international politics? The other
passages you cite can be similarly addressed.
Objection:
There is a
tremendous amount of killing—of righteous killing that God commanded or
otherwise smiled upon.
I am not saying
that God is not a warrior. He is. And there is no sense in entertaining those
old caricatures of the “God of the Old Testament” was a wrathful and bloody God
while the “God of the New Testament” is a God of love and grace and
meekness. As revealed as Yahweh of the
Older Testament and as revealed in the Jesus Christ who will come again, he is
definitely a warrior and he will directly or indirectly put a lot of evil men
to death.
I am not saying
that Israel was not supposed to do the killing and warring that Yahweh ordered
them to do; obviously they were. My
argument is that the Church is not Israel.
Any orders given to Israel are not binding on the Church. Israel was given her orders and the Church
was given her orders.
Objection:
God obviously has used Britain and the United States as a
powerhouse for missionary activity. These two nations have done more to
accomplish the Great Commission, one could argue, in the last two hundred years
than the entire church accomplished in the previous 1600 years. Be
careful in saying that Christians who are citizens of nations like the USA and
UK and Canada should not be concerned about the welfare of those nations. If Christians contribute to the crumbling of
these nations, perhaps they are also contributing in some subtle way to the
crumbling of the support base which sends and supports missionaries.
Objection:
Perhaps in retrospect it
is debatable that the United States should not have supported their French
allies in Indochina after WWII. And
likewise it is debatable about whether the USA should have let its self get
dragged into the Vietnam war. Perhaps
in retrospect it is also debatable that the USA should not have invaded Iraq to
depose Saddam Hussein and look for WMDs.
Granting those. But there is
simply no possible way that the USA should have stayed isolationist during
WWII. If anything, the USA should have
moved to oppose the Axis powers sooner.
WWII needed to be fought. America
needed to fight in it. And since the
USA was mostly Christian at the time Christians needed to fight Hitler. If Christians in the USA and Britain and
France and Canada and Australia had not risen up to fight the Axis powers,
think of the holocausts that would have resulted! Instead of 6 million Jews and 5 million
Slavs killed in German death camps it could have been far far more. And what the Japanese did to the 300,000
Chinese in Nanking could have been repeated all over the Pacific. Hitler had to be stopped! How dare you encourage people of free
countries to not oppose tyrants.
Objection:
It would be so easy with
some foreign policy activity from the USA or the UN to prevent suffering in
places like Zimbabwe. It would have been
easy to prevent the genocide of the hutus against the Tutsis in Rawanda.
Yes, I feel that too. I’m not just saying
that. I feel it so strongly I wish in my heart often that we
Christians could form something comparable to the French Foreign Legion—the
Christian Foreign Legion?—that could move independently of American politics
and the uselessness of the United Nations and intervene with force of arms in
places of Genocide--Dar Fur, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, Congo, and seemingly
every African nation. When the genocide of the Hutus against the
Tutsis was about to break out in Rwanda, wouldn’t it have been grand, I felt,
for five thousand Christian Peace Makers to land in cargo planes brandishing
heavy weaponry, take over the airfields, shut down the radio stations of hatred
by force, intercept the shipments of Chinese machetes by force of arms, and
conceivably prevent genocide--possibly without even firing a shot?
My heart aches especially for the Karen tribe in
Burma/Myanmar. They are a largely Christian tribe who have been hunted by
an evil government for something like twenty years. I wish Christians
could create a rapid reaction force, parachute in, set up strongholds,
assassinate the key political figures, and bring some semblance of peace to
places like that. That is my heart speaking. Like how the “Sons of
Thunder” (James and John) used to say things like, “Lord, shall we call down
fire from heaven down on them?!”
I feel this way. I really do.
But I cannot reconcile those feelings with what my mind pulls out
of the New Testament. Old Testament maybe. But not the New
Testament. The way I see it is that we are soldiers in a real war
and that the General has issued specific orders. For us to go and
do what we feel may be tempting but it may also be disobeying
orders. But while I don’t believe we who name the name of Christ
have the right to use the sword, I am not saying that we have to be timid
cowards either. I think of Varian Fry who made trips into Hitler’s
Germany to rescue Jews before WWII began. Just because we cannot fight
with swords doesn’t mean we can’t “do good unto all men as you have
opportunity, especially the brethren” (Gal.6:10). How should we Christians
live in such a way as to give God glory? By conquering with the sword and
the rule of civil law and setting up a kingdom on earth for him? Or
is it by doing good works to all men from our brothers in Christ first to our
Samaritan neighbors to even our Enemies?
John 15: 8 This
is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my
disciples.
“Be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves,” as He
once put it. So what if instead of an armed Christian Foreign Armed
Legion, just as one possible example, we could create a rapid reaction force of
some kind that carries only the weapons of kindness? “Bread not
bombs” I’m reminded here of Romans 12: 18 If
it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do
not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is
written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” b says the Lord. 20 On
the contrary: “If your
enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
What if such an international-but-clearly-apolitical
force of peaceful Christians could have rallied their wealth and manpower in
such a way that when the Typhoon destroyed so many lives in Myanmar (back when
the Myanmar government refused help from the U.S. Navy ships for fear that the
USA was mainly interested in their natural resources) the Christian foreign
peace legion came in with supplies to help the dying? Perhaps Myanmar
would have accepted help from such a Christian Peace Corp. If not the
first time perhaps the second opportunity? Perhaps in rewarding the evil
men with good we could turn their hearts—if you’ll pardon me for speaking like
an Arminian there. The only way to truly defeat an enemy is to make a
friend out of him, yes?
What if there was a Christian Foreign Peace Legion that
did no killing--but instead was killed. We went out as lambs among
hyenas. They kill us and we bless them. They lob mortars and
bullets at us and we lob bread and blankets at them. The next time
there is a huge earthquake in Afghanistan the CFPL could be ready in advance to
bring blankets and matches and candles and tents to them. By kindness in
times of trouble we could diffuse hatred. They may continue to hate
Americans for pushing their weight all around the world for the last two
centuries but they could no longer hate those who rewarded good for the bad in
the name of Christ. What if the Church that claims Sola Scriptura and
Sola Deo Gloria could show the world that we’re not afraid of dying for the
sake of their unworthy lives? Perhaps then they’d begin to invite
us to tell them the good news we’re supposed to be proclaiming?
Yes, I know this is crazy talk. But Paul was quick
to admit that he and his companions were fools for Christ and spectacles put on
display in the parade of the conquered.
To the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1) Paul pointed out that God
did not elect many people who were wise or influential—just a few.
26 Brothers,
think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human
standards; not many were
influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But
God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak
things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He
chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things
that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so
that no one may boast before him.
God preferred then to chose the poor, the foolish, the
impotent to shame the wise of this world and the powerful of this
world. Why then do we all tend to wish to circumvent the original
preference of God’s election strategy, I wonder? Why do we seek to
become influential and noble? Why do we seek to gain power and influence
and compete with the big boys on the world stage in their terms on their
turf?
On another angle, I fully believe that the USA and
Britain have for over three hundred years held to a policy of keeping the
African nations in a state of chaos and impotence for the sake of remaining the
king of the mountain. If Christians started trying to enter and influence
foreign policy in the USA I think they would find out that this nation belongs
to the Satan—as do all nations—until the Lord returns and smashes the world
kingdoms per Daniel 2:
34 While
you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the
statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then
the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces
at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The
wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the
statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. . . 44 “In
the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will
never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all
those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This
is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by
human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the
gold to pieces.
Objection:
If we turn the other cheek, as a nation, to the Muslims,
they will take our nation over. As Christians, we should obey our
national authority, and clearly, nations are to protect its citizens.
(Unfortunately, our interest in the middle east is complicated by the need for
oil, but that is another subject.)
My first response would be that I’m not advocating that
any nation turn the cheek to any other nation. My expectation in this
fallen world is that nation will rise up against nation and there will be wars
and rumors of war among all nations. Every nation is still under the
control of the Satan and the vast majority of the populations of every nation
are citizens of the kingdom of darkness. So I would never dream of asking
the Uncle Sam to quit playing his game of king of the mountain. I know
the USA will do its best to remain on top of the heap. Perhaps leaders
like Obama and his puppetmaster Zebignew will continue to merge the USA into
the New World Order degree by degree. But I have no naive hope like
the so-called Peace Christians that Christians can convince nations to stop
warring with one another. I would expect that nations to intrigue against
one another and war with one another and I would never deny any nation its
right to defend its self or even to assert its self above other nations.
That’s the definition of a nation, in my opinion. That’d be like asking a
nation to stop being a nation?
I don’t dispute that Islam is by nature a religion of
Empire. They learned it from the Byzantine “Christian” Empire and the
Persians and ended up beating both the Byzantines and the Persians at the
empire game. The Islamic Empire at its zenith controlled a landmass far
larger than that the Roman Empire ever controlled. It is arguably a
“miracle” that they never got past Spain and Austria back in the
day. If Islam can get past its racial and national hang-ups it
would be happy to lay a monotheistic, totalitarian, unpleasant, theocratic
religio-political matrix upon the entire earth.
Suppose that seventy years from now all of Asia, Africa,
and Europe are controlled directly or indirectly by the political forces of
Islam. Suppose that the jihad is aimed at North America. The
USA would beg and command all its citizens to work together to defend against
the onslaught no doubt. And per Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2,
Christians are supposed to be obedient citizens of whatever earthly kingdom(s)
we find ourselves to be citizens of. So would I urge Christians who
follow “the Way” of the New Testament to take up arms against the Infidel for
the sake of preserving Western Civilization, American Freedoms, the glory of
the Constitutional Republic (if we ever had one), and such? No.
I’d urge true Christians to not fight with weaponry. Yes, we should
pay our taxes that pay for the wars of our nations. (“Give to
Caesar…”) Apparently God will not hold us accountable for that
unfortunate fact of life. And if our young men are drafted into military
service, I would urge Christian young men to set their minds and consciences
and prayers upon deliberation over the following options: (a) not volunteer on
their own but wait until they are volunteered, (b) consider the possibility of
flight to another nation (unrealistic for many perhaps but has a precedent, I
think, in Mt. 10:23 and Mt 24:16), (c) consider the possibility of civil
disobedience (where the young man may spend the war locked up in a jail as a
traitor to the State), (d) consider the possibility of maneuvering into a
non-combat, support role when the nation coerces the young man to enter
military service (this assumes that Mt. 5:41’s bit about “going the extra mile”
implies the law where the Roman centurion could legally force any Jewish
civilian to carry his Roman armor/ruck for a maximum of one mile). He
could perhaps become a truck driver or a radar operator or medic or such for
the sake of conscience under coercion. Why? Because we are
supposed to obey our civil authorities in everything UNLESS their commands
conflict with the commands of our higher kingdom and higher Lord.
If my nation tried to draft me into their military, my conscience would run
smack into the conflict of my country telling me to sacrifice my life and other
lives on the altar of Freedom/Liberty (which is not a God I worship anymore
even though it is a life I prefer and appreciate) versus the Lord telling me to
die for him in his service (without killing anyone).
I think most Christians in the USA worship the God known
as Liberty. Why do we Americans send our young men to fight the brown
skinned people all over the world? “To preserve the freedoms we hold so
dear,” is how it works its way into the popular level. To me the
highest form of worship a man can give to his god is that of being willing to
die and willing to kill. Could it be said that what we are willing
to die for is our God? Could it be said that what we are willing to
shed other men’s blood for is our God? Can we just offer hymns of
our lips to our Church-God on Sunday but then lay human blood on the Altar of
the USA for the other days? When Peter and Paul wrote that we should obey
our earthly lords, were they really implying that we should obey their call to
kill and to die for the sake of the nation they run? I super doubt
it. Christians in centuries 1, 2, and 3 refused to serve in the military and
they were persecuted. Only just prior to (and especially after) Emperor
Constantine co-opted Christianity into the Greco-Roman empire did Christians
begin to serve in the military.
Here is something pretty profound to me. Think of
Israel—God’s chosen people, elect nation. When Jerusalem was attacked by
Roman legions were the first Christians—those Jewish Christians—told to fight
on the holy side of Israel against the pagan Romans? No, they were told
to flee and to suffer and endure. If the first Christians were not to
fight for the sake of Israel—the only nation ever wedded in covenant to Yahweh
and told to establish and earthly geopolitical kingdom--why should I believe
that modern Christians should fight for the sake of the United States of
America—a nation founded in the 1770s on secular and enlightenment principles,
born out of rebellion against their rightful King, and established on the ruin
of countless Red and Black men?
And what if the Muslims conquer the USA? Is
this really a tragedy? Does God somehow become defeated in this world if
the USA and Canada and Britain—those bastions of Protestantism—fall to the
sword of Muhammad? I’m not so sure. Maybe that’s what the church
needs. Maybe when we switch from Persecutor in the world to Persecuted in
the world perhaps the Lord will return to our side? Maybe the church
would be purified. Maybe the easy-believism converts would either drop
back into the herd of the world flow or be forced to opt for
expensive-believism. Maybe our message would become relevant again.
Maybe if Islam conquered the so-called Christian lands the true Christians
would “have them right where we want them.” Maybe this is something God
in his sovereignty would enjoy doing—since the Evangelical church of today is
doing such a piss-poor job of accomplishing the mission Christ gave his church
~1,980 years ago perhaps God would be pleased to send the largest missionfield
in the world (Islam) to the faithful remnant of that Church. I could see
God doing this. I think he was at work when he allowed the Jerusalem
church to be persecuted in Acts 8:1 “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at
Jerusalem, and all
except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
Was this persecution a bad thing? Probably not. Jesus had
commissioned his apostles to start in Jerusalem and radiate out to Judea and
Samaria. Perhaps they weren’t doing it as well as God wanted.
Perhaps God made it happen in an uncomfortable way. But what if they take
our children away from us for re-education? What if they imprison
us? What if they behead us because we refuse to say, “There is one God
and Muhammad is his prophet!”? Well, that is the perfect
opportunity for true Christians to show the watching Muslim world how
gracefully a child of God’s grace suffers and dies. We can tell them we
forgive them as we die and this will rock their world. After a few
thousand of us are killed by the scimitar while our last words are blessings
upon our murderers, I would expect revival to break out. Islam can be
argued to be little more than a streamlined counterfeit of Judaism—invented in
Muhammad’s mind after his interactions with puritan Jewish communities while on
his trade journeys. And just as Judaism/theLaw was the schoolmaster that
would help the Jews realize that they were not capable of keeping the law, that
they were, as Romans said, all under judgment of God and without excuse, so too
Islam carries with it a similar schoolmaster potential. It’s a lot
like Pharisaism. Let Islam conquer the entire world and its political
structures. Let it put true Christians—elected, called, justified,
sanctified Christians—into its jail cells to be scrutinized and tested.
God will raise up a new set of guys like Stephen and Paul out of such a crowd.
Everything built by Adam will crumble. The USA is
one of the most impressive things Adam ever built. The more grand it is
in terms of human glory the more God will surely cause it to crumble some
day. As John the Baptist said of himself, “I must decrease so that
He may increase,” perhaps the USA needs at the right time to decrease so that
He may increase.
If Barak Obama takes the helm soon and announces that the
U.S. Constitution is officially supplanted by a new multi-national
constitution, that national sovereignty is a relic of the past, that we will
start using Euros instead of dollars, that French and German and Russian
soldiers may soon be patrolling our streets, that all private property has been
officially given to the State, that all firearms are to be collected from
citizens tomorrow, that we are now no longer known as the USA, and that all
Christians must report for “re-education,” and that all Christian leaders are
going to be moved to the 700 concentration camps that already exist on american
soil, so what? Sure, its unpleasant and evil and full of suffering.
But so what? Does the mission of the church change? Is the mission
of the church in this world to uphold and protect and rechristianize western
civilization in the model of John Calvin’s Geneva? Or is our
mission to make disciples among all the peoples of the world? When
we are thrown into concentration camps, does my mission change? No,
perhaps my mission becomes easier—captive audience! And what if the enemy
puts me into a gas chamber? Is that really so bad? Or is that in
reality more like Brer Rabbit saying, “Don’t throw me into the briar
patch!”? Gee, they’ll put me to death because I refuse to say that
Caesar is Lord? I can then rejoice for having the privilege of
“being counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
Acts 5: 40 His
speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then
they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 The
apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing
because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
42 Day
after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and
proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.
I think in terms of Daniel. God is sovereign. He
sets the times and dates for various nations and peoples to achieve their season
of power over other kingdoms. And when their time is over, he prompts
another nation to take their place. The nations plot and rage
against God but in the end they are pawns on his chessboard. Daniel
was kidnapped from his homeland and forced as a boy to serve in the Babylonian
court. Eventually that Babylonian empire was weighed on the scales of God
and found wanting. The Medes and Persians overthrow the Babylonian State
and took it over. Daniel served them just as faithfully as he served the
Babylonian kingdom. They tried to kill him and his friends with dens of
lions and fiery furnaces. They knew that God was in control though.
They never sought political power but God in his good pleasure chose these four
Hebrews to become influential and powerful. They became a blessing to the
gentile nations that used them. They never organized a rebellion of the
Jews against their captors. They served and they were blameless.
God received glory from them big time. Great examples.
Similarly, Moses, who grew up with power and influence as
a prince of Egypt, while still in some position of power struck down an
Egyptian. But did the Hebrew slaves follow Moses then? No, they
said, “Who made you judge (judge=deliverer—think Samson and Deborah) over us?”
Moses had to leave his noble rank, flee to the desert, and become a nobody
before God used him. No longer a prince, God used an 80 year old shepherd
to deliver his people from Egypt. And how many men did Moses kill or
order killed? Did the Hebrews take their construction tools and
strike down their Egyptian captors on their way out? No. After 400
years of slavery, they of all people would have a right to rise up and kill
their Egyptian oppressors. But that isn’t the way God worked then.
God did the killing in his own way and in his own timing. Interesting.
Objection:
Satan and the demons are
already defeated and locked up? (per
Michael Horton or Rod Rosenblat perhaps?)
So some of your passages
can not be used to say Satan still controls the kingdoms of this world.
Objection:
The United States of
America has a godly heritage and is thereby excluded from your statement that
Satan controls all the nations of the world.
Read the Mayflower Compact. Satan
may control other countries and he may be trying to get control of the USA but
Christians should resist the Devil. We
should resist by trying to get prayer back into public schools, by getting the
ten commandments back into the courts, by defeating secular humanism, and by
trying to legislate some bare minimum levels of decency in our society.
Objection:
You have a premillennial
eschatology. There are persuasive
arguments for other views—amillenialism and postmillennialism. You need to rethink your views.
Or: what if premillennial interpretation is
wrong? How would your views change?
Did Augustine get tired of waiting on the return of the
Lord? Did Christ really return? Did his
dualism and disdain for the physical world cause him to turn from premillenialism
to amillenialism?
Objection:
There is a lot of killing in
the Old Testament which the Lord commanded and deemed righteous. Warfare (if it is a “just war”) is not
necessarily a sin and may actually be an obligation. There may not be any examples of Christians
killing people in the New Testament but clearly the precedent is established in
the Old Testament that killing (not murder but killing and executions and
warfare) are sometimes legitimate and necessary and righteous endeavors for the
good people of the world to engage in for the sake of controlling evil.
The just war theory of
Augustine and Aquinas provides good guidelines for this.
The Maccabean revolts might
be one post-new testament example of righteous warfare. Who can blame the Jews for revolting against
Rome? They were righteous in this.
Objection:
The only thing needed for evil to
prevail is for good men to do nothing:
Objection:
You seem to make the
assumption that the Church is a totally distinct and disconnected thing from
Israel. Most Christians (both Roman
Catholic , Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and Presbyterian) would
disagree. In seeing great continuity
between the identity of Israel and the identity of the Church, we also see
great continuity in the mission of the Church as being very similar to the
mission of Israel. The Church, like
Israel, has the obligation to build an holy kingdom on this earth.
Objection:
Your problem is that you are
a Platonist. In saying “the earth is not
my home” you are actually adopting an otherworldly, neoplatonic interpretation
of the New Testament. This was the same
mistaken viewpoint which drove so many Christians in the middle-ages into
monasteries and other places to avoid the world. You are not seeing it correctly. Come back to earth lest you be “so heavenly
minded that you’re of no earthly good.”
This argument comes from
Norman Geisler.
Objection:
God has been working
sovereignty through history to exalt Western Civilization. He raised up the Greeks to beat the
Persians. He raised up the Romans to
take over for the messy Greeks. The
Roman Army took Christianity everywhere.
The combination of Rome and Israel created Christendom. He raised up Queen Elizabeth . . . Blah blah blah.. He has a special plan for Britain and the
USA.
Objection:
You’re making the mistake of the Amish and Hutterites
Objection:
Your viewpoint could not exist were it not for Christians
of the sword-carrying variety who fight to maintain your freedom to be the way
you are.
=======================================================================================================
Matthew 10
17 “Be
on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and
flog you in their synagogues. 18 On
my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them
and to the Gentiles. 19 But
when they arrest you, do
not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be
given what to say, 20 for
it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through
you.
21 “Brother
will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel
against their parents and have them put to death. 22 All men will hate you because of me,
but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place,
flee to another. [interesting:
don’t fight but flee] I
tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel
before the Son of Man comes.
24 “A
student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It
is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his
master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, c how much more the members
of his household!
26 “So
do not be afraid of them.
There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not
be made known. 27 What
I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear,
proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do
not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be
afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are
not two sparrows sold for a penny d? Yet not one of them will
fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30 And
even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid;
you are worth more than many sparrows.
32 “Whoever
acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in
heaven. 33 But
whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
34 “Do not suppose that I have come
to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For
I have come to turn
”‘a
man against his father,
a
daughter against her mother,
a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a
man’s enemies will be the members of his own
37 “Anyone who loves his father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter
more than me is not worthy of me; ; [what about anyone who loves their nation
more than me?] 38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of
me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my
sake will find it.
1st Kings 22
Micaiah Prophesies Against Ahab
22 For
three years there was no war between Aram and Israel. 2 But
in the third year Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to see the king of
Israel. 3 The king of Israel had said to his
officials, “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us and yet we are
doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aram?”
4 So he asked Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to fight
against Ramoth Gilead?”
Jehoshaphat replied to the king of
Israel, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses.” 5
But Jehoshaphat also
said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the LORD.”
6 So the king of Israel brought together the prophets—about
four hundred men—and asked them, “Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or
shall I refrain?”
“Go,” they answered, “for the Lord
will give it into the king’s hand.”
7 But Jehoshaphat asked, “Is there not a prophet of the LORD here whom we can
inquire of?”
8 The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man through
whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never
prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”
“The king should not say that,”
Jehoshaphat replied.
9 So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said,
“Bring Micaiah son of Imlah at once.”
10 Dressed in their royal robes, the king of Israel and
Jehoshaphat king of Judah were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor
by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying
before them. 11 Now Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had
made iron horns and he declared, “This is what the LORD says: ‘With these you
will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed.’”
12 All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing.
“Attack Ramoth Gilead and be victorious,” they said, “for the LORD will give it
into the king’s hand.”
13 The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him,
“Look, as one man the other prophets are predicting success for the king. Let
your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably.”
14 But Micaiah said, “As surely as the LORD lives, I can tell
him only what the LORD tells me.”
15 When he arrived, the king asked him, “Micaiah, shall we go
to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?”
“Attack and be victorious,” he answered,
“for the LORD will give it into the king’s hand.”
16 The king said to him, “How many times must I make you swear
to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?”
17 Then Micaiah answered, “I saw all Israel scattered on the
hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the LORD said, ‘These people have no
master. Let each one go home in peace.’”
18 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you
that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?”
19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I
saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around
him on his right and on his left. 20 And the LORD
said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death
there?’
“One suggested this, and another
that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood
before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’
22 “‘By what means?’ the LORD asked.
“‘I will go out and be a lying
spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said.
“‘You will succeed in enticing him,’
said the LORD. ‘Go and do it.’
23 “So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all
these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you.”
24 Then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah went up and slapped Micaiah in
the face. “Which way did the spirit from a
the LORD go when he went from me to speak to you?” he asked.
25 Micaiah replied, “You will find out on the day you go to
hide in an inner room.”
26 The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah and send him
back to Amon the ruler of the city and to Joash the king’s son 27
and say, ‘This is what the king says: Put this fellow in prison and give
him nothing but bread and water until I return safely.’”
28 Micaiah declared, “If you ever return safely, the LORD has
not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Mark my words, all you people!”
29 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went up
to Ramoth Gilead. 30 The king of Israel said to
Jehoshaphat, “I will enter the battle in disguise, but you wear your royal
robes.” So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle.
31 Now the king of Aram had ordered his thirty-two chariot
commanders, “Do not fight with anyone, small or great, except the king of
Israel.” 32 When the chariot commanders saw
Jehoshaphat, they thought, “Surely this is the king of Israel.” So they turned
to attack him, but when Jehoshaphat cried out, 33 the
chariot commanders saw that he was not the king of Israel and stopped pursuing
him.
34 But someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of
Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver,
“Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I’ve been wounded.” 35
All day long the battle raged, and the king was propped up in his chariot
facing the Arameans. The blood from his wound ran onto the floor of the
chariot, and that evening he died. 36 As the sun was
setting, a cry spread through the army: “Every man to his town; everyone to his
land!”
37 So the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried
him there. 38 They washed the chariot at a pool in
Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), a
and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the LORD had declared.
39 As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he
did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified,
are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? 40
Ahab rested with his fathers. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.