FRIDAY
I’m guessing nobody has had a problem with anything I’ve said this week, as I’ve been laying out the theology of the kingdom and our primary identity as citizens of God’s kingdom. The tension, of course, comes in when we discuss how we are to live this out.
The old adage, “The church shouldn’t be political” needs to be fleshed out further. Certainly, I don’t think the church should tell you which candidate to vote for or which party to support. Yet, it’s undeniable that our commitment to the kingdom of God affects our politics and how we think about political, social issues. Even the statement, “Jesus is Lord,” was a political statement in the first century, and it still is. Unfortunately, under the guise of “the church shouldn’t be political” American Christians have felt free to form their political ideology and political allegiances without any regard for the kingdom of God. Alternatively, American Christians have also mistaken their political allegiance as one and the same as their allegiance to God, equating the kingdom of God with the kingdom of man. This has been a grave error that has proven difficult to course-correct.
- How does this inform how we should think about specific social, cultural and political issues like: social programs for the poor, immigration, same sex marriage, support for Israel, etc.?
- How much hope and emotional investment should we place in our government systems?
- How should we vote?
- How does this influence our loyalties to country and party?
Those are loaded questions and I’m not going to answer all of them here and now. Instead, I want to simply exhort us all, as a church who values the kingdom of God, to consistently filter all of our ideologies through the lens of the kingdom of God. Imagine the kingdom of God as glasses before your eyes. Everything that comes in and goes out must be filtered through this lens. If we truly seek God’s kingdom first, value the kingdom of God above all else, and serve Jesus as our only king, I am confident we will bring the kingdom of God into the political sphere.
One of Jesus’ most famous moments in Scripture is an extremely politically charged question. The Pharisees try to trap Jesus by asking him if he thought they should pay taxes to Caesar or not. If he says “no” they will report it to the Romans and he will be arrested. If he says “yes” the people, who despise the Roman occupiers, will reject him. Jesus, however, answers brilliantly and not only avoids their trap but convicts everyone to give their allegiance to the kingdom of God first.
Matthew 22:19–21 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
All of them are created in the image of God so they should give all of themselves to God first. Their allegiance to the kingdom of God is to be primary. Everyone trying to trap him had made an idol of their politics, both pro-Rome and anti-Rome.
So, as one created in the image of God, what does it look like to give all of yourself to God? Remember, the value system of this kingdom was totally upside-down from the values of traditional kingdoms. The Kingdom of God transformed many traditional pursuits in other kingdoms:
- Power for service
- Pride for humility
- Acquisition for generosity
- Control for surrender
- Violence for love
- War for peace
- Evil for goodness
As we approach another election season, remember that your primary citizenship is in the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man. We have been created in the image of God so lets give to God what is God’s.