A Hard Thing To Say

During the apostle’s time, the rulers of the land were corrupt men with agendas far removed from the will of God. Yet, we have no record of an apostle encouraging God’s people to become agitators for socio-political reform. Rather, they encouraged believers to pray for their rulers so that they might live peaceable lives.

When Paul stood before Rome’s rulers, he gave a good testimony of faith, trying to persuade them to faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, it was Paul’s simple conviction to know only Christ and Him crucified. Paul considered all else rubbish.

God makes it clear to us that the work of a pastor and teacher is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. That edification/ building up of the saints has an express purpose – A purpose as narrow as the way in which we are entering in to the Kingdom of Heaven. And that building should accomplish “…the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine…”

Socio-Political activism is a wind of doctrine, and this doctrine is not found in the pages of the bible. We would be hard pressed to justify it by any inductive study of God’s Word. However, the cleverness of man will always find deductive support for any errant behavior and the doctrines which support those behaviors.

We are salt and light. To what purpose are we to preserve and reveal? For those who have eyes to see, we reveal the righteousness of Christ by the fruit of the Spirit. And for those who have ears to hear, we preserve their lives with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This begs the question, ‘Why shouldn’t we tell of the state of the union in our own address to the congregations of God?’ We should – We are at fault if we don’t remind each other of what is really going on – “Why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” And then we should comfort each other by telling the end of this matter – “God will break the nations with a rod of iron.”