Religion and Politics...

Oh. Religion and Politics - the most widely debated and discussed topic in America. Everything on the news seems to revolve around "religion and politics" somehow. Everyone's got their own opinion and each person wishes everyone else would agree with their opinion. At least, you'd think so from watching the news wouldn't you?

          Today, I'm not going to try to tell you what you should vote for or what you should believe in when it comes to the area of politics. I just want us to look at the Bible for a few minutes.

First of all, we should follow Jesus. In Matthew 28:18, Jesus said "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." That's simple enough, but that's not the end of a political discussion. It's too easy for so many in the church today to say "Well, I follow God first and put everything else second, but (insert government official here) doesn't." Then, these people will proceed to bad-mouth and disrespect that official while ranting about things like "revolution" or "freedom."

Like it or not, that's what happens so often nowadays.

Newsflash folks: the government doesn't owe Christians anything. The government honestly doesn't owe anyone. We don't have any "right" to "freedom of religion" or anything else. I have yet to see in the Bible where God told his people "make sure you remember that you have the right to freedom of religion." Nope. It's not there.

However, we do have the right and the obligation to follow God and keep his commandments, regardless of what everyone else says, thinks, or does. With that in mind, let's look at what Jesus says about the governing officials.

Romans 13:1-7 - Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 

Matthew 22:17-21 - Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.”

Matthew 6:33 - But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

          And then let's look at what Paul said.

Colossians 3:17 - And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.


1 Timothy 2:1-2 - First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 - But we urge you brothers...to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Wow. So that's what the New Testament says about the government. Let's break it down.

1. Rom. 13:1-7 - We do what the government says and follow the laws, and resisting is resisting God's appointed. 

2. Matt. 22:17-21 - However, even though we are supposed to give the government what they expect from us, we are supposed to give to God what He expects from us.

3. Matt. 6:33 - In fact, we should always seek God first. We shouldn't do anything that goes against this command.

4. Col. 3:17 - Everything we do or say should be right in the sight of God - no exceptions. We should follow the government, but only as long as it does not cause us as Christians to do something we shouldn't or prevent us from doing something we should.

5. 1 Tim. 2:1-2 & 1 Thess. 4:10-12 - We should, while putting God first in everything - including politics and government issues - always pray for those who are in office. We should work with our own hands and pray that we can life quiet, peaceful lives. We should mind our own business and live the Christian life.

          We should put God first in everything we do, including political issues and the government. We should give God everything that He expects from us and to our best to ensure that everything we do or say lines up with His word. We should also work to live quiet, peaceful lives, and mind our own business. A part of living this type of lifestyle also includes working with our own hands so that we don't have to depend on others to do things for us.

However, once all of those qualifications are filled, we should give the government what they are due and follow them, for the leaders that we have are there because God wants them to be. Even if we don't understand why they are in office, we still owe them everything that their positions of power entitle them to receive as long as we don't go against the will of God. These include: taxes, respect, and following the laws. That means no cheating on taxes, no bad-mouthing or openly disrespecting those in power, and no speeding, for example.

That's what God expects from us.


          Next time politics are a part of a conversation, you are voting, or you are in the presence of a government official, remember how important the things you say and do are to God. Whatever happens in the sphere of government, we are always expected to put God first. He wouldn't include politics in the Bible if they weren't important.


Thank you for reading!
- Ethan

The Relationship between Truth and Unity pt. 6

            So far, in our series on truth and how it relates to finding world-wide unity between believers all over the world, we have discussed five main points. These are:

1. Always diligently search for the truth in everything
2. The Bible comes before any opinion or interpretation – practice what we preach
3. If God says to do something we must do it – if he says not to, we must not – the Bible is divinely inspired
4. It is our fault that evil exists and we must follow the Bible “as it is written” in order to change the world
5. Divisions occur when someone is convicted that their opinion is truth – we must be willing to see things in light of the 4 points above in order to prevent any more division

In this post, we will conclude our series on truth and unity by discussing modern Christianity. Most of Christianity today revolves around how the teachings make people feel. For example, if someone doesn’t like the type of music that is used in the worship service, they can rally some friends together and try to change it or drift to another church where they like the music more. If the atmosphere in a church is displeasing to someone, it’s easy to just go find a church that gives off that “feel-good” vibe instead of hanging around and working to improve things where they are.

You know what I mean. This stuff is so common today.

I daresay that people rarely leave a church, switch denominations, etc. because they are in earnest pursuit of the unadulterated truth. Most people seem to decide where to worship on Sundays and how to live their lives based on how it makes them feel with no thought of “absolute truth” or “serving.”

          One time, after visiting a small congregation full of older people, a guy I know told me that “yeah, the people are nice and they’re teaching truth, but I just don’t…feel good…when I’m in there. I don’t…feel…like…uplifted ya know?” I understand, believe me, but since when was worshipping God about you? I’ve been a Christian for years, and it’s definitely never been about me. Sometimes, being a Christian means that we have to do things we don’t want to do. Other times we have to choose not to do things that we do want to do. That’s just the way it is. That’s part of it.

That’s life. Sometimes things don’t go your way.

The man who told me that he didn’t “feel good” when he was at church doesn’t attend services while he’s at college. He looked at a few different places and he gave up. He goes on Easter and on Christmas, and that’s it.

“How could he? I would never do that.”

Some of us might have already done exactly that. When we place our own wants before Christ, we have completely nullified the purpose of the church. The purpose of the church is to 1. Save souls, 2. Provide us with a way to worship God and please him. That’s it. Everything else comes after that. Being a Christian is a selfless act, and when we choose to do or not to do things – we choose to ignore parts of the Bible or add things to it – we are living a contradiction. We have changed the ultimate example of absolute selflessness into a social event.

At that point, it’s no longer about worshipping God “as it is written,” it’s about filling an addiction to a feeling. When the good feeling is strong, we’ll be at church and we’ll be living right with God outside of church too. When it’s gone – we’ll stop.

If someone starts coming to church to play basketball, have church lunch on Sunday afternoons in the fellowship hall, and hear the up and coming local praise-band, what happens if you take all of those things away? When the emotional saturation of the social setting is removed from the equation, and all that’s left is the bare-bones of the Bible, that individual will most likely move on to another church or give up altogether. As that “good feeling” wanes, living a Christian lifestyle becomes harder and harder, and eventually the person isn’t even going to church at all or ends up leading a double life.

          I know a woman who is the perfect person at church, and she guards her reputation like nothing I’ve ever seen – if you ask anyone at church about her life, it’s perfect with a capital P. They can’t see her doing anything wrong. However…

On the weekends, she’s sleeping with her boyfriend. Or, she’s getting wasted and occasionally doing drugs. Her iPod is full of songs that are full of curse words and profanity. She curses like a sailor when she’s with her friends. The list goes on and on.

I'll put it bluntly: her lifestyle shows an obvious lack of respect for God and for the church. If she was trying to change, it would be different, but I know her and she’s straight up told me that she’s not. The guy I talked about earlier who tried a few different churches and just decided not to go anymore – his lifestyle is the same. Life has become a chase for the next “feel good”, the next high – whether it’s sex, alcohol, drugs, a bigger paycheck, or a new toy like a car or TV.

The point I’m trying to make here is simply this: Christianity is radical in 2014. We have to actually do things that we don’t feel like doing. We have to actually choose not to do things that we do feel like doing. That’s just the way it is. Christianity has always been, and will always be radical in the cultures that coexist with it. Christianity is a sub-culture all its own – it’s a culture of selflessness, doing the right thing even when nobody’s around, and constantly pursuing personal perfection. Christianity changes you by permeating your social life, your family life, and your personal “thought bubble.” It makes us different from everyone else who’s not a Christian, whether we like it or not.

          When Christianity was born, it was groundbreaking. God came to Earth to deliver His word? Wow. The belief in a monotheistic God that would come to Earth and die without a fight in order to save people’s souls, well, that was definitely new. Gentiles and Jews could both be saved? That was unheard of. You can see what I’m saying – at any given point in time, Christianity calls its followers to step outside of the culture that they live in and rally together under a shared set of beliefs and practices to live differently than they used to.

Even though modern culture has taken many of the things condemned as sin in the Bible and removed most of the physical consequences (birth control, for example, makes pre-marital relations much easier to get away with), we are called to rise above that. That’s how its radical for us. Christianity calls us to not live the modern “American” lifestyle.

America says “if it feels good, do it at any cost. If it’s illegal, we’ll legalize it. No such thing as consequences, as long as you’re happy.”
Christianity says “if it’s spiritually based and scripturally correct, do it at any cost. It doesn’t matter what the laws say or don’t say, you do what God says and you'll be happy.”

          There’s a huge difference, and it’s time for us to realize that. Christianity is radical, whether we like it or not. That means that we’re called to be radically different from the world around us. Let’s stop chasing that next “feel-good” feeling and buckle down to worship God, in everything we do, in spirit and in truth. Only once we choose, as a Christian nation, to rise above the carpe-diem culture that holds us down and live lifestyles based in divinely-inspired truth will we ever be able to find unity. Only then can we change the world.

Thanks for reading! This concludes the series on truth and unity. I’ve really enjoyed creating it and I have appreciated your support and suggestions. We’ll pick up a new topic next weekend.

- Ethan

Taking a Break...

For the past several Saturdays, we have been discussing truth and unity. The conclusion of this study is coming soon - but let's take a break from that topic. As a matter of fact, let's talk about taking breaks. 

Sometimes we wear ourselves out - we're so busy with jobs, studying, or doing things for others that we neglect to take time for ourselves.

The point is - you need to take time to stop, relax, and collect your thoughts so you can solve any internal problems that you may be facing. God has blessed us with so much, especially here in America. I'm not advising that we become lazy or complacent, I'm just saying that we need to take a break. 

As an example, I make cabinets during weekdays with a local cabinetmaker as a summer job. The other day, we got completely caught up with where we wanted to be on filling orders so we stopped to get a drink of water and discuss what to do next. We had planned on working until 4 p.m., but we finished at around 11 a.m. My boss's first reaction was to go ahead and find something else to do so he could get ahead, like he always does when he gets caught up. That's awesome! What a great attitude.

However...

That day was his grandson's birthday and his grandson really wanted his grandpa to take him to Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday. I mean, the grandson reallllllly wanted grandpa to take him to Chuck E. Cheese. I could tell my boss was struggling with whether or not he should work - he wanted to go with his grandson, but he also knew that getting ahead at work is security. Being over-prepared is better than being under-prepared. Seeing him conflicted, I brought the subject up as we were sitting there, sipping water, and we came to the conclusion that he should go with his grandson. 

Our conclusion was something like this: "These cabinets are right where we wanted them to be, and your grandson is only going to be young once. In 10 years, it's going to matter more to you and to him if you go with him to Chuck E. Cheese than it's going to matter if we're 5 hours ahead on building cabinets. Family comes first." He went and they both had a blast.

That's what I'm talking about in this post. Make sure that you take time to relax and enjoy your blessings. Whether it's 
your parents, 
your grandparents, 
your children, 
your grandchildren, 
your husband, 
your wife, 
your boyfriend, 
your girlfriend, 
your best friends, 
your dog, 
your jacuzzi,
your season tickets; whatever it is that you have, take the time to enjoy it. 

Make sure you say a specific prayer tonight to thank God for giving you those blessings. You see, that's the thing about physical blessings... Nothing in this life lasts. Everyone dies and everything deteriorates. If you wait until a more convenient time to enjoy your blessings, you may not even have them anymore. 

In other words, you make time for what's important to you. We all do. Make time to enjoy the little things in this life. Make time to enjoy the little pieces of your own personal Eden as you go through life and always remember that God is with us. He loves us. And he wants you to relax.

He wants you to take a deep breath and enjoy the good in the world. Stop being so busy for a few minutes and remember who and what you're putting in all of that effort for.

What's it all worth? 

Thanks for reading! We'll pick up with the Truth and Unity series next week. Have a great weekend!
- Ethan

The Relationship between Truth and Unity pt. 5

            Sometimes, I hear Christians argue. “Well, the Bible says this.” “No, no, no – that’s your opinion. The Bible actually says this.” “See, now you’re taking that completely out of context. If you turn to this other scripture…”

What happens when we argue like that?

1. Outsiders see the divisions and wonder “why would I ever want to be a part of that? They can’t even agree.”
2. Other Christians see the divisions and take sides in what amounts to a spiritual family feud.

And, possibly the most important…

3. The way we look at the Bible is changed during the course of the disagreement. People on both sides of the issue no longer look at the Bible as the ultimate source of truth and unity, but they look at it is a weapon – to use on other Christians! To the people arguing, Christianity is no longer about truth, unity, and reconciling everyone who believes; it’s about proving a point of view or trying to change the Bible to fit an incompatible world-view.

Can you think of some issues which have divided the church over the last 2,000 years?

When we think about a specific issue which has divided the church, I assume that most of us see one side as right and one side as wrong. Take the Protestant Reformation, for example. If you’re Protestant, you probably consider the Catholic church to be not-quite-as-good as the Protestant church where you attend. If you’re Catholic, you probably think the same thing about the Protestants.

The question is: who’s right?

When an issue divides the Lord’s church, it moves from the realm of “interpretation” to something much more. In 1 Cor. 1:10-13, Christians were claiming to follow different people.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow the teachings of Charles Wesley,” or “I follow the teachings of the Pope,” or “I follow the teachings of this council/convention,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was John Calvin crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of the Pope?

Wait, that’s not how those verses read…

I know. I changed the names to make a point: when we wear different names, go to different churches that teach different things, and argue about scripture and doctrine to the extent that new types of churches are formed based on the disagreement, we have created division. Ideally, every believer in a town would gather at the same building to worship the same way, leaving all opinions and disagreements outside, uniting to worship Christ in spirit and truth with the Bible as the foundation for love and unity.

But that’s not what happens. And that’s our fault.
We don’t know how to compromise.
I don’t mean compromise on truth. I mean compromise on opinion. We should be more than willing to compromise on the things that are considered “differences in interpretation” in the name of truth.

Look at it like this: if something we do causes another Christian to think we’re sinning, we should go to the Bible first. If what we are doing is scripturally correct (i.e. the Bible, specifically condones it), then we should take the opportunity to teach the other person. If we are the ones being taught, we should be willing to listen and learn, taking into consideration everything that is being told to us instead of thumping the Bible the first time someone ruffles our feathers.

If the Bible directly says “do this” or “don’t do this,” we have no choice but to follow it. However, we should be willing to change whatever we can for the sake of unity, even if it means never eating meat again. If something isn’t specifically denoted as being wrong in and of itself and also isn’t a command or unquestionable implication, but yet it still bothers a fellow Christian, we’ve got to ask ourselves who we’re putting first if we continue in our practices. If it bothers his or her conscience, to them…what we are doing is sin. (Rom. 4:21-23)

            As an example, I’ll use something like baptism. Is baptism necessary for salvation? Yes. Every conversion in the New Testament involves baptism, and several scriptures even state that baptism saves us. Regardless of what anyone believes about the subject, the Bible says to believe and be baptized in order to be saved (Mk. 16:16); therefore, we must do it to be saved.

Yet, we still can’t all unite on that.

The thing is, that’s a fact. That’s an undebatable command. Google “verses on baptism” and just see the vast number of scriptures that talk about baptism. 1 Pet. 3:21 even goes far enough as to say “baptism now saves us.”

That should be the end of the discussion, but it’s not. Just wait until you talk about something like using instruments in the worship service or whether or not it’s scriptural to have a gymnasium. If we can’t agree on the blatant commands – the basic foundation for our salvation – you’d better believe we won’t be able to compromise and agree on matters that require a bit of “reading between the lines.”

When we try to force others to accept a specific point of view, with little to no compromise on our part, it’s no wonder that we aren’t united. If we do something that isn’t specifically stated as being wrong, but it offends someone else (like eating meat sacrificed to idols or a modern-day equivalent), we should be more than willing to compromise in the name of truth and unity. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, it’s not about “me” and what “I” think or believe. It’s about following the Bible and being united. Read 1 Cor. 8. We cause others to sin if we force them to violate their consciences over something that’s not a matter of doctrinal correctness. Imagine the topic of eating meat sacrificed to idols if it were debated nowadays…

“I have the right to eat meat sacrificed to idols. The Bible doesn’t say it’s wrong, plus Paul sometimes ate meat sacrificed to idols so your argument is invalid. I’m sorry but you’re confused. I’m going to eat meat sacrificed to idols because I’m supposed to provide for my family and that’s the meat that’s the most affordable…” etc.

Let’s do our best to make sure that we’re keeping God first in our minds and putting others’ needs ahead of our own. The time is now, my brothers and sisters. It’s time for us to come together and change the world! There are millions of souls to be saved, and we need to work together to save them. We need unity.

Thank you for reading!
With Christian love,
- Ethan