Daily Jot: Christian involvement in Government - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
Many have written in about whether Christians should be involved in Government and politics. Some say their pastors are preaching from the pulpit that Christians are members of a higher kingdom and should not be involved with government and politics. Another popular preached position is that the scriptures say that we must submit to rather than engage the governments because they are placed over people by God. Yet another position taught is that Christians should take over governments because they must establish the kingdom of God here on earth as a prerequisite for Christ to return. These various teachings are wrong-minded and many are twisting scripture to make their case. Here is why.
There is nothing in the Bible that man must establish the kingdom of God on earth so that Jesus Christ can return. Only the Father knows when Christ will return, he will return when the Father directs him, and Christ alone will establish his kingdom. It's all there in the scriptures. On government, we find Moses in Exodus 18 spending all his day interpreting the law and settling disputes. Moses' father in law introduced the "representative" system of government in verse 21: "Moreover, you shall provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens." The America's Founding Fathers used this precept to establish the US governmental system.
Moreover, whether they were Christians or not, the Founders knew that man's imperfections prevented him from being a just and moral lawgiver. They, therefore, recognized that God had created man with certain rights and to protect those rights governments were instituted. To protect the people from government becoming tyrannical, the Founders uniquely established a government by rule of law, derived from God's laws, with checks and balances under the Constitution. Peter and the Apostles made the point of man's unjust and imperfect law giving when they told the Sadducees (who ruled over the Jews in submission to the Roman government) in Acts 5:29 when the Sadducees again tried to prevent them from preaching Jesus: "We ought to obey God rather than men."
Paul wrote in Romans 13:1, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that are ordained of God." It is telling us to submit to the governments and do good beneath them. It is not contradictory to Peter and the Apostles in Acts 5. Here in America, the government governs at the consent of the governed under the law. We the people essentially are the boss of the government. We are to hold the government accountable. If we are to take what Paul wrote in Romans 13 and apply it to Americans, it would mean that Americans should submit to Americans under God's derived law (The Constitution). Good stewardship is to preserve this unique system for it is a tremendous blessing to have freedom of speech, of worship, of evangelizing. It is a God-given blessing.
