The President today wouldn’t have to ride in a limousine; after all, he can’t fill all the seats at once! Nor would he have to live in a huge mansion. Nor would leaders of other countries have to sit on thrones. While some of the luxury and display that rulers show is perhaps caused by pride and vanity, there could actually be a useful motive behind some of this pomp and show—impressing those who might harm the ruler’s (or his country’s) interests, showing them the ruler’s authority, and perhaps frightening them into controlling their antagonistic impulses.

Recently we’ve received calls to political action from several different organizations with religious ties, urging us to become involved in the political battle for “freedom.” As this call is likely to intensify, and we will be pressured more and more to involve ourselves in politics, it may be good for us to study the Scripture, specifically the New Testament, to see what plan God has for His church regarding politics.

The word faith occurs in thirty-four verses in Romans, more than twice as many as gospel and fourteen more than grace, perhaps an important note at a time when the “Doctrines of Grace” are being promulgated in a way that almost seems to assume that they are Paul's focus and the most important of all doctrines. In fact, in Paul's New Testament writings (not including Hebrews because I doubt that Paul wrote it), faith occurs in 129 verses, while grace only appears in eighty-five, a significant forty-four verse difference.

This article is part of a series.

In the previous articles in this series, I’ve covered how the New Testament cannot be taken at face value, and still justify the idea of a Christian nation; it does not conform to the idea of Christians improving politics. In this article I want to explore further along these same lines.

Let’s look first at Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:38-45) These commands basically assume that Christians will not be involved in politics, because these commands can hardly produce an effective government, which is “a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Romans 13:4)

The author of Hebrews used the Old Testament story of Esau to provide a powerful warning for our day when he said, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:14-17) The story of Esau’s birthright gives us a dramatic word of caution, showing us the awful results of failure to esteem spiritual treasures at their true value.

When this passage describes Esau as profane, the word doesn’t necessarily have the connotation of cursing and swearing that it has today. But the passage seems to make it clear that the word refers to the lack of respect Esau gave to the value of his birthright.

This article is part of a series.

In the last article I briefly addressed the impossibility of a “Christian nation.” In this article I would like to do a more in-depth study on this possibility. As I mentioned in the last article, the most important problem with “Christian” nations is that Christianity has no commands for nations, no guidance for government. The Old Testament certainly has commands for the nation of Israel; however, these rules are specific to this nation and do not transfer to other nations. One example of this is found in the issue of divorce. We find another in the commands regarding the cities of refuge. Numbers 35:14 says, “Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.” Certainly not every nation can have three cities on either side of the Jordan River, and it probably wouldn’t fulfill the purpose of the cities of refuge even for some of the nations that could—the cities would be too close together or too far apart.

This article is part of a series.

In the Old Testament, people were not expected to be completely focused on God to be a member of God’s Kingdom; after all, beyond a few issues, God’s Law did not actually cover much of a person’s life, unless he happened to be a priest, Levite, or prophet. Those who were not in these groups, yet wanted to live in a way that was more focused on God than the ordinary, could become a Nazarite, but this tended to be a temporary thing, performed only for a specified period. Evangelism outside the Israelite nation appears to have hardly even been considered. Many of those who wanted to live a life of service to God may have seen only one remaining option—enter the national scene, in government or the army.

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) It’s easy for us to think of serving mammon as trying to get rich; then the verse does not apply to us because “trying to get rich” seems like something for Bill Gates, or John Rockefeller, or Andrew Carnegie, not us—we feel that we’re just “making a living” or “working toward a goal.” And maybe we are.

It is very important to have right doctrine; in fact, some wrong doctrines are so bad that a true Christian cannot even let those who hold the doctrines inside his house (II John 1:10). Wrong doctrine can be an important sign of inner corruption (I Timothy 4:1). But right doctrine will not rescue someone who is not completely committed to God.

This article is part of a series.

In the last article in this series, I discussed how religion was linked to the nation in Old Covenant Israel. The true religion was tied to Israel, and it was disadvantageous to be a Gentile. In the New Covenant, however, the true religion is decoupled from the state. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Paul is saying here that now the people of God no longer have a national identity; rather, they are distributed throughout the nations of the world. Their identity is in Christ instead of their country. “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” (Acts 10:35)