Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 4: Longing for the Eternal City 2 

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Living for the Eternal King | Part 3: Longing for the Eternal City 1 

At this point in Hebrews 11 the author pauses to summarize and, perhaps, to clarify what he has said so far. These 5 people—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah—have been chosen for the “Hall of Faith” for a single reason: they trusted God. 

They demonstrated that trust, that faith, by believing that what God had promised he would do, and by embracing those promises (He 11.13). What did that look like? In Abel’s case, it meant simply offering a sacrifice to God from what God had given him, with an attitude that pleased him. The specifics of his attitude aren’t described, but it’s easy to imagine that it involved gratitude and willingness rather than stinginess. In the case of Enoch, the comment that he “walked with God” seems to indicate fellowship between friends. Noah and Abraham evidenced their trust in God by obeying a significantly difficult command. And Sarah perhaps appears here just because of the attitude of her heart as she anticipated a labor and delivery in old age. 

In these different ways, these examples demonstrated that they looked forward to something beyond this life: that after they died, they would have a life that was worth sacrificing for here (He 11.14-16). 

More examples follow: Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac (He 11.17-19); Isaac’s instruction of his sons (He 11.20); Jacob’s anticipating of the covenant blessings on his grandsons as well as his sons (He 11.21); Joseph’s expectation of the Exodus (He 11.22); Moses’ obedience to God in leading it (He 11.23-29); Joshua’s obedience at Jericho (He 11.30); and Rahab’s faith in the one true God (He 11.31). 

And then comes a simple list of names, with no descriptions (He 11.32), and of others unnamed (He 11.33-38), all who valued the life to come more than this one, because they trusted God to keep his promises. 

We’ve noted that the author of Hebrews clearly expects us to follow their example. 

What would that look like in these “modern” days? 

It would look like valuing the eternal over the things you can’t take with you. And that would mean that our values and aspirations would be pretty much the exact opposite of the prevailing values and aspirations of our culture. Wealth? Political power? Fame? Are you kidding me? 

That completely changes how significantly this or that election, or this or that scandal, or this or that government policy, affects us. 

It changes how much we value and therefore cling to our earthly possessions. Giving to those in need brings us much less hesitation. Augustine’s earthly city starts to seem relatively trivial. 

It gives us a confident faith in the Great Certainties: 

  • The greater value of the heavenly kingdom 
  • God’s certain deliverance of us to that kingdom  
  • The goodness of God’s plan for us here 

Note that valuing eternity more than the temporal does not mean that we despise the temporal; God gives us good things, and it is appropriate to receive them with gratitude. I like my riding mower. I note that Abraham did indeed prefer Canaan to Ur, even though it wasn’t the heavenly city. 

Eternal values, exercised wisely as we inhabit a temporal kingdom. Stewarding present responsibilities and opportunities even as we await eternal life in a very different place. 

Grace, mercy, and peace. 

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On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 3: Longing for the Eternal City 1

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Living for the Eternal King 

As citizens of both an earthly nation and a heavenly home, believers think and live in ways that are markedly different from those with only an earthly citizenship. In the previous post we started that contrast by recalling our heavenly King’s Prime Directive, the “Great Commission” (Mt 28.19-20). Our life focus, our overriding mission, is to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. It’s been my pleasure to do that on several continents, but it’s worth noting that Jesus’ command was to start where we live (Ac 1.8). 

As we do that, other distinctives reveal themselves. There are many examples in Scripture, in both Testaments, of people who carried God’s Word to their families and neighbors. The classic summary of these efforts appears in Hebrews 11, the so-called “Hall of Faith.” Here we meet several believers from the Old Testament—some of whom we’re surprised to find here—with a description of their attitudes. It’s worth looking through those descriptions for attitudes that we should adopt these centuries later. 

The writer begins by talking about faith, the characteristic he’s going to choose as key for his list. In the larger context of Hebrews, he’s writing to what we might call New Testament Jewish believers, urging them not to return to Judaism. So it’s pretty clear that he intends this list of Old Testament examples to be examples for us, living as Christians in the New Testament economy. The writer confirms that in verse 4, when he says, “he being dead yet speaketh.” These long-dead saints are speaking to us. 

What are they saying? 

The first example is Abel, who “offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (He 11.4). We’re not told why it was more excellent; I was taught as a youngster that Abel offered the blood sacrifice that God required. But there’s no indication in the Genesis account that God had given any instruction about blood sacrifice; some note that God made Adam and Eve “coats of skins” after their sin, and it’s reasonable to conclude that the animals who donated those skins died, but their death is not called a sacrifice, and in any case, God offered it rather than commanding Adam and Eve to offer it. We certainly can’t hold Abel—or Cain—to the Abrahamic or Mosaic requirements centuries before they were given. All we know is that Abel’s sacrificed pleased God, while Cain’s didn’t. Cain’s response—murderous rage and then arguing with God (Ge 4.5-15)—indicates that the difference between the two men was in their attitude toward God. Our Hebrews passage will develop more details about that. 

The second example is Enoch, who is said simply to have “pleased God” (He 11.5); the OT account says that he “walked with God” (Ge 5.22). 

What do Abel and Enoch have in common? Their focus was on what God wanted, not merely their own earthly concerns. They wanted to please God. 

And our author next tells us that there’s only one way to please God, and that’s to trust him. In the original languages, “trust” and “faith” are the same word, both as nouns and as verbs. “To have faith” simply means to trust. 

We find this principle repeated in the next examples. Noah trusted God that rain was coming, even though it had never rained before, and he proved his trust by spending a century building a really big boat. Abraham trusted God’s call and proved it by uprooting his sizable business and moving to a place he’d never been. Sarah had some doubts about the pregnancy, of course—she was 90 years old, and the whole concept made her laugh (Ge 18.10-12)—but once she was pregnant, she believed that God would give her strength to deliver, and Abraham named her son Isaac—“laughter”—in a delightful double entendre, a nod to Sarah’s faithlessness and God’s faithfulness. 

There’s much more to consider in this passage. Next time. 

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On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 2: Living for the Eternal King 

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Part 1: Introduction 

What is the believer’s mindset as one holding dual citizenship? Can he be a loyal citizen of his earthly national homeland even as he acknowledges the superior authority of his heavenly king? 

Earthly Authority Matters 

I think he can, for the simple reason that providence exists. God directs the affairs of people and nations—both national affairs and the details of each individual to whom he has given life. Most of my readers were born into citizenship in the USA. Others are loyal to one of a number of homelands in six of the seven continents in the world. (If you’re in Antarctica, please speak up. McMurdo Station, anyone? Anyone?) 

Now, we’re not where we are by accident. God put us here. And just to make his intention absolutely clear, he has instructed us in the Scripture, as noted in the previous post, to “be subject unto the higher powers”—by which he means, as the context indicates, political powers (Ro 13.1). He even extends that clarification further when Peter writes to churches in Asia Minor (Turkey) that are suffering persecution from the Roman emperor and subordinate provincial officials: 

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; 14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well (1P 2.13-14). 

So at the outset, we dual citizens are reminded that we’re not playing games here, playing one citizenship against another to our greatest advantage. Given the context of persecution, it’s pretty clear that our personal advantage isn’t a significant consideration in a godly decision. 

But Eternity Matters More 

Given the brokenness of the world and everyone in it, we should expect that earthly authorities will issue directives that are not in line with God’s will. In fact, the Scripture gives examples of that in both Testaments. Pharaoh ordered the execution of male Israelite babies; Herod ordered the execution of any baby who might turn out to be “King of the Jews”; the Sanhedrin ordered the Apostles not to proclaim Jesus as Messiah. 

The responses of God’s people varied. Sometimes God just stepped in and stopped the evil attempt: God warned Joseph in a dream to get out of Bethlehem and migrate to Egypt for a while. In two other cases a key person on scene lied: that would be the Egyptian midwives and Rahab. There’s disagreement about whether these people did the right thing; that’s too long a discussion for this blog post, but for now we can just say that God delivered his people from the evil ruler. (He is sovereign over sinners as well as saints, after all.) 

In the case of the Sanhedrin, the situation is clear. Jesus, in his last command to his disciples, had ordered them, 

All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mt 28.18-20). 

The Sanhedrin had ordered them to disobey that command. 

What part of “all authority” is hard to understand? 

Peter’s reply captured the situation perfectly: 

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Ac 4.19-20). 

So our heavenly king does indeed take precedence over our earthly king. We obey him regardless of contradicting earthly directives. 

There’s a reason for that: eternal directives are more important than temporal ones, because eternal consequences are more significant than earthly ones. 

In our patriotic duties, then, we make our decisions on the basis of the eternal outcomes. In such matters, obedient believers may disagree; one believer may choose to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and another may refuse. But if they’re obedient, their decision is based on the eternal. 

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On the Believer’s Dual Citizenship, Part 1: Introduction

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Christians have always disagreed over their responsibilities to earthly governments. Jesus, of course, declared to Pilate that his kingdom “is not of this world” (Jn 18.36), leading some since to deny, or at least resist, all earthly kingdoms. Most Christians, though, have tried to follow Paul’s mandate that we should respect “the powers that be” (Ro 13.1), but they have disagreed significantly over what exactly that should look like. 

Augustine laid the foundation for “two kingdoms” thinking in his classic work The City of God, in which he asserted that all humans are citizens of either the city of God, loving God, or the city of man (Babylon), loving self. In his view, Christians are also citizens of earthly kingdoms, though only temporarily, and should be good citizens, seeking to improve society while realizing that complete success is impossible. 

The medieval Roman Catholic Church gave lip service to this idea—Augustine is, after all, one of the great Fathers of the Church—but various popes sought to exert authority over kings to an extent that rendered the latter essentially powerless. The most well-known example of this is when Pope Gregory VII refused to answer the door at the Canossa Castle in northern Italy, leaving Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV standing barefoot outside in the snow for three days (1077). 

The Reformers, who for obvious reasons were not inclined to follow slavishly the Roman Catholic example,  mostly returned to something close to Augustine‘s position. Calvin taught that Christians should respect and obey the government—not surprising, since for a time in Geneva he essentially was the government, even ordering capital punishment for heretics as he deemed it appropriate. 

These days most evangelical Christians make much of the Romans 13 passage, reserving civil disobedience to matters where they view the government as impinging on matters of biblical command and thus personal conscience. They will disagree with one another on precisely when civil disobedience is necessary*, but they will generally agree on the abstract principle. 

In some non-Christian minds this “dual citizenship” seems inappropriate. On November 10, 2004, speaking at the University of Chicago the day after that year’s presidential election, humorist Garrison Keillor said, “I’m trying to organize support for a constitutional amendment to deny voting rights to born-again Christians. I feel if your citizenship is in Heaven—like a born again Christian’s is—you should give up your [US] citizenship. Sorry, but this is my new cause. If born again Christians are allowed to vote in this country, then why not Canadians?” 

Now, I’m pretty sure Keillor was joking—first, because that’s what he was getting paid to do, and second, because as far as I know he never acted on those words. But it’s easy to see how this doctrine might give pause to a non-Christian or two. 

Well. Given that conservative evangelicals seem to have a robust theology of earthly citizenship based on Romans 13 and are (mostly) in agreement as to its broad application, I think it’s worth giving some attention to our other citizenship—what Augustine called “the city of God.” 

  • How do we live for the eternal king? 
  • And how do we demonstrate longing for the eternal city? 

Next time. 

* In a contemporary example, the US Supreme Court is deciding this year a Christian therapist’s objection to Colorado’s restrictions on “conversion therapy” for homosexual and/or transgender youth. Practicing evangelical licensed therapists in the state disagree over whether their colleagues can abide by the existing state law in good conscience and in obedience to Scripture. Some think the plaintiff’s objection is unnecessary by biblical standards. 

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On Revival

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There’s a lot of talk about revival these days. National networks are noticing and reporting on a surge of interest in Christianity, particularly among young men on the political right. Many are attributing it to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, with perhaps a reaction against policies hostile to Christian thinking that are widely viewed as “nutty.” The most obvious of these, I suppose, would be the transgender movement, especially policies promoting the participation of biological males in women’s sports and the encouraging of puberty-blocker hormone treatments and surgeries in minors. Many pundits think that young males have just had it up to here with what they see as the fruits of secularism and are turning to Christianity. 

Maybe they are. I certainly would like to see that happen. (I’d also like to see a similar surge in that thinking among young females, but it doesn’t appear to be happening.) 

But I’ve noticed something about the current discussions of this phenomenon that gives me pause. 

The evidences that I’ve seen cited for this revival are all external. 

By that I mean things like attendance at Charlie Kirk’s funeral, and increased attendance at church, and Bible sales, and app downloads, and streaming of Christian music. News outlets and podcasters are chattering about these statistical shifts. 

Now, these are all good things to one degree or another, but they’re not revival. 

I suppose that in order to support that statement, I need to define my terms. 

Historically, the term revival has been used of a renewal of dedication to God among Christians. It’s not technically a wave of conversions; that’s evangelism. For our purposes, though, I’m happy to just lump those two phenomena together as a broad move toward Christian thinking, regardless of the subject’s previous religious state. 

The little itch that I need to scratch is the apparent confusion between a sociological phenomenon and a genuine experience of Christian conversion or renewal. 

The Bible speaks of revival, or conversion, as a work of God’s Spirit in the individual heart. The Spirit convicts someone of his sin; he draws him to himself. As a result, the person repents of that sin and turns to Christ, seeking him and trusting him as the source of forgiveness and spiritual life. He becomes a servant of God, and his priorities are radically reordered. 

Maybe that’s happening on a large scale today. I hope so. But the simple fact is that we can’t possibly know that yet. Jesus said that we know his followers by their fruits; and Paul names the fruit of the Spirit as a set of character traits: love, joy, peace, endurance, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (Ga 5.22-23). 

We see precious little of that these days, on the right or the left. We’ll just have to wait and see. 

Now, I really don’t think I’m the curmudgeon here (shades of Andy Rooney), or the stereotypical fundamentalist (“no fun, too much damn, and not enough mental”). I think the body of this blog demonstrates that I’m fundamentally an optimist. But I know from experience that young people get swept up in various emotional causes. I note that a recent study suggests that the transgender movement among young people may be powered as much by peer pressure as genuine sexual dysmorphia. 

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the response to Charlie Kirk’s death were in any significant way another example of the same phenomenon? 

So what do we do? 

To start, we seek to understand accurately what’s happening. Becoming a Republican, or a fan of President Trump, or of Charlie Kirk, is not regeneration. Going to church is not conversion; in fact church is designed to be a gathering of people who are already believers, not a way to become one. Listening to Christian music, especially considering how broadly defined that genre is, may not be evidence of any particular mindset.  

Let’s see what’s actually there, and not what we wish for. 

And then, we steward the opportunity this social phenomenon represents. We interact with those who show up in our churches, showing them what the Scripture says about regeneration and the Spirit who gives that life, and showing them what the consequent life of sanctification looks like. We challenge the deviancies of professing Christians on both the right and the left. And we do these things in a way that reflects the fruit of the Spirit, bringing grace, mercy, and peace to those we serve. 

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On Memes

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This past week I came across a link to an interview about memes. It sprang from a news story about something—I’ll just say, um, edgy—that the president did, posting a meme that portrayed Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, in a sombrero and stereotypical moustache. It wasn’t exactly high art, just a sloppy cut-and-paste job—it was, after all, a meme, and one of the defining features of memes is sloppy cut and paste. The White House released it in both photo and video form; The Guardian and numerous other outlets called the latter a “deep-fake video,” but I don’t think the production values of the video nearly rise, or sink, to that level, though it did put words, including vulgar ones, in Sen. Schumer’s mouth. 

The conversation in the podcast—I assume that’s what this interview was part of—turned to the social significance of memes in the current culture, in conjunction with a discussion about whether this particular meme was racist. The guest observed that when he was a young journalist, he would have thought that it was, but that now he’s inclined to see it as a form of political satire. In the process he seemed to be defining memes as a new, creative literary form, combining kitschy art (that was not his term) with creative social comment. I took him to mean that they are an ironic combination of lowbrow graphics with much more nuanced implied commentary. 

I don’t think I agree with him—about the novelty, I mean. It seems to me that memes are simply another form in a long tradition of cartooning. This meme, I think, is an example of a specific form of cartooning, the political cartoon, in the tradition of Thomas Nast, but many memes have no political content at all, thus falling into the general category of cartooning. This “new” art form has been birthed by a couple of social factors: the fact that the internet has made everyone a publisher (there was lots of commentary on that 25 years ago  or so), and the rise of simple and efficient computer-aided graphics in association with word processing. These factors were new 25 years ago with the advent of the web, but they’re common now; and as I say, the art form of social commentary through graphic design goes all the way back to the ancients. 

And that means that the edginess, the acidity, the, well, meanness, of the art form is absolutely nothing new. I easily recall the Palatine Alexamenos Graffito, which pictures Christ on the cross with the head of a donkey; and I’m sure that those with wider expertise in the ancient world could cite numerous examples from the inscriptions and literature that are centuries older than that. 

There is a power in cartooning that derives from the cleverness of the nonverbal art. All humans react, at some level or other, to the ironic twist, the “Gotcha!” of a new insight, a new take, especially when it involves a heated social controversy. It makes the proponents laugh, and it makes the opponents rage. 

It occurs to me that this rhetorical power is accompanied by a counterbalancing danger, which is apparent in this specific meme. Any visual art, such as a political cartoon, is inherently subjective; it allows the viewer to impose a variety of meanings onto it, with what we might call a reader-response reaction; those who see it will interpret it in the light of their own experiences and ideologies. In this case, the president’s opponents will invariably see it as racist, and his supporters will invariably tell the opponents to lighten up—it’s just a joke. 

And that will be followed by commentary on the sad socio-political situation of extreme polarization that gives everybody a hair-trigger, knee-jerk response. 

Thus, I suppose, has it ever been. 

The current situation gives us a frank look at the moral brokenness of humans. We treat our opponents without empathy, and then we criticize them when they respond as emotional beings with strong convictions—as I do to the Alexamenos Graffito. I don’t see mocking of the Son of God, in the act of dying for my sins, as anything near clever. And I ought to be able, therefore, to empathize with emotional responses to the mocking of the deep commitments of my fellow humans, even those with whom I have significant disagreements. 

In every generation there are those who decry the lack of empathy. But if history is any guide, it is likely to remain part of our social fabric until Jesus comes. 

I find comfort in Jesus’ promise of return and redemption. For those who see that as fiction, I’m afraid I have no realistic long-term comfort to offer. 

On Greeting Strangers

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This is an Old Guy Observation and Meditation. 

I’ve noticed over the decades that the practice of greeting strangers is declining. When you pass someone on the sidewalk—or on the street if there is no sidewalk—fewer and fewer of those someones will look you in the eye, smile, maybe nod, and say “Hello!” 

During my student days, my school encouraged a culture where you said hello when you passed someone on campus. Of course, there were logistical constraints; if the sidewalk was crowded (say, between classes), nobody felt the need to greet each of those people—though you might greet friends in the crowd as they came by. More recently I’ve noticed that the practice no longer seems to be part of that culture. 

Now, I’m not going all “good old days” here; the old days had their imperfections and irritations, and I, like everybody else, noticed them and complained about them more than I should have. And cultural practices change over time, often for perfectly good reasons. I can think of a couple of reasons the practice of greeting strangers has declined. 

The first, I think, is a consequence of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, which promoted sex as a simple biological function rather than a blessed consequence of a committed union. Anytime a culture rejects the purpose of a divine gift, that gift will become distorted, and the distorted practice will bring dangers and other harms. 

In this case, it’s standard safety practice now for lone women to ignore men they don’t know. With the increase in sex-related crimes since the ’60s*, women don’t want to act friendly in situations they perceive as risky. You look straight ahead and ignore the guy. And that’s good thinking. I’m always conscious of when I’m alone and walking behind a lone woman; I don’t want to cause her anxiety, so I’ll typically walk slower to increase the distance between us or even change my course. And of course, if a lone woman doesn’t greet me on the sidewalk, I take no offense. She has no idea what kind of monster I might be. 

A related matter is the increase in sex slavery in more recent years. In particular, children are warned about “stranger danger,” and those warnings are eminently sensible. So if kids don’t greet me, I take no offense at that either; in fact, I’m less inclined than I used to be to greet children I don’t know. Who’s this strange old man, anyway? 

A second reason for the decline in greetings is technology—phones and earbuds, most commonly. Lots of people multitask with their walking time, listening to music or podcasts, or catching up on texts. Nothing objectionable about that. I’ve noticed a few occasions where I couldn’t see any earbuds, said hello, and the person just completely ignored me. I try to exercise the biblical principle of giving people the benefit of the doubt (1Co 13.4-7, most directly) and just let it pass. Maybe the problem’s more with my eyes than their ears. 

But though I understand the forward march of culture, I miss the old practice of saying howdy. 

Speaking of culture, something I’ve noticed in rural Africa is the good reason why hardly anything begins on time: when you’re walking to an appointment, you’ll likely meet someone you know, and of course you’ll stop and greet him, and ask him how his family is—each family member, by name—and take some time to demonstrate that you value his friendship. It’s not seen as rude to keep people at your destination waiting; wouldn’t it be even more rude to brush off someone who’s standing right next to you? 

I love the sense that makes. 

So Africans—and African-Americans—will talk about “Africa time” and laugh, and I’ve come to appreciate the laughter as a nod to a cultural valuation of grace and love for neighbor. Of course we’re not going to start on time—and that’s a good thing! 

I’m not going to grouse about the “defects” of our culture like an old curmudgeon, but I am going to keep looking on-comers in the eye and say howdy if they return my look. 

If they don’t, no judgment. But I think our world would be a better place if we were on Africa time. 

* There’s complexity to the data, including varying legal definitions of rape and consent, and the question of a possible increase in reporting rather than incidence. 

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On Protest, Part 4: Protesting Well 

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Part 1: First Things | Part 2: The Landscape | Part 3: Levels of Authority 

It’s time to get down to brass tacks, as they say. We’ve looked at the key biblical material on authority and civil disobedience; now how do we live that out today? 

What do we do when the government—the law—orders us to disobey Scripture? 

Let’s get specific. Should you feed and house an illegal immigrant (or undocumented migrant, if you prefer)? Should you hide him from ICE? Should you lie to ICE? Should you try to stop them physically? 

You and I have Christian brothers and sisters who are asking themselves these questions right now, and who need answers—right now. 

Let me suggest a pathway for thinking through to a wise and right decision. 

 First thing first: recognize that God has providentially brought you to this place for His purposes (Ps 37.23). This issue didn’t come out of nowhere, and you are precisely where you are by the will and plan of God. He will provide the wisdom you need to make a right decision. 

Further, a significant part of his plan is to develop in you the character of Christ (2Co 3.18). Look for His purpose in your own character development, submit humbly to it, and pursue it. That might include improving your understanding of his Word, interacting appropriately with other believers (especially those further down the path of sanctification than you are), deepening your prayer life—Jesus, the perfect Son of God, felt the need to pray all night sometimes; how about you? and me? 

Evaluate your disagreement with the authority figure in light of the Bible’s teaching. Be honest with yourself. And as I noted earlier, consider carefully the thinking of believers, particularly long-time believers, who disagree with you. To do this, you’re going to have to swim against the polarizing forces in the current culture. You’re going to need to talk calmly and respectfully with people you disagree with. 

Nobody does that anymore. 

Further, recognize your own limitations. You cannot reliably discern motives, nor can you know all the considerations in any decision by an authority.  

If you are convinced that the authority is acting unbiblically, begin by submitting to the authority’s procedure(s) for challenging the decision. It is not an accident that you are under that particular authority. Most of us live in a democratically oriented state system, and there are things we can do short of burning it all down. We can interact with those in authority; and there are legal ways to exert political pressure. 

If your conscience, informed by Scripture, forbids you to submit to that authority’s procedures for redress, then disobey humbly and graciously, and submit to the penalty. On the other hand, if you can and do follow the procedures, and the authority overrules your plea, then you need to make the same decision: must you disobey in order to protect your conscience? If so, then do so, and accept whatever penalty the authority determines.  

 Let me add a rider to this. The Bible indicates that Paul responded to government persecution in various ways. As mentioned in the previous post, sometimes he went underground with his civil disobedience (2Co 11.32-33). Some would see that as evidence that you need not disobey publicly and take the penalty. Fair enough. 

More often, however, Paul disobeyed publicly and faced the state’s response squarely. But even in these cases his tactics varied. Once, tied to a whipping post, he asserted his right as a Roman citizen by turning to the nearest official and saying essentially, “Say, isn’t it illegal to beat a Roman citizen without a trial?” (Ac 22.24-29). At which point the whip disappeared. 

That story always makes me laugh. 

Earlier in his career, he used a different tactic. In Philippi, he and his colleague Silas took the beating, making no mention of their rights (Ac 16.22-24). The next day they confronted the authorities by revealing their Roman citizenship (Silas was apparently a citizen too, Ac 16.37), a fact that put these authorities in jeopardy of the death penalty. Paul insisted on a public escort out of town and even took the group by the church’s house (Ac 16.39-40), as if to say, “These are my friends. It would be a shame if anything happened to my friends.” 

Is it too strong to say that Paul was blackmailing them? That’s a good question. 

Paul knew how the system worked, and he worked it, to his own advantage and to that of the work of the kingdom. 

Even an unjust steward knows how to do that (Lk 16.8). 

Jesus instructed us all to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mt 10.16). In this chaotic culture, he will enable us to do that. 

Together. 

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On Protest, Part 3: Levels of Authority 

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Part 1: First Things | Part 2: The Landscape 

Given that the world system, and its inhabitants, are broken, we have to expect that the divinely created order, as represented in the biblical authority structures, will not perfectly conform to the divine standard of justice. Thus those in various degrees of authority over us will at least occasionally be unjust. 

What do we do then? Man the barricades? Take it to the streets? Burn it all down? 

There are some that think this way. My suspicion is that they’re a relatively small portion of society, but they outsize their influence by the sheer volume of the noise they make. Squeaky wheels, after all, do get greased. 

We’ve based our thinking about authority structures on a quick survey of the biblical material. Looking a little more deeply, however, makes a couple of things abundantly clear: 

  • As just noted, our authorities are imperfect. 
  • When they fail in their obligation to promote justice, we have options. 

Since God created these authority structures (as noted in the previous post), and since God is Lord of Hosts, Creator of Heaven and Earth, he holds authority over the existing powers, and we owe him obedience in all things. Thus if your home, or state, or church orders you to do something that violates God’s will as expressed in his Word, then you must disobey that earthly authority. 

We have multiple examples of this. David ran from King Saul (1S 19.18ff) even while respecting his position as king (1S 24.1-15). Paul escaped from the king of Damascus by going over the wall in the middle of the night (2Co 11.32-33). In an appearance before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, Paul called the high priest a “whitewashed [and by implication deeply filthy] wall” (Ac 23.3). (To be fair, I note that the interpretation of Paul’s intent here is disputed; some think he didn’t realize to whom he was speaking, as he says in verse 5. But I’m doubtful that he wouldn’t recognize the high priest, and I suspect he was being sarcastic in verse 5, implying that a genuine high priest wouldn’t act this way.) 

Most interpreters think the clearest illustration of this principle of Higher Authority is in Acts 4, where the Sanhedrin orders Peter and John to stop preaching about Jesus. This restriction, if obeyed, would clearly be disobedience to Jesus’ last command, the Great Commission, which obligates the two to preach in his name. 

Their response is classic: 

Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. 20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard (Ac 4.19-20). 

In the Olinger Revised Version, it reads, 

You do what you want; we’re going to do what we have to do. 

And they continued to preach, directly disobeying their governmental authority. In Peter’s case, that brought him imprisonment (Ac 12.1-3) and eventually, tradition says, execution by crucifixion. John, on the other hand, lived a long life and died a natural death—if you can call slaving in the salt mines in your 80s a natural death. 

There is indeed a higher authority. 

Now, if we are to obey God when our authorities contradict his will, then it’s really important that we know what that will is. If a voice in your head tells you to take a shot at the President, and you think that voice belongs to God, you’re going to be in a pile of trouble with guys in black suits who talk to their wrists, and even worse, it will all have been for nothing, because that voice in your head is not in fact from God. 

There’s only one reliable source of God’s words and will, and that is the Scripture. We all need to know what it says. 

And further, we need to be sure of our biblical understanding. If the Bible-believing population is divided on whether the Bible actually says this or that, we need to slow down and evaluate what we’ve read. Maybe one side’s wrong and the other is right; but the very division among people who love God and believe their Bibles should call for some extra thought and careful consideration. 

Next time: bringing it all together on a Thursday in July. 

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On Protest, Part 2: The Landscape 

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Part 1: First Things 

As broken people—like everybody else—in a broken world, we will face disagreements and conflicts. To ameliorate and mediate these conflicts, God has established authority structures under which we all live and function. 

Before I delineate those, I’d like to note that much of modern culture rejects the whole idea of authority structures. Anarchists, such as Antifa, reject all governmental authority. Non-religious people reject church authority structures, of course, and a majority of contemporary Western culture rejects familial authority structures, most obviously the authority of husbands over their wives and the authority of parents over their children—the latter seeming particularly unpopular with many teachers in public education. 

Now, such people are of course free to believe whatever they want, but as is the case anytime humans reject the divine order, they run pretty quickly into a workability problem. Whether you’re doing away with government or other authority structures, you’re going to end up with chaos, with everyone doing what’s right in his own eyes. That’s been tried before (Jdg 21.25)—more than once—and it has never turned out well. Feel free to think of examples beyond the two I’ve mentioned; the pattern holds. 

Arguments against authority typically simply cite examples of abuses of governmental or ecclesiastical or familial authority, and there are many. But the fact that something is done wrong is no argument that it cannot be done right, or that it is so inherently evil that it shouldn’t be done at all. Is Florence Foster-Jenkins proof that nobody should sing? Given the brokenness of the world and its inhabitants, there will always be abuses. When they occur, we ought to correct them, but we will never construct a system in which such abuses don’t happen. 

How about  

“Come on, people, now, smile on your brother; 
Everybody get together, try to love one another right now”? 

I heard Jesse Colin Young sing that live on Boston Common more than fifty years ago. Didn’t work then; doesn’t work now. 

So I would suggest that it’s worth our time to recognize the authority structures under which God has placed us and to seek to live orderly, sensible, and realistic lives instead of insisting on the “freedom” of making things up as we go, all the way to utter chaos. 

I’ve already identified those authority structures above (contextually, as formal debaters say), but let me list them formally here, in the order in which God created them. 

The Home / Family 

The first people God created he intended to be a unit, an organism. Specifically, they were to be husband and wife (Ge 2.18, 21-25), and, as the language indicates, they were to have children (Ge 2.24, “one flesh”; cf Ge 9.1, 7). Later Scripture speaks repeatedly of the authority of parents over their children (e.g. Ep 6.1-4). 

The State / Government 

There is obviously no need for a state until the human population grows beyond a single family, but that apparently came very early in history, given the extended lifespans in that time (Adam, for example, lived to be more than 800 years old [Ge 5.4]). Adam’s son, Cain, established “a city” (Ge 4.17), probably several centuries after creation. We’re not told what sort of government it had, but some organization must have been involved. 

As Noah left the ark after the flood, God bestowed on humans the authority of capital punishment (Ge 9.6), which I think can serve as a clear indication of human government. 

And if the state can kill you for violating its law against murder, then clearly it has authority and can command obedience. 

It’s worth noting that pretty much all government in those days—indeed, all the way through the Medieval period—was autocratic. Of course the ancient Greeks experimented with democracy in Athens and Sparta, but that was short-lived and not influential. The current broad menu of governmental systems is a recent and unusual development. But the authority has always been there. 

The Church 

This third authority structure is a relative latecomer, having been instituted after the earthly ministry of Christ, at Pentecost (Ac 2.47 is the first biblical mention of the church as existing). It is never said to have authority over nonbelievers (hence the poor record of theocratic systems in the centuries since), but believers are often told to recognize and obey ecclesiastical authorities (e.g.2Th 3.7; He 13.7). 

Now. 

Since the world and everyone in it is broken, these authority structures are broken as well. There are mistakes and errors in judgment and execution, and often there are abuses. 

Now what? 

Next time. 

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