Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Jonathan Leeman on the Church as Embassy | Faith & Politics #16

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Jonathan Leeman on the Church as Embassy | Faith & Politics #16 · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 1: James Spencer. I'm joined today by Dr. Jonathan Lehman. He
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  Speaker 1: is the president of Nine Marks. which is an organization
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  Speaker 1: that helps pastors and churches. And I can let him
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  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that. But he's also
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  Speaker 1: the author of a book called Political Church, the Local
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  Speaker 1: Assembly as Embassy of Christ's Rule. And that's going to
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  Speaker 1: be the focus of our conversation today is what does
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  Speaker 1: it mean for the church to be political? This is
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  Speaker 1: part of our theology and faith series that we're doing
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  Speaker 1: on Thinking Christian. And so happy to welcome you today, Jonathan.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, James. I appreciate it. Glad to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Do you want to talk a little bit more about
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  Speaker 1: Nine Marks before we get started?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, happy to. Nine Marks, as you said, exists to
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  Speaker 2: help pastors build healthy churches. We have a website. We
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  Speaker 2: do books, lots of books, study guides, podcasts, events. And
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  Speaker 2: our target audience is pastors. That's who we're trying to reach.
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  Speaker 2: And the goal is to help pastors get more of
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  Speaker 2: a biblical vision of the church. Churches have been dominated
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  Speaker 2: by kind of best business practices think, you know, for
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  Speaker 2: the last 50, 60 years, they've become a little more
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  Speaker 2: consumeristic and we exist to say, Hey guys, you know what?
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  Speaker 2: The Bible actually speaks to this and it gives us
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  Speaker 2: everything we need. In fact, it's sufficient for what churches
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  Speaker 2: should be, uh, and do the most important things about
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  Speaker 2: your church or the things that it shares in common
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  Speaker 2: with every other church and those things that are in
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  Speaker 2: the Bible. And so that's, that's what we spent a
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  Speaker 2: lot of time talking about.
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  Speaker 1: Very cool. Um, Your book on political church is largely
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  Speaker 1: about the church. And so I guess I'm wondering, maybe
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  Speaker 1: we should have a little definition of terms.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: First, you know, when you talk about, we'll start with
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  Speaker 1: the second term and then go to the first. When
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  Speaker 1: you talk about the church, what are you talking about there?
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  Speaker 2: I am, as the subtitle talks about, the local, what
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  Speaker 2: you have in front of that, the local assembly as
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  Speaker 2: embassy of Christ's world. I am talking about the local church,
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  Speaker 2: not the church universal that Jesus says he will build
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  Speaker 2: in Matthew 18. I'm talking about the church local that
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  Speaker 2: he says addresses the believer in Matthew 18 and in
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  Speaker 2: many other places in the New Testament. I'm talking about
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  Speaker 2: that covenanted gathering of saints, covenanted gathering of believers who
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  Speaker 2: affirm one another in the gospel and declare the gospel
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  Speaker 2: through the ordinances and through preaching. So that assembly is
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  Speaker 2: what I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 1: Really helpful. And then when you think about politics or
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  Speaker 1: the political, we've had some guests on to talk about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, political in a more public life sort of
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  Speaker 1: way versus, let's say, participation in American government through things
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  Speaker 1: like lobbying or voting or what have you. Where do
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  Speaker 1: you sort of thread that needle when we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: politics or the political?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. You're right to pull onto that thread because
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  Speaker 2: it It could sound like I'm talking about this when
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  Speaker 2: really I'm talking about that, right?
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  Speaker 1: Right, right.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not talking about political as partisan. I'm not talking
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  Speaker 2: about political as an institution or an institution of the state. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: I am talking, I am using that word political a
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  Speaker 2: little more functionally, you might say, rather than a form,
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  Speaker 2: a little more functionally. Okay. And I'm speaking as under
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  Speaker 2: the rule of God. In Christ. And I argue in
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  Speaker 2: that sense that all of life is, in some sense, political.
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  Speaker 2: All of life is to be under the rule of
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  Speaker 2: Christ and organized by his commandments on us in all
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  Speaker 2: the ways he calls us to live out our lives
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  Speaker 2: with one another. Right? And so the local church exemplifies precisely—
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  Speaker 2: It's meant to exemplify.
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  Speaker 1: Good distinction.
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  Speaker 2: It's meant, the blueprints.
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  Speaker 1: In its ideal expression. The blueprints. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Are to exemplify what a holy nation, a heavenly kingdom,
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  Speaker 2: using more political language here, right? Yeah. And as Thomas
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  Speaker 2: Hobbes puts it, the kingdom of Christ is not a
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  Speaker 2: mere metaphor, Hobbes' words. It's a metaphorical kingdom. No, it
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  Speaker 2: really is a kingdom. Now, it's not a landed kingdom.
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  Speaker 2: It's a kingdom whose source is not in this world,
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  Speaker 2: but it is a real kingdom. We really are a
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  Speaker 2: holy nation. And the church is to exemplify in that
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  Speaker 2: respect what a true politics should look like as an
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  Speaker 2: example for the nation's.
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  Speaker 1: So when we think about it, one of the areas
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  Speaker 1: I've thought about this in, and I'm not sure, we'll
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  Speaker 1: see what you think, but the household codes, bond servants, masters,
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  Speaker 1: the weak and the strong argument, Romans 14 and 15,
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  Speaker 1: you have these statements that are, look, these people These
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  Speaker 1: people belong to Christ, and so you're to serve them
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  Speaker 1: in this manner. These people belong to Christ, and so
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  Speaker 1: you're to treat them in a particular way. You know,
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  Speaker 1: the weak shouldn't judge the strong. The strong shouldn't lord
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  Speaker 1: over the weak. You know, you have these reciprocations because
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  Speaker 1: we're all under the authority of Christ, and there's an
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  Speaker 1: ownership claim there that now conditions behavior toward other people.
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  Speaker 1: Is that an aspect of what you'd think of when
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  Speaker 1: you think about politics? uh, as this sort of interrelating
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  Speaker 1: that is underneath the authority of God, or is that
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  Speaker 1: pushing it too far?
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  Speaker 2: Well, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're exactly right. Uh,
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking of, I think of Philemon, right? Um, he says, you, you,
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  Speaker 2: you mean you refer to the household codes and so forth,
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  Speaker 2: but you know, here, here's another example of the same
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  Speaker 2: sort of thing. Um, For this, Paul says to Philemon,
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  Speaker 2: for this perhaps is why he was part of you
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  Speaker 2: for a while, that you might have him back forever,
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  Speaker 2: no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant,
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  Speaker 2: as a beloved brother. Huh. Okay, so now is Paul
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  Speaker 2: in that statement? What's going on? He's telling Onesimus to
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  Speaker 2: go back. He needs to go back because there is
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  Speaker 2: a There is a requirement on him morally, legally, to
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  Speaker 2: go back and submit himself to his master Philemon. But
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  Speaker 2: at the same time, so there's kingdom of this world
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  Speaker 2: realities at play that he's addressing and asking Onesimus to
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  Speaker 2: go back to Philemon. At the same time, he's saying
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  Speaker 2: to Philemon, there's kingdom of heaven realities, think dual citizenship,
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  Speaker 2: kingdom of heaven realities that are primary and shape the
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  Speaker 2: nature of your relationship with Onesimus.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: He is a beloved brother, first and foremost. And so,
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  Speaker 2: oh yes, okay, so you're still dealing with the kingdom
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  Speaker 2: of this world realities and we've got to deal with those, fine. Right.
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  Speaker 2: But what's determinative for a Christian like, for a Christian
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  Speaker 2: like a master like Philemon is to treat his slave Onesimus,
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  Speaker 2: or his bond servant Onesimus, according to the gospel. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it changes everything. All right.
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  Speaker 1: Do you, Do you see that as an aspect of
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  Speaker 1: what you mean by embassy? And maybe that's a concept
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  Speaker 1: we should kind of dig into a little bit. As
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  Speaker 1: I've studied some of this, I've been using the term resituate.
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  Speaker 1: And so what I see Paul doing often is he's
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  Speaker 1: allowing these sort of systems and structures that are already
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  Speaker 1: in place, something like bond servant master or what have you,
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  Speaker 1: And he's saying, we don't need to change the practice.
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  Speaker 1: Or in other words, we don't need to abolish the structure,
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  Speaker 1: but we do need to resituate it under the reign
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  Speaker 1: of God. And so here's what this looks like. When
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  Speaker 1: you talk about the embassy, right, it strikes me that
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  Speaker 1: you're doing something a little bit similar, but also similar.
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  Speaker 1: sort of framing the church as a whole different kind
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  Speaker 1: of community. And so maybe we should talk through what
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  Speaker 1: is that embassy language that you're using and what implications
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  Speaker 1: might you tease out with that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the first thing you said, yes, there is
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  Speaker 2: a resituation. 1 Corinthians 7 is another great set of
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  Speaker 2: examples of that resituation. Jesus and the temple tax.
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  Speaker 1: Another great one.
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  Speaker 2: Should the kings of the earth make their sons Are
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  Speaker 2: the sons free from the paying the tax? No, the
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  Speaker 2: sons are free. He said, okay, but so you're free, Peter,
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  Speaker 2: not to pay the tax because you're a son of
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  Speaker 2: the king of heaven.
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  Speaker 1: Because you're a son.
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  Speaker 2: So as not to offend them, he says, go ahead
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  Speaker 2: and pay the tax.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: So the tax is still there. You got to pay it.
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  Speaker 2: We're still in this world. But you know what? It's
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  Speaker 2: rain is over. It doesn't finally determine you, identify you.
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  Speaker 2: You're a son. You're free. You don't got to pay
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  Speaker 2: the tax, but go ahead and do it. Same sort
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  Speaker 2: of thing going on there. The church is an embassy.
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  Speaker 2: What is that? Oh, gosh. I mean, OK, that's the
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  Speaker 2: whole that's the whole book.
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  Speaker 1: That's the whole book.
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  Speaker 2: I understand. So maybe maybe jump in.
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  Speaker 1: Let's let's say when we think of an embassy today.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.
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  Speaker 1: We often think of a location in another country that
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  Speaker 1: is representing like, let's say I can go to the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: embassy in Germany. And as an American citizen, that's functionally U.S.
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  Speaker 1: land that I can go to and sort of get
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  Speaker 1: assistance as an American citizen. Is that the sense, the
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  Speaker 1: basic sense you're using, embassy?
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Age 19, 20, junior year abroad, Jonathan Lehman,
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  Speaker 2: in Brussels, Belgium. Passport expires. Go down to the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: embassy in Brussels, Belgium. Right?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And so you walk up to it, American soldier, American flag.
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  Speaker 2: You go inside, people speaking American-sounding English. You hand them
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  Speaker 2: your passport. They're like, oh, it's expired. And you're like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: can I get a new one? And they turn off
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  Speaker 2: the computer. And in short order, they send you a
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  Speaker 2: new passport, right? That embassy didn't make me a citizen.
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  Speaker 2: I was a citizen by birth. But it possessed an
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  Speaker 2: authority to declare me a citizen, right? To give me
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  Speaker 2: the passport. And when you step into this embassy, you
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  Speaker 2: sort of alluded to it, James. You said land, but
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  Speaker 2: it's like soil. You're stepping onto American soil.
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  Speaker 1: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Let's just start right there. How does that make sense?
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  Speaker 2: I'm in Brussels, Belgium. How's that American soil? Soil is nothing.
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  Speaker 2: Soil is dirt. It's meaningless until we assign significance to it.
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  Speaker 2: This is my soil, right? How does soil... gain significance. Well,
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  Speaker 2: an authority has to come in and, as it were,
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  Speaker 2: consecrate that soil. This, by the authority of the United
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  Speaker 2: States government, this is ours. This is American soil, right? Yep.
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  Speaker 2: And then that becomes the United States. Now, the embassies
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  Speaker 2: that we're talking about right now represent one kingdom inside
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  Speaker 2: of another kingdom across geographic space. So you get in
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  Speaker 2: the airplane, you fly over, and here we are in Brussels, Belgium,
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  Speaker 2: representing the United States. Okay, what is the local church?
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  Speaker 2: When you step into the gathered local church, where two
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  Speaker 2: or three are gathered in my name, there am I
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  Speaker 2: among them. What does that mean? Does that mean Jesus
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  Speaker 2: is like Matthew 18 and 20? Does that mean he's
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  Speaker 2: like floating in the room, a mystical fog? Jesus is here.
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  Speaker 2: Can you feel him? Is that what's going on? Well, no.
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  Speaker 2: What he's saying is they represent me and my authority.
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  Speaker 2: Just in the context of giving the keys of the kingdom,
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  Speaker 2: binding on earth what's bound in heaven, loosing on earth
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  Speaker 2: what's loosed in heaven. And then for where two or
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  Speaker 2: three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.
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  Speaker 2: They represent me. They speak for me. They bear my authority.
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  Speaker 2: This is my embassy in this gathering. When we step
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  Speaker 2: into that gathering, we are stepping into, get this, the
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  Speaker 2: geography of Christ's kingdom. The temporary, proleptic, shadowy geography of
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  Speaker 2: Christ's kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: It shows up for once a week for... hour and
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  Speaker 2: a half, two hours, however long your church gathers. You know, so,
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  Speaker 2: you know, we understand Israel is a land with actual space,
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  Speaker 2: and then Jesus gives the great commission where his disciples
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  Speaker 2: go into all nations making disciples, and so there is
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  Speaker 2: no land in our present kingdom. That's true, but there's
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  Speaker 2: a sense in which when we gather together, we become
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  Speaker 2: the temporary proleptic geography of Christ's kingdom to declare the
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  Speaker 2: king's law, the king's mandates, the king's judgments. We are
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  Speaker 2: the people of the king as we as we baptize
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  Speaker 2: one another into his name, as we take the supper
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  Speaker 2: and affirm one another in his name and so forth.
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  Speaker 2: That is where embassies of heaven show up on planet Earth. Amazing, right? So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, do you remember that you watched Tom and
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  Speaker 2: Jerry as a kid? Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Did you ever see those episodes where like Tom dies
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  Speaker 2: and he goes up an escalator?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. The translucent cat. Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Well, what we get in Matthew's gospel
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  Speaker 2: is we get the kingdom of heaven, not going up
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  Speaker 2: the escalator, but coming down. All right. So Jesus comes down.
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  Speaker 2: The kingdom of God is among you. The kingdom of heaven,
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  Speaker 2: the rule of heaven is in Christ. It's embodied, personified
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  Speaker 2: in Christ. Anybody else? Well, anybody united to Christ? So
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  Speaker 2: that when he says, whatever you bind on earth will
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  Speaker 2: be bound on heaven, whatever you loose on earth will
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  Speaker 2: be loosed on heaven. What you're getting at that moment
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  Speaker 2: is kind of a merger, an access point between heaven
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  Speaker 2: and earth. You have this embassy of heaven coming down.
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  Speaker 2: And that should change how you think about your gathered
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  Speaker 2: local church. This is not something you can do on
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  Speaker 2: the internet. This is not something you can do as
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  Speaker 2: you're listening to your favorite podcast preacher. Right. This is
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  Speaker 2: something we do every week as we gather together. We represent–
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  Speaker 2: you know. God did not choose Harvard University Philosophy Department,
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  Speaker 2: United Nations, Supreme Court to represent him on planet Earth.
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  Speaker 2: He chose Brother Bob, Sister Sue, Deacon Darnell down at
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  Speaker 2: Bumble Stew Baptist to represent him on planet Earth through
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  Speaker 2: these embassies of heaven.
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  Speaker 1: So– When you think about it geographically and you're entering
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  Speaker 1: into that local church body, that's a constrained presence, right?
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  Speaker 1: It's got four walls, maybe some more, but it's a
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  Speaker 1: locked place. How does the embassy analogy extend beyond those
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  Speaker 1: walls as the people of the church, the members of
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  Speaker 1: that body actually go out into the public space?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. I do think that something special happens in
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  Speaker 2: the gathering. I think it's in the gathering that the
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  Speaker 2: authority of the church is exercised.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think we bind and loose in the gathering. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to answer your question, but you've got to
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  Speaker 2: let me say a little bit more about the gathering
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  Speaker 2: before I get.
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  Speaker 1: To the scattering. No, that's perfect. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Is that all right? So let's think about authority for
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  Speaker 2: a second. And I think evangelical struggle, even Protestants today
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  Speaker 2: generally struggle with that idea. What is church authority? We
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  Speaker 2: understand biblical authority, right? We On the whole, as Protestants
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  Speaker 2: and evangelicals, we get biblical authority. It's supreme. It's legislative.
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  Speaker 2: It's what God says. It binds us. We get that.
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  Speaker 2: We disagree on what it means, but we understand it
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  Speaker 2: binds us. Right. Okay, what have Protestants meant historically when
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  Speaker 2: we talk about church authority? What exactly is church authority? Well,
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  Speaker 2: I think we've got to look at the keys of
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  Speaker 2: the kingdom, as we've talked about. And what I think
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  Speaker 2: it is, is it's a— The keys of the kingdom
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  Speaker 2: give us authority to declare the who and the what
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  Speaker 2: of the gospel. The who and the what of the gospel.
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  Speaker 2: What's the true confession? Who do people say that I am?
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  Speaker 2: Some say Moses. Some say John the Baptist. Others lie.
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  Speaker 2: You're the Christ. That's right. Father in heaven told you that.
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  Speaker 2: This is Matthew 16, right? And you're Peter and I'll
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  Speaker 2: rock and build my church. Gates of hell shall not
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  Speaker 2: prevail against it. Whatever you bind on earth will be
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  Speaker 2: in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed
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  Speaker 2: on earth. And there it's singular. Whatever you, Peter. Okay, so.
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  Speaker 2: It's the what of the gospel. What's a true confession
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  Speaker 2: of who Jesus is? And then it's the who of
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  Speaker 2: the gospel, Matthew 18, right? In this church discipline scenario.
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  Speaker 2: And so the church authority is all about affirming, making
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  Speaker 2: formal declarations on the who and the what of the gospel,
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  Speaker 2: confessions and confessors. And whether you're Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, you
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  Speaker 2: can agree with what I'm saying. Now, we disagree a
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  Speaker 2: little bit on who holds the keys. Is it the bishop?
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  Speaker 2: Is it the Presbytery? Is it the Congregationalist? Fine, we
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  Speaker 2: can leave that for another day. But we all agree
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  Speaker 2: on the basic of what the authority is. It's this
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  Speaker 2: formal declaration. That's the gospel. That's right. And that's a believer.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. And that's an authority we exercise when we
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  Speaker 2: gather together. So, you know, let me put it this way, James.
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  Speaker 2: Let's suppose you say to your next-door neighbor on Tuesday afternoon,
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  Speaker 2: here's what the gospel is. Jesus died and rose again
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  Speaker 2: for the forgiveness of sins, right? Does that phrase that
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  Speaker 2: you just said on Tuesday afternoon to your next-door neighbor,
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  Speaker 2: Jesus died on the cross, rose again for the forgiveness
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  Speaker 2: of sins, does that come bearing biblical authority? Yeah. Yes, right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that bears– but now let's suppose you step into your
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  Speaker 2: pulpit on Sunday morning and you say the exact same words.
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  Speaker 2: Jesus died and rose again for the forgiveness of sins.
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  Speaker 2: Does it bear biblical authority? Yes. Okay. But I would
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  Speaker 2: say it also bears an additional– layer of authority in
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  Speaker 2: that moment. It bears an ecclesial authority, a church authority.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: What, what, what exactly is that? Well, that is the,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: when you say it in the congregation, the context of
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: your congregation, and everybody nods their heads, all the members
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: nod their heads and say, yes, that, that's right. We
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: believe that. That's, that's our gospel. You are bound together
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: around that gospel. It is a public binding, affirming, hey, I,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: city of, you know, Washington, D.C., where I am right now,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: hear ye, hear ye. We citizens of Capitol Hill Baptist
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Church agree that this is our gospel to gather. And
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that's the nature of a... And we are all baptized
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: members of it. So that when we gather in Christ's name,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: he's here with us, and we're speaking for him. So....
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Before you go forward, let me just ask a couple
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of follow-ups there. So when you say our gospel, I
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: want to make sure people aren't hearing you say, which
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I know you're not saying, it's our gospel and not
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: your gospel, right? Our gospel is the gospel has a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: claim on us. It's the one that has a claim
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: on us, sort of that idea. And so it's not
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: our Baptist gospel, our Presbyterian gospel. It is the gospel
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: message that we are owned by and that we are proclaiming.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that kind of idea.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Well, and we understand that we have authority to declare.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: And we have, yeah, we have authority to declare. And
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: that authority then, would you say that it needs to
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: be the church's authority to a large extent, maybe not
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to the full extent, but to a large extent comes
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: from through the alignment of church teaching with biblical authority
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: so that it is a delegated authority that's given to
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the church and that needs to be, um, aligned in.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Order to be legitimate. I use a slightly different term
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: than delegate. I use the word deputized, but, but yeah,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: but exactly what you're saying. Uh, a delegated authority is
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: that I find in the book is, is any, um, Authority,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I give a person to fulfill a particular function, right?
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: So the president assigns the secretary of state the ability
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: to govern the department of state, right? Whereas deputized authority,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not giving you a function. I'm actually giving you
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a role to be a substitute for me, the kind
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: of authority that a pastor would give– I'm sorry, a
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: president would give to an ambassador. So Mr. Ambassador, you
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: can go sign to treaties– In my name. I'm not
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: just giving you a function. I'm actually giving you a face.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: You're wearing my mask as the president to go sign
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that tree or power of attorney. You can go sign
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: checks on my name. That's the authority the church possesses
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: to actually speak in Christ's name. That's astonishing. So every
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: authority on earth, parent, government, has a delegated authority. But
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: what's amazing about the nation of Israel, the authority they
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: have who wear God's name, and the authority of our
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: local congregations, where two or three are gathered in my
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: name and baptized in my name and they gather in
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: my name and go out for the sake of the name.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: They possess what I'm calling this deputized, ambassador-like authority to
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: make declarations on behalf of God. That's the authority we're
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: given with the keys of the kingdom. Binding and loosing
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: on earth was bound and loosed in heaven. Gotcha. Okay,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: so we affirm that. Now, back to your question a
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: minute ago, a few minutes ago. Okay, that's what happens
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: when we gather. What happens when we scatter? Will we
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: go out? You might say kind of like ambassadors. Sort
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: of like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, right? It's
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: about ambassadors for Christ declaring a message of reconciliation. So
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: we come to the gathering, we're affirmed in one another,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: we're affirmed in the gospel, and then we're trained and
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: equipped and built up, and then we're sent out. And
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: that is, I don't do this in political church, but
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: another book I wrote called How the Nations Rage, I
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: talk about the way that that is a political threat.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: For the church to send out its gospel message is
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: a kind of political threat to the nations. Not the
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: threat of an invader. It's the threat of a virus
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: or termites, something that goes in and chews away at
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: the idol holding up the foundation of a regime or
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: a marketplace as people's minds and hearts are changed until
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that regime collapses, right? So the Chinese Communist Party is
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: wrong to be threatened by local churches and their pastors
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: thinking that we're going to somehow overtake China. But in
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: a way, they're right to recognize that the gospel of
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: a crucified and resurrected Christ will ultimately undermine their regime,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: not by direct action, but by indirect action in changing
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the hearts of the people.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Do you see that? So part of what I've thought
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: through when I think about Governing entities like the United
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: States government or the People's Republic of China or what
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: have you. Part of the challenge there is that the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: church has to recognize where the authority that these governments
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: have been given starts and stops. And so, but what
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: ends up happening most of the time with these government,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I would say all the time with these governments, no
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: need to square code it. They go beyond the authority
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that they've been given and they refuse to acknowledge that.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: where they've been given the authority from. And so the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: church is in part a threat because what it's saying
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is you're not what you think you are.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Well said.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And you're not as authoritative as you are. Your authority
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: derives from something you're not acknowledging. And so in that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: is part of the threat, at least.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Carl F.H. Henry said the church's job with respect
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to the state is to declare the standards by which
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: the nations and their kings will be judged. Yeah. Declare
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the standards by which the nation and its kings will
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: be judged. Think of Herod saying, it's not right. I'm sorry.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: John the Baptist saying to Herod, it's not right for
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you to have your brother's wife, right?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Or Jonah and Nineveh and the king of Nineveh. Or
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar. Jonah. I mean, Joseph, right? So we
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: declare the standards by which the nations will be judged.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: And part of that is telling the nations its limits.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: You have no jurisdiction here. No, you may not do that.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: And insofar as there's something post-fall natively idolatrous to the
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: human heart, so there is something natively idolatrous to the
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: ambitions of kings and princes and governors. There is a
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: latent trajectory towards beastliness in government. Yeah. Because I think
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: there's a latent trajectory towards idolatry in the heart of man.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So God will sometimes constrain that idolatrous trajectory in individuals
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: and that beastly trajectory in governments. He constrains it by
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: common grace, and sometimes he constrains it by special grace.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: But there is that trajectory.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: There is an empire of like trajectory that you see
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: throughout the old Testament.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Um, and Samuel warns that you're sure you want a King.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: He's going to take all your wives. He's going to
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: take all your horses and field. I'm not sure you
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: want this. Right. So it's, and then we can talk
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: about revelation, James and the beast and what that really means.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, I think, As
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you're describing this, what comes to mind is that the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: nations are, we have an odd relationship with the nations.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Because on the one hand, we accept their authority as
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: an authority given them by God.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Romans 13. Right.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But on the whole other side of it, we sit
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: back and say, but we also know that these aren't lasting.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: They're not as stable as we'd like them to be.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And as ordered as they might appear. they're always bending
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: away from God's will. It's inevitable. I think back on
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Genesis 15, 16, not Genesis 15, 6, but Genesis 15, 16,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: where God tells Abraham that he's going to bring his
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: people or he's going to give the Israelites the land
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: after 400 years because the sin of the Amorites is
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: not yet complete.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And you sort of think about what that implies. It's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: that the sin just keeps building up, building up.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: There's a trajectory.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: And God is going to forbear it for a while,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: but not forever. And so you see these things sort
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of bending away. And so there's an interesting way in
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: which we are confronting the nations in almost a battlefield
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: sort of metaphor there.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Well, let's dive into Revelation a little bit. That'd be
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: kind of fun.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if I'm ready. I'm
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: not prepared to do that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: No, I did have a couple more questions on. So
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: you talk, I think, in the book about the Bible
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: as constitution, not as case law. This sort of idea
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: that the Bible has this different function for us.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So help us understand that a little bit, because I
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: thought that was a really helpful and powerful analogy.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what is a constitution? It doesn't give
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: you tax law. It gives you the structures and the
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: institutions that make your tax law, right? Yeah. It's rules
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: for making the rules. And the government does— I' m sorry, the
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Bible doesn't prescribe a particular form of government for us.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I think it has certain trajectories. I think it has
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: certain innuendos. We can talk about that, but it doesn't
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: prescribe formally a certain form of government or a particular
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: set of laws. Yeah. we get no questions about Old
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Testament and New Testament and old, you know, natural law.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: But let's just, let me just put that on the
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: shelf for now and just say it doesn't prescribe our,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: it doesn't even prescribe our murder code. You know, I
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: was recently on a Maryland jury on a murder trial
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: and in the Maryland jury murder trial, you know, it was,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: it's common, it's common law and degrees of murder and
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: ways of classifying degrees of murder and first-degree murder being premeditated,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: requires a premeditated form of indictment. Whereas if we were
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: in Germany and I was on a murder jury trial
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: it's not common law. There's not degrees of murder. There's
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: no talk of premeditation. Instead, it's killing with certain extenuating circumstances.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So the way– the law against murder in Germany– is
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: different is institutionalized is different than the way the law
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: against mercy in Maryland. My, my, my jurisdiction is, is institutionalized, right? Okay.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: So back to the Bible, the Bible is not law, uh,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: civic law. It doesn't provide a civil law, right? Rather
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: what it gives is, is it gives us rules for
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: making the rules. So it says, do not murder. Yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Old Testament, new Testament. We can all agree on that.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Do not say we can all agree on that. Um,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm saying it says that, as it were, at
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: a constitutional level. And then it's up to us in
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: our time and place to figure out how to build
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: our government, institutions of government, and civil law accordingly. Now, obviously,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: this requires a much longer conversation about Israel and its
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: precedent for us. And I don't know if you want
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to get into all that right now. But hopefully everything
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I've said so far is generic enough that we can
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: all agree on that.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Well, I think what an interesting example might be is
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Paul's use of the law from the Old Testament regarding
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the prohibition against muzzling oxen while they're treading grain. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you see him take that, which is a very case law,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: you know, generically from a genre perspective. I mean, in
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament, it is case law. You weren't supposed
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to muzzle your oxen when it's treading grain. What he
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: does is he pulls that across in the New Testament
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and says, you know, God doesn't care about oxen, does he?
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He cares about us.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: And so now you have this sort of other underlying
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: dynamic that we're supposed to pay attention to that the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: law instantiates.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: But that the law isn't it. But the law is
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: not confining. I can't throw that passage out, which I
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: find interesting. So I don't know an oxen. So, you know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I could easily say, well, that law doesn't apply to me.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: But what Paul does is, no, it's still very informative
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: for you. You just have to understand it correctly.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: No, that's exactly right. God's moral law is eternal. I
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: don't know if any Christian is going to agree on
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that much. And that eternal moral law will be institutionalized
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: at different times, in different places, in different ways. So
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: in the Garden of Eden, God's eternal moral law was
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: institutionalized through don't eat from that tree. You can eat
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: from any other trees. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But then, you know, hop,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: skip and a jump. We're no longer in our garden.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: It's no longer institutionalized in that way anymore. You know,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: don't eat from that tree. It no longer binds us. Yeah.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: You know, so then you move into kind of the
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: area of the patriarchs and you move into the time
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: of Moses and the time of exile. Then you move
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: into the new Testament age of the church. God's eternal
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: moral law is always binding on us, but he institutionalizes
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: at different times in different ways and different administrations. And
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: so we need to pay close attention to where we're
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: reading and what covenantal moment we live within to know
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: how exactly we are to apply his law. So, you know,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: there's that famous quote that young preachers and bloggers love
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: about Kuyper. Jesus rules over every square inch. You know,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: there's no inch of creation, which he's not saying mine. True. Wonderful.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Very beautiful phrase. True. Right. The challenge is Jesus doesn't
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: rule over every square inch in the same way. Right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Sometimes through a parent, sometimes through a pastor, sometimes through
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: a prince, sometimes through, you know, nothing at all. And
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: so we got to pay closer attention to the end
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: of an institutional covenantal and institutional structures. He, he, He
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: assigns to different moments of redemptive history in order to ascertain, okay,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: exactly how does Jesus rule over this particular square inch? Yes. So.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. So I'll kind of preface this question with,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I've been doing some work on biblical manhood and part
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: of what I'm coming to is that we shouldn't start
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: with the notion of biblical manhood. We should allow our
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: understanding of what it means to be a Christian man
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: emerge from discipleship. That at the end of the day,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: discipleship is what shapes us into male disciples. And that
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: could mean something different in one age than it could
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: in another. I'm wondering if you see sort of a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: parallel for this with actual political participation. And so what
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I mean by that, just to make sure we distinguish
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: our terms, the church is this political entity that we
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: talked about earlier. Now you've got individual Christians or groups
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: of Christians going out and they're doing things like voting
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: or serving on a city council or, um, you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: maybe they're senators or what have you. How do you
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: see the role of the church sort of sending these
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: people into those sorts of vocations? Um, As opposed to,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: you know, us coming up with some sort of set
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: of ethics that is relatively devoid of any theology.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I don't understand the last part of that question. A
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: set of ethics that's devoid of theology?
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? So if we were just to say, like, look,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: here's your checklist, you know, don't vote for this, vote
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: for this, support these causes, don't support these causes. That
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to me seems like that's a checklist sort of approach
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to this. And it seems to me that part of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: what you're arguing in the book is that the church
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: is the authoritative and really formative entity of a people apart,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: but that these people are ultimately going to go out
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: into the world and they're going to engage in certain
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of these activities. And so I guess maybe the heart
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of the question is, how do you see that dynamic
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: really working? How do you see Christian political participation fitting
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: with a political church.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure. Okay, so we gather together to hear the
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: king's law, the king's edicts, the king's demands on our life,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: to hear about our new identity in the king. You're
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: all sons of the king now. And that creates a
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: set of obligations to him and a set of obligations
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: to your neighbor, loving him and loving your neighbor. And
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: so as we gather together, Sunday after Sunday, we're going
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: to teach you everything Jesus commands. Going all nations, making
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: a silent teaching, everything I command. So we're going to
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: teach you everything he commands. And that's going to mean
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: different things for you in different areas of life. So
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: everything he commands is going to mean one set of
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: things for you as a dad, another set of things
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: for you as a husband, another for you as a wife, mother,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: another set of things for you as a worker, another
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: set of things for you as a citizen. Now, sometimes
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: the things that Jesus commands are going to bear direct,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: immediate applications. on you as a dad or you as
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: a citizen or you as a voter. Yeah. Sometimes it's
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: going to be much more indirect and it's, it's kind of, it's,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: it's not binding. It's, it's kind of over to wisdom
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: and you're going to have to make your own judgment calls. Gotcha.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: You know, so let's, let's suppose you're a plumber. Okay.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: What Jesus commands means as a plumber, you got to
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: be honest with your, you know, your, your contracts and your,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: what you charge, you got to be fair and you
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: got to be just and, you got to do a
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: good job and you got to work hard because the
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: thing is Jesus commands would, would, would require you of
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: those things. But now does Jesus command you to wear,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: to use copper pipes versus, uh, uh, fiberglass or whatever?
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: What's the alternative to copper?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Well, like let's say when they used to use lead pipes, right?
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: You know, like, well, no, I'm going to leave using
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: copper versus lead pipes or whatever those white plastic ones
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: are that I see it at home Depot. Um, I'm
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: going to leave that to your judgment, but based on
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: the biblical wisdom that we've built up in you, and
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you might think, actually, I'm going to get more from
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: my employees by using this kind versus that kind. These
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: are safer. So, yeah, but you have to work that out. Okay,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: same thing in the political space. So does Jesus prescribe
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: a certain tax rate, you know, 20% versus– 30% or
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: progressive versus flat tax. Well, no, he doesn't. The Bible
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: doesn't go there, but it does bring a number of
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: principles to bear that if you're the person responsible for
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: tax rates or voting on people who set tax rates,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: that you would bring to bear, right? Principles of justice
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: and righteousness and balanced scales and measures and so forth
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: and not showing partiality to the The poor or partiality
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: to the rich, you know, taking from Exodus 21 and 24.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: So part of what a church's job to do is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: to equip the saints for that work out there, whatever
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: endeavors they're undertaking. And, yeah. Am I answering your question?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: You are.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a hard answer, but I think
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: it's probably more right than most of the answers. I hear.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: So it's like you have this sort of sea of
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: complexity that you're walking into that is the world. And
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you realize that it's sort of like a baby's mobile.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Any corner you touch is going to move that baby's
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: mobile in ways that you didn't anticipate. And so what
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: we're doing as we're wading into the political environment is
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: we're looking at this sort of complex mess of things.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And we're saying, I need to be focused on loving
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: God and loving neighbor. And so my actions need to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: be guided in this mess by those sort of commitments
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: and convictions. And yet, I also realized that all of
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: these decisions are very provisional and that anywhere I touch this,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: something else is going to move. And so there's a
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: care that you have to take, but a realism you
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: need to approach it with because this probably isn't something
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to fix. It's sort of a patchwork almost,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it feels like to me oftentimes when we look at
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: the political realm. But this notion of the wisdom and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the guidance to really make those more sober decisions and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: a reasoned and appropriate conscience based. Right. Sort of political
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: decision seems to be if I'm summarizing it correctly, seems
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: to be what you're you're suggesting there.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. That's all right. Let me
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: let me give you three things. OK, I'll try to
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: do this somewhat briefly. Number one. you said something that
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: we're not going to fix this. There is an extent
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: to which, yes, all politics, right. Sisyphean, you know, Sisyphus,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: he kind of tried to roll up, bark, rock up
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: the hill. You might have the best constitution in the
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: world and you know, it has the best laws, best candidate.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: You know, it's, it's, it's the rocks going to roll.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there is a futility. Read Ecclesiastes. There's a
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: futility to do it all. We just need to remember that. Okay. Okay.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Number one, number, number two, um, wisdom in the Bible
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: plays a huge role in politics. So Proverbs 8, verses
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: 15 and 16, wisdom, personified wisdom speaks and says, by me,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: princes reign and rulers govern. All right? Yes. So wisdom
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: is what's needed to— and wisdom is significant because it means
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: it's not prescribed. Right. There is some uncertainty. So— One
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: other text there, 1 Kings 3, 28, after the episode
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: with the two prostitutes, you know, both saying, my baby, no,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: my baby. And Solomon's like, I know, bring me a sword.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: We'll cut it in half. And the real mom's like, no, no, no,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: she can have it. And chapter 3, verse 28 says,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: in responding to that whole thing, and the people were
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: amazed that God had given wisdom to Solomon to do justice.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: You want the political philosophy of the Bible in a
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: single verse? There it is. The wisdom from God. to
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: do justice. So when you go out into the political space, friends,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: that's what you want. You want wisdom from God to
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: do justice. And wisdom is not prescribed. There's no, there's
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: no verse in the Bible that says when you're confronted
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: by two prostitutes, both claiming a baby is hers, then
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: do this. That's not there.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: That's, that's just like, ah, I need, I need, I need,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: I need wisdom. I need skill. God, give me skill.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Give me wisdom to no do with this, this, these
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: two candidates too. I don't like either of these candidates.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: What do I do? Well, then this, this proposition, what
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: do I do? Give me wisdom to do justice, right? Okay,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: so that's number two. Number three, Christians need, churches need
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: two buckets. You need a whole church bucket and a
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Christian freedom bucket. Let me put it this way. There
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: are two kinds of issues. Straight line issues, jagged line issues.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Straight line issues are those issues where there's a straight
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: line between the biblical text and a political requirement on
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: a Christian. You shall not murder, biblical text. Pretty straight line,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I think, to saying abortion is wrong and murder. And therefore,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's what you would call a whole church issue.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: So if you are an abortion doctor, our church will
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: remove you as an act of discipline from membership. That's
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: a straight line. Yep. Separate but equal, you know, Ku
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Klux Klan sort of Jim Crow laws, pretty straight line.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: All men are created equal. And to institutionalize that sort
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: of discrimination is just clear. That's conscious. It's a whole
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: church issue. It's a straight line. Most political issues, however,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: are not straight line issues. Most political issues are what
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I would call or what folks have called jagged line issues. Now,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: you might have certain biblical principles that you want to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: bring to bear. But there's not a straight line. It's
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: a jagged line between the Bible and the policy application.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: So universal health care, immigration law.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Again, tax rates. Yep.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Foreign policy. A lot of fluctuation.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just like, okay, well, I think all people
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: are created equal. That's true. Does that mean I think
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: we should have universal health care? Well, to get down
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to universal health care, it means certain technologies. judgments i
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: have to make on quality of care and standards of
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: care and certain tax requirements that come along with it
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: and these are all different issues that christians seem to
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: be able to disagree on it's like i don't know
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: that as i as a pastor can come along and
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: say you must take this position on you know it's
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: just there's a jagged line between the bible and our
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: policy application these are what i would call christian freedom
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: issues jagged line christian freedom issues most of politics is
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: over there there's a few issues And a lot of
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: culture wars over which is which. But there's a few
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: issues that are straight line whole church matters. And the
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: problem is part of the challenges we have as churches
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: is treating a lot of these jagged line Christian freedom
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: issues as straight line whole church issues. And that just
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: causes all kinds of– I don't want to take either
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: bucket out of your hands. I don't want to say, hey, pastor,
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: it's all relative. That's not good. There are certain things
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: that are absolute. There are certain things that are straight line.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And a pastor needs to be able to preach those things.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Just need to make sure that you've got them in
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the right bucket. Like that's part of the discerning work
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: of what you do as a pastor.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Back to the wisdom. And that's hard. And you know what?
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Sometimes your brothers and sisters in Christ are going to
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: disagree with you about what's a straight line and what's
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: a jagged line issue. And just show charity, you know,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: let's be patient and forbear with one another.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's helpful. We're coming up on the end of
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the interview here, so I want to ask you just
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: one last question and then we'll close it out. But
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: as you think about the political church, just give Christians
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: who are moving toward a political season here again with
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: midterms and those kind of things, what advice would you
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: give to Christians to be the political church in what
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: has become an extremely polarized sort of political environment for
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the United States?
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. Great. Um, kind of one of the main messages,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: both of, of, of political church, that book, and then
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: my followup on how the nations rage is that it's
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: more important brother and sister in Christ for you to, uh,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: be a city on a hill and, uh, a healthy
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: congregation than it is for you to, uh, Let me
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: start over. Politics begins in our life together as a congregation.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Don't be somebody out on the parenting lecture circuit if
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: you're neglecting your kids at home. Don't tell me that
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: you care about abortion if you're not helping the unwed
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: mom in your church. Don't tell me you care about
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: welfare and tax rates if you're not caring for the
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: physical needs of other poor members of your church, right?
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: If you care about politics, you're going to start by
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: embodying that in the life of the congregation. The city
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: on the hill, contrary to everybody from JFK to Ronald
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Reagan to Obama, is not America. The city on the
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: hill is, drumroll, our churches. Or I love this line
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: from Lincoln's second inaugural address. If you come to D.C.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and you walk up the steps into the Lincoln Memorial
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: and you look to the right and you see inscribed
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: in marble on the wall the beautiful, wonderful second inaugural address,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: and some of the final words in that are something about,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: fervently do we pray to achieve and cherish life. a
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: What a beautiful phrase. Achieve and cherish a just and
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: lasting peace with ourselves and with all nations. Good question.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Where will we first achieve and cherish a just and
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: lasting peace with ourselves and with all nations? Is it
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: not among those who go into all nations, making disciples
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: and baptized? Is it not there where we will first...
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Is it not in the congregation of believers where we
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: first learn to love our enemy? You know, these people
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: who drive me crazy and gossip about me and don't
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: show up to nursery on time when they say they will.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: and they're so annoying and how could that elder say
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: that dumb thing? Okay, that guy right there. Can you
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: love and forgive him right there? Because if you can't
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: do that, forget America. Forget your nation if you can't
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: even do it with your fellow church members. Okay, so
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: heading into the midterms, I would say the same thing.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I would say 365 days a year in the four-year cycle.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: It starts in your church. And it's only as we
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: learn to live as a transformed city and as a
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: new culture that we can then commend what it means
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: to be a transformed city and new culture out there. Yeah.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: So that when we go out there into the public square,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: we don't go primarily to dominate, nor do we go
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: and withdraw. Rather, we go to represent. We go to
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: represent the kingdom of heaven. That's our job. Our job
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: is to be ambassadors. So, you know, any Christians, listen,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I want you to engage politically, but I want you
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: to go and engage politically as ambassadors for the king. Yeah.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: And calculating all of your decisions and votes and actions
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and participations, letting your heavenly citizenship shape and determine what
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: you do with your earthly citizenship.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really helpful. Great distinctions. Great book. Thanks so much
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: for being on, Jonathan. Really appreciate you. Appreciate your work.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: And I think that because Political Church is an IVP title,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: we get a 20% discount from IVP. So you can
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: find the link to the book on the IVP Press website.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: If you order it off there and use the discount code,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: you'll get 20% off. I'll put a few other links
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: to Jonathan's work in the show notes. You can find
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: him as well as a link to the Nine Marks
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: page where you can see his whole collection of books,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I assume, or many of them there. And so check
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: out more of his work. Jonathan, again, thanks for being here.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: This was a really great conversation.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: James, thanks for the questions and spurring us all on
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: to think about helpful things.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for being here for
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: this episode of Thinking Christian. We'll catch you next time.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Take care.