[CS-FSLUG] Did the Apostle Paul Poke Nero in the Eye?

[Josiah Ritchie]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Jon Glass <jonglass at usa.net> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 7:24 AM, Fred A. Miller <fmiller at lightlink.com>
> wrote:
> > Did the Apostle Paul Poke Nero in the Eye?
> >
> > Greg Heller on the unfortunate notion of respecting the government.
>
> I'm sorry, but that is about the lamest argument I've ever read for
> trying to biblically justify poor behavior.
>
> I've been thinking about this some, thanks to the flood of
> disrespectful and sometimes, dowright racist emails I've been getting
> from people who barely know me, yet feel compelled to try to convince
> me of things that I either already agree with, or which are just plain
> stupid.
>
> While I am diametrically opposite to Obama, and have firm convictions,
> I cannot see any justification in the personal insults that are
> floating around right now.
>
> Here's the problem. When you demean another person, you demean
> yourself. You undercut your own stand, and as Christians, who are to
> be the salt of the earth, we lose our savor. But worse, when the
> tables are turned (which they likely will be some time), we can expect
> even worse from the opposition, and we will have not a leg to stand
> on. This already started during the Clinton administration, when the
> personal attacks, etc. were aimed at him, and the libs turned around,
> and gave tit for tat re: Bush, only they turned up the heat.
>
> Christian principles mean that personal insults ought not be resorted
> to. Disagree--yes. Use the most forceful language against his
> designs--yes, but insult, make fun of, and other demeaning tricks and
> tactics--no. Try to justify it with lame arguments like this
> article--absolutely NOT!.
>
>
>
> --
>  -Jon Glass <http://cs.uninetsolutions.com>
>

I respectfully submit this. It is something I wrote a couple days ago to
someone who felt our Christian duty was to political activism. In loving
this brother, I felt compelled to respond and I find myself similarly
compelled here.

---

But where does God come into play? We Christians have not been called to be
energy independent or to carry guns. We have been called to spread the
gospel and serve others in love. I'd encourage looking outside the US
borders and consider the decline of Great Britain's moral fabric, or even
the decline of the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2 of whom God said:

“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear
those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and
are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have
patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.
Nevertheless I have *this* against you, that you have left your first love.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first
works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its
place—unless you repent.

We, as Christians, have left our God in search of our own rights and
freedoms. Because of this, we've fallen. In our fallen state we must repent
and in that repentance, return to our first love and his purposes. We must
give up our rights and accept the consequences of our sins and the sins of
all those who have come before us rather than be distracted by them.

In examining a political issue the Ephesians from above dealt with in
Ephesians 6:5-9 we see this:

Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the
flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not
with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the
will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and
not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same
from the Lord, whether *he is* a slave or free. And you, masters, do the
same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master
also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

Not only were the Ephesians not instructed to fight against the injustices
of slavery, they were compelled to endure each command of their master as if
Jesus Christ himself had given it. To those who held slaves, they were not
commanded to free them. Rather, both were to serve and act as they would
before God in those positions.

Are we called to anything less? Shouldn't we act accordingly? Government is
ordained by God and Obama is our leader, and as such he is our master.
Fighting against him does not fulfill the spirit of Eph. 6. We can not allow
ourselves to be blinded and distracted from our primary objective, spreading
the gospel, by the impending, but hardly eternal concerns of health care and
energy independence. The answer for this world's problems is God in the
hearts, not the right man in power.

To take it a step further, all the things we are currently suffering as
Christians and the things to come have already been lost for a time.
Christians lost their saltiness in this world a couple generations back and
failed to recognize and respond. Our previous sins have allowed our country
to trickle and then slide and then plummet into a moral down turn. We no
longer have the strength or position as Christians to affect our culture
because we chose to step out of (or failed to pursue) it generations ago.
Those who think as Christians, rather than just using the name, are a
minority and will not regain power through typical political war. If we are
to win back this country, it'll be guerrilla style. We must take it one
heart at a time, convincing the individuals of God's ability to meet their
needs over Obama's or McCain's.

Our only way out is corporate repentance before God and in that a return to
our first love. If we do not, our country will look like Ephesus does now...



JSR/

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