the proper place of politics . . . for our attention

[com7fy8]

"No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

 

[com7fy8]

My attention can get tangled.

So, we need to pray and submit to God and trust Him to guide us and our attention.

What works the most? I would say prayer.

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Be with God first, attentive to Him, and pray with Him . . . "for all men" > all-loving prayer. I notice how I can read and think about people in the news, draw conclusions about the politicians and media reporters and ones talking and arguing about them, and not pray for them.

 

[Pioneer3mm]

"No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

Good topic..
---
2 Timothy 2:4
- My favorite Scripture/Verse..

 

[Jesus is my Superhero]

All politicians should submit a heir to be imprisoned as collateral for their perfidy.

 

[Leaf473]

"No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

This verse came to mind after pondering the subject

John 19:11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power at all against me, unless it were given to you from above.

 

[Albion]

"No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." (2 Timothy 2:4)

That is something to be considered carefully, but at the same time, remember that the people of his day had no ''say" in governmental matters at all. Today, most of us today live in countries in which the leadership and direction of government has been placed in the hands of the people, including Christians who can aspire to have the state behave decently and responsibly or, OTOH, choose to remove themselves from that role and instead leave it to the lawless and criminal elements in society.

 

[RDKirk]

That is something to be considered carefully, but at the same time, remember that the people of his day had no ''say" in governmental matters at all. Today, most of us today live in countries in which the leadership and direction of government has been placed in the hands of the people, including Christians who can aspire to have the state behave decently and responsibly or, OTOH, choose to remove themselves from that role and instead leave it to the lawless and criminal elements in society.

That means Christians have been either implicit with evil or sitting on our hands for the last few centuries.

 

[RDKirk]

My attention can get tangled.

So, we need to pray and submit to God and trust Him to guide us and our attention.

What works the most? I would say prayer.

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

Be with God first, attentive to Him, and pray with Him . . . "for all men" > all-loving prayer. I notice how I can read and think about people in the news, draw conclusions about the politicians and media reporters and ones talking and arguing about them, and not pray for them.

That part in orange is what we are supposed to be praying for: The benign neglect of the government so that the Body of Christ can do what we're supposed to do in quiet and peace.

 

[Albion]

That means Christians have been either implicit with evil or sitting on our hands for the last few centuries.

I wouldn't say that. Christians have been in the forefront of a number of important reform movements. We may say that society is not, at present, where we'd want to see it be, but there's no reason to minimize or overlook the accomplishments of Christians and other people of good will who made possible the advances that we all respect. Those regulations and guarantees did not just fall into the law books by magic.

 

[RDKirk]

I wouldn't say that. Christians have been in the forefront of a number of important reform movements.

And other Christians were in the forefront of anti-reform movements.

 

[Albion]

And other Christians were in the forefront of anti-reform movements.

Okay. All you're showing us by that comment is that people in representative governments can make a difference.

So Christians have an opportunity (and a responsibility?) that wasn't available in the society that existed at the time the New Testament that you were reading from was written.

 

[com7fy8]

So Christians have an opportunity (and a responsibility?) that wasn't available in the society that existed at the time the New Testament that you were reading from was written.

Genesis 37-50 >

Joseph was a slave in Egypt. But God made the way for him to have opportunity.

And he accomplished a lot more than ones who get themselves entangled trying to make their own way.

So, what worked, in Joseph's case?? politics and/or something else?

 

[RDKirk]

Genesis 37-50 >

Joseph was a slave in Egypt. But God made the way for him to have opportunity.

And he accomplished a lot more than ones who get themselves entangled trying to make their own way.

So, what worked, in Joseph's case?? politics and/or something else?

Joseph did some rather gnarly things.

One was where he located his family. A lot of pastors have touted the fact that putting them on the Nile delta put them on the most fertile soil. That is true from a modern perspective, but wasn't necessarily true from their perspective. They were shepherds after all, not farmers, and the Nile delta wasn't then the kind of lush place that, say, the Mississippi delta is in the US.

But this is the important point: The capital of the Egyptian monarchy was on the opposite end of the Nile river, near Cush (Ethiopia) because being upriver was considered more sacred than being downriver. Joseph placed his family as far away from the Pharaoh as possible.

The next thing Joseph did was to change the land from private ownership to the Pharaoh's ownership. He used the crisis he prophesied over the seven years of plenty to put nearly all the agricultural land of Egypt into the hand of the Pharoah...which means it was in his hands for administration. That means the activity of his family was not only out of the Pharoah's sight, but Joseph controlled the bookkeeping and could keep his family's activities off the record as well.

I believe that Joseph's books stayed authoritative long after his death because his successors, being Egyptian, probably didn't care to pay much attention to what was going on 'way up in Goshen. They probably just rubberstamped Joseph's books year after year, decade after decade....

....Until the dynasty of the Joseph's pharaoh came to an end when a Cushite pharaoh took over. That was Seti I. He was the pharaoh who "knew not Joseph," meaning he stopped using Joseph's books. The interesting thing is that the primary general and advisor of Seti 1 was an Egyptian who was born in Goshen. That general would have known that the Hebrews had become numerous. It was he who convinced Seti I to move the throne near Goshen to what became Alexandria, where then Seti I could see how numerous the Hebrews had become. That general succeeded Seti I to become Seti II, and his son was Rameses, the pharaoh of Moses' day.

 

[TheWhat?]

I have no reason to believe that the church is supposed to be a platform for political power to any politician who would use it as such. That sets us up for manipulation and division, and it's not like politicians really have much incentive to do what their constituents want anyways, besides securing re-election.

On the other hand, if the church were more autonomous and not manipulated by politicians, and christians are receiving the guidance that they should and need to be receiving, when those christians get elected as officials I think they would make for better leaders.

 

[BobRyan]

Christians in government ended slavery in America.
Christians in government created the great "experiment" in religious liberty and democracy in America
Christians in government protected Europe from Nazi-ism and continue to help protect it from communism

So Christian principles in government are not a bad thing at all - nor even Christians who oppose morally corrupt laws by voting against them.

But if you were to "look for character flaws" in Abraham Lincoln or any of a number of other great leaders in history you would always have plenty of ammo for character assassination. We should pray for and vote for moral Christian values - freedom of religion, republicanism (a form of government not a political party) - etc. We should be able to have a Christian voice condemning novel ideas that are condemned as "abomination" in Lev 18 and other places in the Bible.

In Lev 18 God informs the reader of scripture that God will destroy even a pagan nation with no access to the Bible at all - if they cross certain lines/boundaries. Christians should not leave Americans in the dark on that.