(This was a Ministers’ Meeting talk by Pastor Noel on April 23, 2024. The talk was written for the ministers at FBC Nacogdoches and leaves out some preliminary information and context that would have been included had this been a public presentation or a Sunday sermon. Please keep that in mind as you read.)
2024 is a political year.
I want our church to connect properly to politics and political issues. I want our church to never withhold from proclaiming and declaring the truth of God’s Word. We are first the church that is FOR JESUS. But sometimes, to be FOR something, you must be AGAINST something else. Where being FOR JESUS requires us to be AGAINST something, I want us to take our stand without apology. But I want our church not to get distracted, entangled, or mission-driven by politics in any way that Scripture does not support.
Honestly, that is a view held by many. Here is my theme verse for politics and the church for 2024:
2 Timothy 2:4 | No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of civilian life; he seeks to please the commanding officer. (CSB)
So, let me address four questions:
I. How do we make the determination of when and how we should engage on political issues?
The Bible (period).
We must declare what the Bible declares.
We must learn from the practices and priorities of Jesus and the leaders of the first church.
This is the part that many churches and Christians get confused!
How do we learn from the practices and priorities of the first church leaders?
First, we must remember that the early church lived in an even more politically charged environment than we do. The tax system was oppressive and unfair. Tax rates depended largely on ethnicity, and people without proper Roman status were unevenly and unfairly taxed. Tax collection was a cross between a pyramid scheme and a multi-level marketing company, and the weakest people were taken advantage of the most. Labor practices were brutal, unsafe, and dehumanizing.
Religious liberty was severely restricted by the use of extreme violence and executions. The legal system was completely corrupt, and it freely and openly operated on the practice of bribes, denying justice to all but the most elite. There was no access to healthcare for the masses. Extreme police brutality was an everyday occurrence everywhere. Women were mistreated, dishonored, and devalued in almost every corner of society. Most children were treated as economic units instead of people with intrinsic value.
No equal access to education.
Immigration issues were determined by power politics and economic forces with no consideration for the well-being of the displaced. There were no voting rights. Military service was often forcefully conscripted without compensation. Slavery was common.
Secondly, we must see how those leaders balanced addressing gospel issues on hand and these politically charged issues on the other hand. How did Jesus, Peter, James, John, and Paul address those issues (if they did)? We actually have a lot of data on that in the Bible. This is not a hard question if we look at it biblically.
II. What should we do when some people disagree with us on the issue of our political involvement?
We should explain to them:
This is not a matter of patriotism.
This is not a matter of not having strongly held personal opinions.
But this church is not ours (or yours), and we must take our cues from the one whose church this is.
So, we take our cues and directions from the Bible.
We look to the Bible for commands and patterns.
We seek to be as faithful to those commands and patterns as we can be.
And then we should show grace to those who disagree.
Their disagreement usually comes from a good place.
III. Should our church speak to political issues?
Well, it depends. We should speak to issues the Bible speaks to, and we should do this without apology. Practicing homosexuality is a sin. Seeking to change one’s God-assigned gender is a sin. Abortion is the taking of a life created in the image of God. Hating and/or denying justice to some group of people is a sin. Divorce without a biblically prescribed basis is sin. Drunkenness (or being high) is a sin.
Limiting religious liberty is a sin. Abusing, mistreating, or devaluing a person for any reason is a sin.
Those are not political issues. Those are biblical issues!
We should prioritize issues the Bible prioritizes. What issues did the early church prioritize in their preaching and practice? Spreading the gospel. Preaching and teaching the revealed word of God. Creating and strengthening groups (fellowships, churches) of Christians. Honoring the value and dignity of all groups, genders, nationalities, and ethnicities as people gathered inside the church. Crossing ethnic and national barriers with the gospel and ministry. Caring for the poor. Fighting false religious teaching.
We should prioritize the Great Commission and the Great Commandment:
Matthew 28:19–20 | “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (CSB)
Acts 1:8 | “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (CSB)
Matthew 22:37–39 | “He said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.'” (CSB)
IV. What does the ministry of John the Baptist and Matthew 5:13 say about the question of church and political engagement?
I’ve heard the argument in churches all my life that we should engage in political arguments and advocacy because of what John the Baptist said to the political leaders of his day and what Jesus said in Matthew 5:13.
Well, let’s look at that more closely.
What did John the Baptist say to the political leaders of his day? Did he… Criticize their tax policies? Advocate before them for fair labor policies? Challenge them on immigration and trade policies? Campaign for greater access to education and medical care? Beg for more public support for transportation and infrastructure projects? No!
On one occasion, he called Herod out for his adultery with Herodias. And that was consistent with the rest of John’s ministry. He called people to repentance every day. I’m perfectly comfortable calling out public leaders for public sin. And I could speak for a long time about adultery and other sexual sins of political figures in the news today. Although, I don’t think that is quite what people are pushing me to do, and I don’t think they would be happy with that.
I do think it is worth noting that Jesus never mentioned Herod’s adultery. All Jesus ever said about Herod Antipas was that he was like a fox (Luke 13:32). And we don’t have any record of Peter, James, John, or Paul referencing the adultery of other political leaders. By the way, Jesus wasn’t shy about confronting public leaders, but the targets of his confrontations were always heretics and false religious leaders, never political leaders.
What did Jesus teach us in Matthew 5:13?
Matthew 5:13 | “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. (CSB)
First, let’s look at the historical interpretation of the verse…How do people often interpret the verse today? Being salt means that we should work to preserve society by political action and advocacy. Has that always been the way that verse has been commonly interpreted? No.
The Church Fathers viewed it as a call to moral purity.
Augustine: Maintain moral integrity and avoid moral decay through righteous living.
Origen: Salt represents the wisdom and knowledge of God. Live by the life-changing wisdom of God.
John Chrysostom: The salt is the Christian’s joy, peace, and goodness that impacts his surroundings.
Thomas Aquinas: Salt cannot make bad meat good. So this is a reference to a Christian’s interpersonal spiritual health supported by righteous living.
John Calvin: It is a call to faithful discipleship…
Richard Sibbes: The salt is the Christian mercy, kindness, and love we show to those outside the faith.
Richard Baxter: Personal purity…
Thomas Watson: Personal purity…
John Owen: Personal purity…
So, when did the interpretation shift to what is common today?
The political aspect of the interpretation was initially conceived by the Unitarian “blue stocking” poet Anna Letitia Barbauld and expressed in a hymn she wrote in 1797.
Side note: Matthew 5:14 became understood by the more liberal wing of the American church as a call to civil rights in the 1920s when Harry Dixon Loes wrote the song, “This Little Light of Mine.”
But, let’s look at the verse in its biblical context… First, the emphasis is NOT on going and being the salt. The emphasis is NOT on losing our personal saltiness (whatever that is). There are no imperatives in verse 13 (or 14 or 15). The only imperative is in 16 where it says to live (let your light shine) in such a way that you bring distinct glory to God.
So, this is not a command to GO BE SALT.
If you’ve heard preachers shout, “Go be salt,” then you’ve heard them say something the Bible doesn’t exactly say.
If the salt in 13 is parallel with the light in 14, then the polemic of 16 must explain the importance of the salt. Verse 16 tells us to live in a way that glorifies God. This is about glorifying God, not about purifying the lost world. By the way, salt won’t purify rotted meat. The concern with the salt is that it might lose its saltiness. The only way for salt to lose its saltiness is for it to be contaminated.
If there were a command in this verse (which there is not), the command would not be “Go be salt.” It would be “Don’t let your salt get contaminated.”
So, the concern is that our personal lives might be contaminated with sin. This is a warning against living a morally compromising life. If we back up, and look at this verse in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, we notice that the whole sermon is about personal moral and spiritual decisions and attitudes.
The context supports an understanding that an admonition to be salty would be an admonition to moral purity.
BUT REMEMBER, THERE IS NO ADMONITION TO BE SALTY OR TO BE THE SALT OF THE EARTH. THE ONLY ADMONITION IS VERSE 16…
Did Jesus talk about salt any other times? Would that shine light on his meaning here?
Mark 9:50 | Salt is good, but if the salt should lose its flavor, how can you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another. (CSB)
What is this salt?
Mark 9:42 | “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” (CSB)
Mark 9:43 | “And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire.” (CSB)
Mark 9:45 | “And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.” (CSB)
The salt is moral behavior and godly influence by setting an example of morality.
Do we see salt used as a metaphor in the epistles? What does it mean there?
Colossians 4:6 | Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person. (CSB)
Here the salt is the graciousness of one’s speech.
So, what is the connection between John the Baptist’s message to Herod Antipas and Jesus’s Matthew 5:13?
Not to pick a fight with a lot of preachers I have a great deal of respect for, but… Honestly, THERE IS NO CONNECTION.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if we desire to be a rightly ordered, biblically motivated, mission-focused church that keeps the main thing the main thing, in this political system, we must keep our focus on spreading the gospel and strengthening the body.
