As you read the Scripture, pay attention to the imagery. Ask God to awaken your imagination. Instead of filling your mind with the endless images of television and YouTube, let the Word of God prompt your creativity. Begin to imagine what you can do to serve others and to share the message of Christ’s cross and resurrection, the only message that sanctifies the mind and brings peace and justice to the world.

A few months ago, I attended a conference where the speaker shared about his counsel to those battling sexual sin. Paraphrasing, he said, “Imagine every impure action as another thrust of the spear into the side of Jesus.” Woe! What a sobering and sickening image! Can you say that? Should you think that, really?
Never before had I heard someone speak so graphically about the need for the use of imagination in our fight against temptation. However, as I have reflected on his point, I am increasingly convinced he is exactly right.
Imagination, when rightly used, is one of the most powerful tools God gives us to put off the old nature and to walk in the new. After all, Jesus himself said to those battling lust, “gouge out your eye” and “cut off your hand” (Matt 5:29–30). But it is not just for lust. In every area of life, we need to train and retool our imagination for the purpose of sanctification and greater gospel service.
Imagination in the Bible
The Bible is filled with imagery. From the Spirit brooding over the waters (Genesis 1) to John’s vision of a glorious city, dressed like a virgin bride (Revelation 21), the Bible drips with word pictures like the Matrix rains green code. Jesus regularly employs parables to capture the imagination of his disciples. The prophets of old spoke of Israel as a harlot, while Paul speaks of the church as a radiant bride.
The question is, do you see it? In a way that most fast-paced Americans don’t appreciate, Scripture begs to be pondered s . . l . . o . . w . . l . . y.
When Psalm 32:8-9 says, “Be not like a horse or a mule, . . . which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you,” it moves us to stop and reflect: What is it about these animals that must be avoided? Is it the same thing for each beast? Or are these they expressing two opposite errors—e.g., the error of running ahead of God like a wild horse and the error of lagging behind God like a stubborn mule?  The imagery fires the imagination and impresses upon us the need to walk humbly with our God.
Moreover, Scripture calls us to discipline our imaginations. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we are to “take captive every thought to Christ.” Because Satan wages war with words of deception, Jesus’ disciples “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” by means of ‘thought-control.’ Only this mental exercise is not some metaphysical séance. Rather, it is meditation on the propositions and poetry of God’s Word.
To wield the Sword well—another image, I might add—takes not only a right doctrine but a sanctified imagination. Such an imagination begins with learning the gospel and God’s view of the world (Rom 12:1–2), but soon this renewed mind must and will generate new thoughts that serve the needs of those around us. While some believers may be more creative than others, imagining acts of kindness for others is not limited to creative-types. It is a universal calling for everyone purchased by God to do good works. We all must employ our minds to imagine that which is excellent and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8).
Three Places Where Imagination is Key: Sincere Sympathy, Holy Outrage, and Practical Service
Let’s get more specific. Instead of talking in the abstract about imagining concrete ways of doing gospel-empowered good, let’s consider three ways imagination serves as the link between good intentions and good works.
First, a sanctified imagination creates sincere sympathy.
Think about the last time you heard sad news. How did you feel? Chances are if you have experienced a similar pain, you were quick to empathize.
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Written by Ray E. Heiple Jr. |
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Wherever there is a choice between candidates, where one of those candidates, if elected, will clearly do more to uphold the moral law of God to protect the good and punish evil, you have a moral obligation before God to vote for that candidate. That is how you exercise your God-given authoritative position as voter, to protect the good and punish the evil. It does not matter which candidate you like more, which one looks or sounds more like you, which one will make your life easier in some way, which one acts nicer or friendlier, which one the newscasters like more, or anything else.

…that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence (1 Tim. 2:2b).
Christians are required to keep the moral law. Jesus said repeatedly “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 23; 15:10). The moral law declares the difference between good and evil. Good and evil are objective realities that are the same for all people, places, and times. Good and evil do not change because God does not change, and man does not change. The moral law is equally obligatory on all human beings because all human beings are equally and unchangeably created in the image of God. The summary of the moral law is the Ten Commandments. The summary of the Ten Commandments is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Every moral law: every good and every evil; can ultimately be placed under these two commands: love God and love your neighbor. Every evil ultimately breaks one of these two laws, every good ultimately keeps them.
The idea of law inherently includes authority. Authority is coercive power. Government is the imposition of some amount of authority given to some humans to exercise over others. Human governments are instituted—according to the will of God—to keep the moral law. They have authority from God for this and no other purpose. Scripture states that every authority figure is God’s minister for good (Rom. 13:4). God gives humans authority over other humans to protect the good and to punish the evildoer (Rom. 13:3; WCF 23:1). This is true of all human governments. The authority of parents, teachers, elders, contractors, employers, HR departments, army officers, civil magistrates, judges, baseball umpires, presidents, and babysitters is given solely for this and no other purpose: to protect the good and to punish the evil, or to say it another way, to uphold the moral law. To whatever degree authorities do not uphold the moral law they are abusing or being derelict in their duties.
Therefore, everyone in authority is accountable to God to do what they can, according to their power and position, to uphold the moral law of God. There are no other grounds for one person to have authority over another. Because all human beings are equally human, equally made in the image of God, no one person is born having inherent authority over another person, for there are no grounds for it when we consider human nature simply and exclusively. Now when we take into account additional factors beyond human nature, like relationships such as between children and parents, then we have a basis on which to subject one—children, to the rule of another—parents, which is good and right considering the origin and dependence of children on parents for everything. However, because that authority is relational and not according to some natural inequality, once children are adults, parents naturally lose their position of authority over them. However, while they are in authority over them, parents are accountable to God to exercise their authority to protect and promote the good and to punish the evil actions of their children. The relationship of parents to children makes this responsibility inescapable.
Similarly, every legal American citizen, not currently incarcerated or in some way incapacitated, is by way of relationship to this country in a position of authority for which he or she is accountable to God: to promote and protect the good and to punish the evil behavior of everyone under this nation’s government. The United States’ Constitution is the highest human authority in this nation. And according to that constitution, those in positions of authority are put there by the authoritative election of the citizenry. Therefore Romans 13 applies directly to you as you exercise your authority by voting. Wherever there is a choice between candidates, where one of those candidates, if elected, will clearly do more to uphold the moral law of God to protect the good and punish evil, you have a moral obligation before God to vote for that candidate. That is how you exercise your God-given authoritative position as voter, to protect the good and punish the evil. It does not matter which candidate you like more, which one looks or sounds more like you, which one will make your life easier in some way, which one acts nicer or friendlier, which one the newscasters like more, or anything else. The only thing that matters, accordingly to your moral obligation before God to do whatever you can with your God-given authority to protect good and punish evil, is which candidate will actually do that when elected? Which candidate will do more to punish evil and protect the good as these categories are defined by the word of God?
To NOT vote according to this one question is to be derelict or abusive in the authority you have as a voter. Now no one exercises authority perfectly: no parent, police officer, professor, or president. But when you are in any of these or other positions of authority, you are obligated, in every instance, to do what is most good and least evil. Consequently, when you are in the authoritative position of voter, you are obligated by the authority of your position, to put people into government (authoritative) offices who will exercise their authority most in accordance with this same law of God, which binds and is the reason for all authority. So, if in the providence of God there are only two persons who can realistically be elected president, and one of them would clearly do more to protect the good and punish evil, you must vote for that person. It does not matter that both of those persons are seriously flawed, have done bad things, or have other checks against them. If in the providence of God, one of them will be running this country, and if by that same providence you have been given the great authority, privilege, and sober responsibility of choosing which one, you must not be derelict in your duty, you must not rebel against God because you don’t like the two choices He has sovereignly put before you. You must vote for the one who you have sound reasons to believe will better do his duty to protect the good and punish the evil doer. If you can see a difference between them according to this ultimate standard, then to not vote, or to vote for neither of the only two who can win, is to abuse and misuse the authority of voter, that God has graciously given to you. If one of them will clearly do better, or to say it another way, if one of them will clearly do LESS EVIL, then to not vote for that one is to not faithfully exercise your authority of voter, and the reason for which you have been given it, in accordance with the will and word of God.
Now, is there a discernable difference between the only two candidates who at this date can realistically be elected president, according to the raison d’être of all authorities: punishing the evil and protecting the good? It seems to me on clear moral issues like abortion, sexual immorality, and the monstrous evils of the transgender movement, which has been pushing their views into elementary schools, that the choice is as clear and obvious as night and day. Right now, all over this country, public school children in fifth grade and even earlier are being shown videos and other materials encouraging them to consider sinful and harmful views of sexual orientation, gender identity, masturbation, and other related evils. Increasingly, parents across America are not being told that their children have, through the manipulation and indoctrination of transgenderism, “identified” as something other than the boy or girl that they genetically and unchangeably are. Claims of schools providing powerful hormones and puberty blockers to pre-pubescent children without parental consent are on the rise. As are alleged instances where children have been taken from their parents for not going along with their child’s new “gender identity,” and all of the Dr. Frankenstein procedures “experts” and authorities are saying are necessary to keep one’s child from suicide: including permanent sterilization, maiming, and disfiguring. Can there be a more significant issue than this? Would anyone seriously set disputed and questionable issues—like policies of welfare, immigration, and climate change with all of their complexities, possibilities, and wide-ranging consequences and details, on which experts continually disagree and so-called solutions are regularly proven wrong—alongside of promoting, practicing, and legally protecting the maiming and sterilizing of otherwise healthy children? On these life and death issues, on these issues directly addressed by the Bible, there is a clear as day choice. One candidate and one party celebrate transgenderism and is seeking to mandate “gender-affirming care” in schools, hospitals, and everywhere else. The other candidate and party are trying to protect parental rights and consent for their children, and employees’ rights to dissent from and opt out of transgender-promoting activities without losing their jobs. You have been entrusted with authority from God to vote for one of these candidates. You will answer for how you wielded that authority according to God’s one and only standard for all authority: protecting the good-doer and punishing the evil-doer. Now what will you do?
Ray E. Heiple Jr. is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Senior Pastor of Providence PCA in Robinson Twp., PA

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The Bible presents a complex view of reality and how modern political ideologies dismember parts of this complex reality, isolate them, and treat them as the whole. And it helps Christians to engage with liberalism, CRT, and other political ideologies in a way that doesn’t invest them with ultimate, messianic hope or allow them to become the uncontested and sovereign ideology of our souls.
Perhaps you saw the video. A woman stares down the lens of the camera, straight into our eyes. Her expression is weary, her tone angry. “How can you win?” she cries, with the air of a question she’s asked a thousand times. “You can’t. The game is fixed,” she answers. “So when they say, ‘Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?’—it’s not ours. We don’t own anything. We don’t own anything.’”
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Kimberly Jones’s viral video gave voice to the anger and anguish felt by many black men and women in the United States and beyond. She spoke of a society rigged so that most black people cannot succeed—however hard they work and whatever the content of their character.
Though the assumptions and commitments informing this view of a systemically racist society go by multiple names, here I’ll use “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) as a general term to capture the set of concerns. (To be clear, lamenting the presence of systemic racism does not necessarily make one a CRT proponent.)
When discussed in Christian circles, CRT is often explicitly or implicitly contrasted to a version of classical liberalism: not the liberalism of the liberal/conservative divide, but the liberalism of individual freedom, universal rights, and the importance of property propounded by thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith. Some Christians, rightly sensitive to the problems of CRT, end up espousing a secular liberalism because it provides an off-the-shelf alternative. Others, whose education or life experience have primed them to see liberalism’s dangers, give a free pass to CRT as the go-to tool for addressing them.
But both reactions sell the Bible short, not by opposing it at every point but by isolating an aspect of its interconnected truth, distorting it, and making it into the whole truth. Many of today’s social and political pitched battles are staged between complementary biblical truths that have been dismembered, isolated, and opposed. This tragic and unnecessary spectacle characterizes much of the struggle between CRT and liberalism.
To be clear, my  aim in this article isn’t to keep score between these secular ideologies and pronounce which error is worse or which is more compatible with biblical Christianity. I simply aim to show how both reduce the complexity of biblical truth, often in symmetrical and opposite ways.
The Bible is not, of course, a book of secular political philosophy: it addresses ultimate realities and calls people to find eternal life in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent (John 17:3). Nevertheless, the Bible does describe the world, human beings, and the flow of history in particular ways (in a forthcoming book I call them “figures”), and these ways have implications for how we think about political and social issues. So let’s consider the key biblical turning points of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation as a grid through which to compare CRT and liberalism to the biblical truth they both simplify and distort.