When Israel demanded a king other than God, the Lord warned that human government after the fall tends to overreach; Israel’s king would draft her men into armed service, and force other citizens into hard labor. He would confiscate the people’s land (1 Sam. 8:10–18). So it is today. This is the reality of life in a fallen world. It will not be so in the age to come. Then, as in the garden, God will be our God and will rule with satisfying goodness. Until then we recognize that government is inescapably imperfect, sometimes radically so. But God still uses it.

The topic of civil government is complicated; not so much because of what the Bible says about it but because of our disparate political opinions and experiences. The civic convictions of Christians seem to depend on which party is presently in office. When our party is in control we have a more vigorous view of government; when our party loses power we are more skeptical of authority.
This is not good. Scripture doesn’t change. Neither should our basic convictions change based on the political regime in power. We honor God best when we submit to his rule even when he uses unjust people to lead us.
A Theology of Government
Scripture presents four big truths on the topic of government.
God Ordains Civil Magistrates
There is one supreme Lord and King of all the world. Christ has “dominion from sea to sea” (Ps. 72:8). So “There is no authority except from God” (Rom. 13:1; cf. John 19:11). If we miss this point either we will claim independence from the state or we will ascribe autonomy to the state. But God’s delegated leaders are under him and over the people (Dan. 4:25). The state is not autonomous. Nor can we refuse to be governed. God’s appointed leaders must rule for his glory and the public good, reflecting the general character of God who is just and merciful (Ps. 82:3, 4).
God Arms Governments with the Sword (Rom. 13:4)
God is for peace. But in a fallen world peace is maintained by strength. This is why government can be simply defined as “legal force.”[i] Under God a just government will use lawful means to protect its citizens against domestic and foreign threats. Governments should use the sword to defend the most vulnerable, whether children in the womb, the poor, or strangers and immigrants (Deut. 24:17). The state should use the sword to punish evildoers, firmly and swiftly. Governments may also use the sword to wage war. As we would relate to any extreme remedy, Christians should be both generally anti-war and supportive of war when necessary and just.
Believers May Serve as Soldiers and Magistrates
Throughout history some Christians have viewed government so negatively that they believed it sinful for believers to be civil servants or soldiers. But Peter assumes that some “masters” will be “good and gentle”—essential Christian qualities. In Scripture godly people exercise civil authority (Acts 10:1, 2). John the Baptist didn’t tell converted tax collectors and soldiers to change professions but to fulfill their callings christianly. Part of how believers serve as salt and light in the world is by living like Jesus in every noble occupation.
Read More
Related Posts:

To be in friendly cooperation, a church must have a faith and practice that is in step with the BF&M [The Baptist Faith & Message]. Contradicting what the BF&M says about female pastors is by definition not “closely identifying” with the BF&M. Indeed, it’s a direct contradiction of the BF&M.

I have seen a variety of responses to the news yesterday that the SBC has found Saddleback Church to be out of step with “the Convention’s adopted statement of faith” and now no longer recognizes them as a “cooperating” church (Art. 3, SBC Constitution). As many of you know, the presenting issue is Saddleback’s recognition of a variety of female pastors, including one of their new lead teaching pastors. Having female pastors contradicts our statement of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), which says, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
As you can imagine, many of the public responses have been negative. On social media, some of the commentary has been incendiary and dismissive and therefore not worthy of serious engagement. Other critics simply do not like what Southern Baptists believe. Still, there are two objections that I thought it might be worth the effort to answer.
The first objection appears in a social media thread that Rick Warren himself “liked” on Twitter. The author shares a series of quotations from around the time that the BF&M was adopted in 2000 and observes how many SBC leaders at the time said that the BF&M would never be used to “coerce” Baptist churches. He quotes from one 2000 Baptist Press article which has compelling comments from both Albert Mohler and Adrian Rogers:
“We don’t have the right, the authority or the power to limit anybody,” Rogers noted. “We would resist that. What we are stating is what we believe mainstream Baptists believe…It is not a creed. It is a statement of what most of us believe.”
Other media questions focused on the new BFM’s stance against women serving as senior pastors.
“We would never presume to tell another church whom they may call as a pastor or tell another person whether or not they may serve as pastor,” Mohler said. “We’re not trying to force our beliefs on someone else.”
The author highlights these remarks and others like them to show that the BF&M was never meant to be “binding on individual SBC congregations” (source). He concludes from this that the BF&M was never intended to be a “parameter for cooperation” (source). Both of these observations are wrong and represent a serious misunderstanding of our polity.
Right now in 2023, I heartily affirm what both Adrian Rogers and Albert Mohler said 23 years ago. The SBC does not have the right or authority to tell any church whom they may call as pastor. The SBC has zero authority to tell a church what they can or cannot do or what they must or must not believe. How a church governs itself or chooses its pastors is not what this dispute is about.
This discussion is about whether the SBC has a right to recognize which churches are in friendly cooperation with the convention. Our polity says that the SBC does have that right. Furthermore, the SBC Constitution defines some parameters for determining which churches are in friendly cooperation. The Constitution says it this way:
Read More
Related Posts:

The Bible God has given us, and commanded us to teach our kids, does not shy away from reality. God’s plan is not for us to try to preserve childhood innocence for as long as possible. Our children are not innocent, and innocence doesn’t prepare them for life in this world.

Last week Utah banned the Bible from primary schools on the grounds that it is violent and vulgar. How should we respond to this as Christians?
The Bible is without a doubt a book that is full of vulgarity and violence, together with graphic sexual details and imagery. If it were made into a film true to the visual imagery used it would be X-rated and many Christians would regard it as pornographic. It would be a video nasty attracting the ire of Mary Whitehouse for sure.
It is an interesting exercise to consider which stories are left out of children’s Bibles/story books. They are usually a sanitised cannon within a cannon. What is said plainly in Scripture is conveyed euphemistically. The worst stories are left out. Judgment is downplayed or rendered sentimental (I have never understood why Noah and the Flood are so popular when it involves mass death!). There is usually no place for the Song of Songs, the Epistles, Sodom and Gomorrah, Judah and Tamar etc. There is little of the law included (except the 10 Commandments with adultery sanitised) or the details of the law, much of which has to do with sexual behaviour.
The real question is whether God intends this to be kept from children. I suspect that we are shaped more by a romantic vision of childhood that owes more to Rousseau than Scripture, and Victorian notions of childhood innocence. In most of the world, and certainly, in Bible times, children were familiar with harsh reality and the simple ‘facts of life’ from a much earlier age. After all, families shared a single room and yet there were multiple children! Kids on farms know a lot about sex.
Read More
Related Posts: