Lessons on Resisting the Government from Ezra, with a Typology Coda

In Ezra 4-6, the syncretistic Samaritans harrassed the returned exiles who are trying to rebuild the temple and city of Jerusalem.  They wait until Cyrus is gone (who told them they could build), and write the next king that Jerusalem will be rebellious.  He orders it stopped, and they do.

At the beginning of chapter 5, the Jews begin to rebuild.

They did not consult with the authorities before they went ahead and began building.  God had told them to, through Haggai and Zechariah.  They KNEW Ahasuerus' decree that they stop and not build.  But they listened to God instead of the king.

But this is not as clear cut as it seems.  

Many today, eager for civil disobedience, infer that the Jews were right to completely disregard any Persian king's order, and do what they know is right, come what may.  But it seems from Ezra 5:1-5 and Haggai 1 that God waits to speak until Darius has come to the throne.

So I would make two more modest claims.

1. It can be fine to challenge a bad law legally by intentionally disobeying it.

God, through Haggai and Zechariah, endorses it!  Daniel does it by praying to God publicly after the king's command not to.

2. Who is in power makes a difference, in civil disobedience decisions.

Ahasuerus believed slander, and sometimes you reach a legal, dead-end loss, and need to take your lumps.  Darius was more judicious, and Judah probably discerned this from the Empire News headlines.  "When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan" (Proverbs 29:2).  

In just war theory, one factor in deciding whether to go to war is the chances you have of winning.  So here, we ought to be more willing to make a legal or public square challenge, the more likely we are to win.

You could even say that God said to Israel through Haggai, "It's time, take this on, all the way to the emperor if you have to.  This one's going to listen."  They have a new opening to get the government's approval.

The typical rejoinder to this is that Haggai said Israel was disobeying Him to not rebuild.  It's not about the timing or who's in charge, but about obeying God rather than men, right?

But a close reading of the beginning of Haggai does not confirm this view.  God does NOT say, "You've been sinning all along, to not rebuild the temple against the king's command.  You never should have stopped."  No, He says, over a year into Darius' ascension, "Judah says it's not time to rebuild yet, but it IS time.  You've sat in your fancy houses long enough."  This confirms my point, especially Haggai mentioning the timing of Darius' reign.  And it refutes those who say, "When it comes to matters surrounding worship (circa sacris, like temple rebuilding, or zoning restrictions on churches), we always do what God says and never pay heed to Caesar."

There are certainly times to disregard or resist government intervention into our worship.

But to begin with the assumption, "You never have any right to give input on anything about the gathering of the church" is an overstep on the church's part.

A Coda

Personally, I think God used the sin of Judah's enemies and Ahasuerus, to provide for impoverished Israel to get their own families cared for first, before building HIS house.  God establishes/redeems/saves His people, gets them set up securely, then has them build Him a house.

1. Exodus

 - then families get plunder and set up their tents, 

 - then Sinai and tabernacle.

2. Conquest of Canaan

 - then inheritance to the tribes

 - then temple with Solomon.

3. Return to the land

 - then families build houses, 

 - then rebuilt temple and city.

4. Cross, Resurrection and Ascension

 - then apostles ordered and believers counted (Acts 1), 

 - then Pentecost (Spirit takes residence in His Church).

Teachers I Respect

I've started a list of "Voices to Which I Listen."

This may seem a strange thing to do, but I believe it is important to be self-aware about who you are following, and why.

I'm giving you the whole (first draft) list here, and I'll probably do a blog series on each, explaining why I stop scrolling to read them, why I go to their blogs intentionally, or why I buy and read their books.

Preliminary thoughts:

1. It's impossible to include every author I've appreciated, so I'm limiting this to teachers I'm actively and repeatedly giving time to.  If their podcast drops, I'll listen.  If everyone did this honestly, it would be really revealing.  I'm going for transparency here.

2. I've also left off those I've heard snippets of and like, but just haven't gotten around to listening to a lot.  James White and Gary DeMar would be examples.

3. It's important to have a multitude of counselors, not just follow 1-3 people in the same narrow orbit.  Keeping this list broad is good.

4. I tried to make it "most influential earlier in the list" but that may not be exact.

5. I hope it's obvious, but these are earthly teachers, who are writing and speaking now, or in the recent past.  

Omitting Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, Augustine, Calvin, etc., doesn't mean I'm ignoring them for this list!

Please help me edit this list!  Add to it, or challenge names on it.

R.C. Sproul

Sinclair Ferguson

George Grant

Doug Wilson

Carl Trueman

Al Mohler

World Magazine/Marvin Olasky

Kevin DeYoung

Ray VanderLaan

John Piper

Mark Dever

Tim Keller

Ben Shapiro

David Bahnsen

Aaron Renn

Acton Institute

Alistair Begg

Jordan Peterson

I'll add categories and explanations later.  

For now, tell me who you listen to a lot that isn't here.

Or who you cringe at seeing named!

The Unique Blessing of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches

This was so good, I listened TWICE.

It’s a description of the uniqueness of my denomination, the CREC – Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
 
The second time through, I took these shorthand notes, in case you don’t have the time to listen through all the banter.
 
Main Participants:
Jerry Owen – pastor near Seattle
Uri Brito – pastor in Florida panhandle
Toby Sumpter – pastor in Idaho

I. What is a presbytery? A council?

It is not good for man (or churches) to be alone.  They need relationship with others for encouragement and accountability.  That’s what presbyteries and denominations are.
 
II. What makes the CREC unique?
  A. A Cultural element
    1. Intentional personalism.  We know each other, have been in the homes of pastors and elders, seen their families interact naturally.  The man on the street craves relationship today, and we offer it, even if you don’t connect with our liturgy or theology right away.  “I’ve had 5 invitations to dinner in 20 minutes, after the worship service!”
 
     2. During worship, the dads will stand in the back with their kids who need care.  He’s loving his wife.  This is a form of masculinity unknown.  We have a “culture of men” that is healthy, not toxic masculinity or unhealthy patriarchy.  [No one believes this is true, because of the lies and slander hurled at Moscow, Idaho, but it is.]
 
     3. Cheerful resistance to totalitarian covid restrictions.
 
     4. Our strength is seeing the trajectory of cultural compromise in the church, like on sexuality or wokeness.
 
  B. A Theological element - common presuppositions, with Van Til.
            We actually believe that God’s Word directs us to worship and live this way, and challenge the culture in a specific way.
  
  C. A Liturgical element
     1. There is healthy disagreement on higher or lower liturgy (robes and collars, formalized prayer, etc.)
     2. “The men sing.”  “The church sings at the top of their lungs.”
     3. We are liturgizing our population.  Preparing them for cultural impact, through confession of sin, the Word, and communion.
 
 
III. The 6 P’s of the CREC:
A. Predestinarian – we are Calvinist, on the doctrines of grace
B. Post-millennial – God will keep His promises to propser His church in history
C. Psalm singing - the Psalter is still God's songbook for the church to sing today.  Not exclusively, but primarily.
D. Paedo-living – the role of children in the life of the church and family.
  1. "The background music of our sermons are crying babies."
  2. Psalm 8 – out of the mouths of babes!
  3. We welcome the presence of little ones.
E. Pre-eminent worship – Sunday morning is the highlight of our week.  We are in the presence of almighty God, welcomed and feasted by Him!
F. Pre-suppositional – we accept the self-authenticating authority of the Word of God, a la Van Til.
 
 
IV. Many are discouraged by their denominations’ response to cultural issues today.  Come to the CREC!  Why?
 - don’t be an island.  It’s harder to stand fast alone.
 - the baptism issue is not a deal breaker for us.
 - you need a group of people who agree with your values, not just on primary issues like the Trinity and Christ’s atonement, but also on secondary issues like how we worship, critical race theory, applying the Word of God to all of life, and Christian education.
 - we are okay fighting with each other on lesser issues.  Healthy disagreement is good.  But when covid hit, we came together.
 - When relationships break down, a denomination doesn’t sharpen itself.  It corrodes and degrades.  We need to keep up real fellowship, even where we disagree.

Coveting // Leaving Your Church? // Mohler Gold

Crossway reprints some gold from Francis Schaeffer here on coveting and thanksgiving.

This is a good article on what to do when you're thinking of leaving your church.

Al Mohler's Briefing was EXCELLENT today:

 - the history and current state of public education.

 - what is social justice?

 - when does life begin?

Slaying Leviathan - Book Review

Slaying Leviathan: Limited Government and Resistance in the Christian Tradition by Glenn S. Sunshine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve enjoyed getting to know Glenn Sunshine on the Theology Pugcast podcast, with Chris Wiley and Tom Price. His insights into modern culture from medieval and Reformation history are consistently incisive and helpful.

In Slaying Leviathan, Sunshine wields his historical knowledge to help us understand the proper role of the state, in a Christian worldview.

Common knowledge has it that before the Enlightenment, Medieval Christendom was a theocratic, absolutist nightmare, right up through Calvin’s Geneva. It took the wars of religion in Europe in the 1600s to cure us of that, along with Christendom, and we’ve been happy, tolerant pluralists ever since. Conservative Christians who press for limited government do so against their history and against Romans 13.

Except that’s not how it is – or was - at all.

From monks arguing for property rights, to the Magna Carta restricting the king’s power, to England’s Glorious Revolution chasing out an absolutist monarch for the more reasonable William and Mary, Sunshine lays out the developing history of a Christian culture and theologians restraining its civil rulers from taking on too much power. But when the Christian faith wanes, the state waxes as a possible idol. Hobbes’ Leviathan, and our current culture’s values are two cases in point.

I cut my theological teeth on the Reformed teaching of RC Sproul. I’ll be forever grateful for coming across him. And he taught me that the classic Christian tradition says this regarding submitting to government: if they aren’t demanding you disobey God, or if they aren’t forbidding you to do what God requires, you have to do what they say. Sunshine presents a different historical view, with plenty of faithful Christian pastors and authors challenging the authority of the magistrate before that standard is clearly reached. (The American Revolution is a major example.) Are there any Scriptural examples of this, and does that matter?

Slaying Leviathan would have benefitted from some direct interaction with Sproul’s view, which is held by most in the church today. Still, Sunshine’s argument from history is well done and worth the read.

View all my reviews

Thoughts on Covid - Now That I Have It

 So I lost my sense of taste a few days ago, and tested positive for covid the next morning.

 

The world has bought into the experiential basis of knowledge.  You don’t really know something until you have experienced it yourself, they say.  On one level this is true.  It’s hard for a Catholic priest who is single to give marriage advice.  On another level, this doesn’t work.  Men can accurately judge abortion to be the killing of a human life, even though they have never been pregnant or been through an abortion.

 

People expect your views on covid to change once you get it.  And I suppose that isn’t unreasonable.  In a way, I’ve been living as if covid didn’t exist, for about 17 months.  Going to the office.  No masks unless absolutely insisted upon in planes, hospitals, etc.  No vaccine.  Church life has been normal for that long, too.

 

The thing is, I haven’t been a covid denier all along, just because I was acting that way.  I know it’s no walk in the park for many.  But if you believe the media narrative, you’re either taking extreme precautions because you believe the science, or you ignore it with your head in the sand as a science and covid denier.

 

I’ve been neither.  I was just assessing statistical risk.  

If I caught it, I didn’t expect to be one of the 1% or less to succumb to covid in a hospital on a ventilator – my comorbidities weren’t that bad.  As the Delta variant hit, it was clear the virus was more pervasive but much less severe.  I figured there was a higher chance to catch it, but an even lower chance I’d be hospitalized for it.  I’m not in ideal physical shape, but decent enough that if covid found me I would likely fight it off with a mild case.

 

Now that I’ve got it, I think the same way.

 

I don’t believe this is recklessness.  I know plenty of acquaintances who have not fared so well.  Colleagues hospitalized.  Family of coworkers, young and healthy, whose life is taken tragically.  I don’t deny these realities, but remain thoroughly convinced they are outliers.  The anecdotal evidence is as strong on the other side: church members or family who get covid, and it’s so mild a case they don’t realize they have it, and it passes quickly with no lasting harm.

 

You may ask, if it’s 50-50-ish, anecdotally, why not get the vaccine to be sure?  It’s a fair question.  First, because the stats aren’t 50-50, at ALL, like the media tries to make you feel.  Getting covid is not a death sentence for most.  How many?  We don’t KNOW what the stats are, because so many contract covid without knowing it, or being tested – my guess is 90% of cases are not severe.  All the severe cases are reported, and most of the mild cases are NOT.

 

Second, I’m not one who thinks the vaccine is a Bill Gates conspiracy, or that it’s worse than the disease, or one who deeply suspects it because it’s so strongly pushed.  I’m just not an “early adopter” of such things.  I’m fine submitting to MMR and tetanus vaccines that have been proven over decades, and I approve of modern medicine in general.  But to require a brand new vaccine of the whole population RIGHT NOW is too much.  So I’ve signed letters to aid where church members seek religious exemption from their employers requiring the vaccine.  My family is healthy enough just to not need it, right now, I think.  But I don’t look squinty-eyed at the person who gets the vaccine.  I believe the data that it’s quite effective to stave off covid or its severe effects.

 

At the same time, medicine is a “practice.”  The crass protest here is “We are not your lab rats.”  The more vaccinations, the more data they have to find out how well it works – they don’t know for sure until they get wide-scale results from live cases.  I’m a little uncomfortable being Apple’s early adopter “Beta test” with my own body, instead of just with my computer software.  That’s a reasonable concern to me.  It overrules the knee-jerk, irrational objection, “You’re a covid and science denier jerk!”  Society, an employer, or the government does not have the right to force me to get vaccinated in this circumstance.  Give it a few years of ultra-low instances of damage done by the vaccine, and the requirement makes more sense.

 

Let’s be okay with each other making different choices on all this.

We don’t have to buy into one political narrative or the other.  I find it rather silly to overly minimize the threat of covid, to prove how conservative or anti-Biden we are.  Or to inflate the threat of covid, to prove how dumb Trump and his supporters are.

 

Resist the impulse to isolate from anyone who thinks at all differently from you on this topic.  That’s what “they” want - for us to be less willing to stand together against their tyranny.  Yes, tyranny.  The most disturbing thing in all this is the progressive and aggressive demand that everyone do exactly what the government says, and think what the government thinks.  We are beginning to think and behave exactly how the Chinese Communist party wants its people to be, and that should scare us far more than the coronavirus.

 

At the same time, I’m staying away from people while I have covid, out of love for neighbor.  It made sense to lock everything down back in March 2020 (15 days to stop the spread!), but now we should only be quarantining the sick (me) , not the healthy.

 

I’m doing fine physically right now, mild cold symptoms are subsiding, and I appreciate your prayers for those with more severe cases.