Category: Law

A Meditation on Common Grace Following Election Day

God causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good

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Families harvesting fruit and vegetables in a colorful rural garden beneath a rainbow

A few days after election day my thoughts are still swirling. Actually not swirling, really, but focusing on things that Jesus said. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his audience to “be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” The context in which Jesus said this is loving our enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'”

Matthew 5:43-48

The illustration Jesus used is the fact that God causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good and his rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. God demonstrates his love for the world that is filled with people in opposition to Him by providing common grace.

Many fellow Christians in this country have been fighting a culture war for decades and trying to take over the U.S. government for Jesus. What they don’t realize is what they will accomplished if they succeed. If they succeed in making the US a Christian nation today, they will change the character of a country.

It will no longer be a country in which there is liberty and justice for all. It will no longer be a country in which all people are protected in the freedom of their conscience, to worship as they choose, and to speak according to their conscience. To make our country a Christian nation means to favor Christianity.

That may seem like a good idea as long as Christians are in power. As long as Christians fight to maintain their power and to prevent a takeover by another group, everything will be fine for us.

In the meantime we establish precedent for might makes right. If it was good for the Christian cause, it will be good for the atheist cause, or the Muslim cause, or the cause of whatever group rises to power and dethrones the Christians.

This dynamic continues to tear apart countries around the world, and it always has. The United States was comparatively a shining city on the hill from the date the wet ink on the Constitution dried. To make this country a Christian country is to ignore the First Amendment of the Constitution that protects all people from the establishment of a state religion and protects the conscience of all people to worship as they individually determine.

To ignore the Constitution is to negate the power of it and to open our country up to the same tribal conflicts that occur in many other nations around the world. Christians who are fighting to make the United States a Christian nation are short-sighted in pursuing that goal and are laying the foundation for our country to be controlled by whatever thought group rises to power.

I believe that the effort also is not biblical. God does not force people to love Him, to honor Him, or even to acknowledge Him in this world. He causes the sun to shine on the evil and the good and sends the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.

God desires that all people “would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.'” (Acts 17:27-28) If He did not want us to have any choice in the matter, He would have programmed us like obedient robots. Of course, then we would not truly love Him.

Instead, He gave us a world in which we are not required to love Him, and that means we can truly love Him for who He is. He became incarnate and sacrificed Himself to show His love for us. Stands at the door and knocks, and all who will open the door He comes into them. The people who reject Him or ignore Him will not be required to spend an eternity with Him – to their sad loss.

If we want a country that demonstrates God’s love to the world, it should be established to protect and promote common grace – liberty to all – the way our Constitution now reads, and we should do nothing to undermine it. We should protect the liberty of every individual to seek God and perhaps find Him, to discover that in Him we live and move and have our being, to love Him for who He is and not because of any law that was passed by a Christian legislature.

It may sound very Christian to take over the U.S. government for Jesus, but it actually isn’t. The Gospel spread steadily over the first three centuries in a hostile Roman government that crucified our Savior. God does not need the U.S. government to protect His sovereignty or His plan of salvation that extends to all the nations. He only needs His children to be faithful for the harvest is great and the workers are few.

What Does it mean to Be Perfect As the Father Is Perfect

What is godly perfection?

kevingdrendel2 Comments
Two people sharing a loaf of bread and drinks at a wooden table

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.'”


Matthew 19:21 ESV

I read this statement Jesus made in Matthew 19, his statement in the Sermon on the Mount came to mind: “be perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect.” I realized as I looked into it that the context in the Sermon on the Mount in which the statement made is similar. Both texts focus on the Ten Commandments, but Jesus takes them in a direction his audience likely did not anticipate.

In Matthew 19, a wealthy young man had come to him and asked him what good deed must be done to earn eternal life. Jesus responded first by saying that no one is good but for the Father in heaven. Jesus didn’t really answer the question to begin with. He needed to correct an assumption the young man was making, which is that people can be good enough to gain eternal life.

The young man wasn’t catching on, though. The man pressed Jesus further, asking which commandments must be kept to gain eternal life, as if there was some formula that would work. He wanted Jesus to boil it down to the right formula so he could check them off and get on with his life.

So Jesus played along and began to recite the commandments:

“And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”

Matthew 19:18-19 ESV

Notice that Jesus doesn’t go through all the Ten Commandments. If we are paying attention, we notice that Jesus started in the middle of the Ten Commandments, and he recited only five of them. In fact, he only recited the commandments on the horizontal plane – the commandments focusing on our relationship with others. He skips over the commandments focusing on our relationship with God (love the Lord your God, keep the Sabbath, etc.) I will come back to that in a moment, but I want to see how this passage ties back to the Sermon on the Mount first.

The entirety of the Sermon on the Mount is a reflection on moving from the commandments as a list of rules to a heart attitude toward God and people. Jesus upped the ante on people focused on keeping the commandments. Her repeatedly recited a rule, like you shall not murder, followed by a statement that goes to the heart: if you are angry with your brother, if you have contempt for him, if you call him a fool, you have violated the spirit of the rule, according to Jesus. (Matt. 5:21-22) If you do not commit adultery, that’s great: but if you lust after someone, you have violated the spirit of the rule, according to Jesus.

I think that these two things are going on. First, the real point of the rules is to focus us on the attitude of our hearts. If our hearts are wrong, we have violated the spirit of the rules. The rules are not what God ultimately wants us to master. He wants us to see the attitude of our hearts and recognize that something is amiss.

Second, the rules are intended to show us we don’t measure up. If we think that we are ok because we keep the rules, we are missing the point of the rules – that something is amiss, we don’t measure up, and we need help. As Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners….” (Mark 2:17)

Actually, both of those points are really the same point, and the truth is that we are all sick (even the Pharisees). We are never going to measure up because something is a mess. We are fallen. We fall short. We need help.

Jesus wrapped up the discourse on keeping the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount by talking about loving our neighbors – and even our enemies. It was in this context that Jesus told us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.

Similarly, Jesus set up the wealthy young man by telling him he lacked something (as if he really had kept all the commandments in the first place): that he should sell all he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. Of course, he went away sad and didn’t hear what else Jesus had to say.

If he had stuck around he might have heard Jesus say things similar to what he said in the Sermon on the Mount. He is not looking for rule followers. He is looking for people whose hearts have the right orientation. It’s not about following the rules; it’s about knowing that God loves us, receiving that love and loving others.

Continue reading “What Does it mean to Be Perfect As the Father Is Perfect” →

The Trajectory of the Bible: from Grace to Grace

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

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Biblical scroll, ritual vessels, and wheat on table

“Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.’ He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?'”

Matthew 15:1-3

The tradition Jesus is talking about is the practice of people “devoting to God” that which might otherwise have been used to help to their parents. Honoring your parents was commanded by God, but the religious leaders allowed people not to help their parents if they devoted offerings to the Temple. Giving offerings at the Temple instead of providing for parents is the tradition that Jesus criticized in this passage.

This criticism of the Pharisees came in response to the Pharisees’ criticism of the disciples who did not wash their hands before they ate. Washing hands, like devoting offerings to the Temple instead of honoring parents, exalts religious tradition over what God actually desires of us.

Jesus was not commenting on the propriety of washing hands. We all know that washing our hands is a good thing. We wash off bacteria and other things that can cause illness. Cleanliness is a good thing, but Jesus is not commenting on cleanliness. He is commenting on the hypocrisy of exalting form (tradition) over substance. Quoting Isaiah, Jesus concluded:

“‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'”


Matthew 15:8-9 ESV

Throughout the ministry of Jesus, he consistently focuses on the importance of what is going on in our hearts. He prioritizes our hearts and our motivations over the things that we say and do, especially the religious things that make us look good to other people. Thus, Jesus concluded this encounter by telling the crowd:

“What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

Matthew 15:11

He isn’t saying that we can do whatever we want as long as our heart is pure. He is saying that the wrong things that we do and say proceed from the defilement in our hearts. Even doing the right things with the wrong heart is wrong. The root of our sin is not in the things that we say or do, but in our heart. The sinful things we say and do proceed from our sinful hearts.

Even if we do things that are right or seem right are wrong if we do them with impure hearts. For instance, when we say or do things because we want other people to hear or see them and think well of us, we are missing the mark.

I am thinking about these things because I have been continually impressed lately about the importance of the trajectory of the Bible. The trajectory of the Bible is important because we can mistake the Bible for a code of law – a book of rules – if we are not paying attention to what I call the trajectory of the Bible. The emphasis Jesus placed on the heart over the things that we say and do is an example of that trajectory.

Continue reading “The Trajectory of the Bible: from Grace to Grace” →

The Importance of Our Identity as Citizens of Heaven: Moses, Aliens, and Strangers

Our identity as Christians informs (or should inform) how we see the world

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The importance of identity is not just a 21st Century trend. The significance of a person’s identity dates back to the Ancient Near Eastern culture preserved in the Bible.

Parents commonly named their children based on prominent identity markers. For instance, Isaac and Rebekah named their second born, Jacob, who was born clinging to his two brother’s ankle. Jacob (Ya’aqov in Hebrew) meant “supplanter,” “heel-catcher,” or “he who follows on the heels of.” The name became part of his identity not just literally; it corresponded with actions to acquire his older brother’s birthright from his father by manipulation and deception. (Gen. 25:26; 27:36; and Hos. 12:2-4)

God often gave people new names to go with their identity in relation to God. After a personal encounter with the Lord, God gave Jacob a new name: Israel, which meant “struggles with God,” “wrestlers with /God,” or “God prevails.” (Gen. 32)

The naming of children and God renaming people according to some key characteristic associated with their personal identity, or a new identity God gave them, is a common theme in the Bible. Groups of people were known by ancestral names, like Israelites, Amalekites, Hittites, etc. Thus, I find significance in the name Moses gave his first born child: Gershom.

Moses was the son of Hebrew parents, but he was placed in a basket in the Nile when Pharaoh ordered the killing of all male Hebrew babies. The Pharaoh’s own daughter found Moses and adopted him, though she allowed him to be nursed by a Hebrew woman who turned out to be Moses’s mother.

Moses grew up in the privilege of the Pharaoh’s house. He was educated in all the ways of Egypt, learned to read and write, and was familiar with Egyptian history, culture, religion, and philosophy. He was Hebrew by birth, but he was Egyptian by upbringing.

Moses must have known that he was Hebrew. It was probably obvious by his facial features, and he might have even been circumcised. He was schooled in Egyptian ways and thinking, but he was probably painfully aware that he was not Egyptian by birth.

One day as he observed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man, Moses stepped in and killed the Egyptian. I believe Moses identified with the Hebrew man because of his Hebrew ethnicity. He fled into the desert in Midian for fear of punishment from the Egyptians for the murder.

In Midian, he was accepted into the family of a Midianite, married a Midian woman, and settled down there. When his wife, Zipporah, gave birth to a son, “Moses named him Gershom, saying, ‘I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.’” Exodus 2:21-22

Moses named his first son Foreigner because he identified as a foreigner himself. Despite being raised as an Egyptian in Pharaoh’s family with all the privilege associated with the royal household, Moses could not escape the fact of his Hebrew heritage. That knowledge influenced his personal identity.  That identify as an outsider – a foreigner – was reinforced in his persona when he settled in Midian to the extent that he extended that identity to his firstborn son.

I find significance in that story and in the realization that Moses identified so poignantly with being a foreigner. That same identity – of being foreign – defined the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt. It remained with them as they wandered 40 years in the Levant wilderness, and, God sanctified that identity for the Israelites in the Mosaic Law:

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God….

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.“

Leviticus 19:9-10, 33-34

The Israelites lived 430 years in Egypt by the time Moses led them out of that land. Their memories of the promised land were ancient history. Their memories would be like modern Native Americans recalling the history of the United States in 1596. European settlers at that time comprised a few thousand people at most in precarious settlements in the New World inhabited by millions of indigenous people.

The Roanoke Colony had already failed, and no English settlements remained. Some Spanish missionary and military expeditions existed in the south and west, and French and Portuguese fishing camps existed in Newfoundland. Jamestown (1607), Quebec City (1608), Plymouth (1620), and New Amsterdam (New York, 1624) were not yet established.

Some 430 years later, the Native Americans may identify as outcasts in their own country, like Israelites identified as foreigners in their “home” country of Egypt. The Israelites lived there, but they were not assimilated into Egyptian culture, and they lived there without all the benefits Egyptian privileges.

Though Moses was raised with Egyptian privileges in the royal family, he never lost his Hebrew identity. In that sense, Moses identified similarly to the way Christians are taught to identify themselves in the New Testament: as people of God who are foreigners and exiles (1 Peter 2:10-11), “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Hebrews 11:13), who are now “fellow citizens with God’s people.” (Ephesians 2:19)

For Moses, though, he probably didn’t even feel at home with his own, Hebrew people because of his upbringing. He was raised separately from them. His Hebrew features (and perhaps circumcision) reminded him of his heritage. He could not escape it, but his personal connection to those Hebrew roots was not yet intimate.

Even so, the sense of foreign identify was profound enough that Moses was compelled to come to the aid of a Hebrew stranger. Moses identified with the plight of the Israelites who lived as vulnerable foreigners in a land they could not call their own.

I and my fellow Christians should have the same profound sense of living as strangers in a foreign land in this world – if, indeed, we are citizens of heaven. This realization hits home today as I watch what is happening in the streets of American cities.

Do we identify with the aliens and strangers in our country? Or do we identify with the government that has recently adopted more oppressive and strong handed tactics to deal with immigrants in this country who are not wanted here? If you are not sure these connections belong together, bear with me awhile longer.

Continue reading “The Importance of Our Identity as Citizens of Heaven: Moses, Aliens, and Strangers” →

A Review of Principalities Powers and Allegiances: Submission in Enemy Territory

Untangling submission to authority and allegiance to God

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A friend posted an glowing endorsement of the book, Principalities Powers and Allegiances, by Matt Mouzakis & Will Ryan, that intrigues me because the subject is a topic I have spent some time considering and writing about. The book is an exegesis of biblical passages that have posed challenges to modern Christians like myself: Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:11-17.

These passages instruct Christians to submit to earthly authorities “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13). Mouzakis and Ryan provide background and Scriptural insight that sheds some fresh light on these passages. It is not new light. In fact, it is ancient light that was likely understood by the original readers of those words, but which has been lost in the centuries since that time.

I do not have the book, but I was curious because of my own interest in the tension between faithful adherence to the Gospel and submission to governing authorities, so I asked Google Gemini for a summary of the book. More specifically, I asked for a summary of the exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 for comparison to my own exegesis. (How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did)

The exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 offered by Mouzakis and Ryan is a departure from modern reading that views government as God’s benevolent institution for all time. They argue that the passage must be read through the lens of the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and the larger narrative of sin and God’s judgment in the book of Romans.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview, in a nutshell, is that Yahweh, is the sole supreme Deity, and that the gods of the other nations are lesser, created spiritual beings (“sons of God” or elohim). It pulls from the judgment following the Tower of Babel that included the scattering of the people:

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
    when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
    according to the number of the sons of God.”

(Deut. 32:8)(ESV)

The “sons of God” are sometimes translated “sons of Israel”, but Israel was not yet a nation at that time. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) from which God formed His people were not yet born. God called Abraham out from among the nations and formed a people of God, the nation of Israel, separate and apart from the nations. Thus, Jews identified only two sets of people: the Jews and the Gentiles.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview notes that the “sons of God” (the elohim) rebelled. They demanded the worship that belonged only to Yahweh, and they lead the nations into idolatry and violence. They are the principalities and powers that Paul speaks of who rule the “world system.” Jesus defeated those principalities and powers by his life, death, and resurrection (Colossians 2:15), broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14), and established his Church for the purpose of reclaiming the nations for the Kingdom of God.

Romans 13 needs to be read in the context of the sweep and arc of the story of God and what He is doing in space and time. Here are the key points of their specific interpretation of Romans 13:

1. The Context:

From Handing Over to Submission

The authors connect Romans 13 directly to Romans 1:21-23, where Paul describes God “handing over” (paradidomi) humanity to the consequences of their idolatry. In the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, this “handing over” included disinheriting the nations and appointing elohim (spiritual beings) to govern them.

The Problematic Authorities:

By the time of the New Testament, these spiritual beings—the principalities and powers—had fallen, becoming demonic forces that oppose God. When humanity rejects God, they are handed over to the “world” and to these spiritual powers, which are associated with the consequences of “sin and death.”

The Assertion:

The Roman government (specifically the Empire under Nero in the 1st Century) is viewed as aligned with these demonic forces. Paul’s message is that because Christians serve KING JESUS, they are no longer slaves to these demonic forces, even while living under their political rule.

2. The Nature of “The Authorities”

The Greek word used for “authorities” in Romans 13:1 is exousiai, which refers both to human governing authorities and spiritual powers (seen in Ephesians 6:12). Mouzakis and Ryan contend that Paul is deliberately using this ambiguous term to encompass the reality that earthly governments are influenced by unseen spiritual powers.

When Paul says the authorities are “instituted by God,” he does not mean God approves or blesses their actions. Rather, God established them as the temporary framework of consequences and judgment that the world is subjected to—a framework that God ultimately controls in his sovereignly.

3. The Ruler as “God’s Servant”

The authors evaluate the terms used for the governing official: leitourgos (minister/servant, v. 6) and diakonos (servant/minister, v. 4).

A Tool of Wrath:

The ruler is called both “God’s servant for good” and an “avenger who carries out God’s wrath” (v.4)(ESV). This wrath is seen not necessarily as God’s positive blessing on good governance, but as the execution of the consequences already outlined in Romans 1—the judgment of being “handed over” to a system that operates by the sword. the “good” is the carrying out of God’s purposes. The government’s function is to maintain basic civic order and punish wrongdoers, which is a necessary restraint in a fallen world, but the government itself is not necessarily acting righteously.

Consistent with this, we can find multiple times in Scripture where unjust nations are identified as servants of God. Isaiah identifies Assyria as the “the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!” even as Isaiah pronounces, Woe to the Assyrian!” (Is. 10:5-6) Jeremiah called the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, God’s servant. (Jer.25:9 & 27:6) to bring God’s judgment.

The Non-Endorsement:

The term leitourgos neutral. It refers to public servants, generally. It means a tool or agent of God, like Assyria and Babylon were to accomplish God’s purposes in exiling his people. It is not an endorsement of them as God’s representative.

4. Allegiance vs. Submission

The most crucial distinction is between submission and allegiance:

Allegiance is to Christ:

The Christian’s primary and ultimate loyalty is to Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Our allegiance (our citizenship in the kingdom of God) made the Christian community a rival kingdom to the Roman Empire. That is why Christians were viewed with suspicion and called “atheists” (because they didn’t bow to Caesar and they didn’t worship the Roman pantheon of gods). Jesus was crucified, in part, because he was perceived to claim to be the King of the Jews, though his kingdom is not of this world.

Submission is Tactical:

The command to “be subject” (hypotassō) is a call for voluntary, orderly yielding to maintain peace, prevent anarchy, and avoid creating unnecessary offense that would hinder the spread of the Gospel. Peter says to submit “for the Lord’s sake”, so that the Gospel message is not hindered. It is an act of discipleship lived out in enemy territory.

Taxes and Honor:

Paul’s only specific instruction about submitting to the governing authorities is to “pay to all what is owed them” (v.7), including taxes. He echoed Jesus in this who told us to pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to his disciples to pay the Temple tax. It is a call to fulfill one’s basic civic duty (giving to Caesar what bears Caesar’s image). However, the ultimate message is a remez (a subtle link or hint) to Jesus’s teaching to give yourself wholly to God because you bear His image.

In summary, for Mouzakis and Ryan, Romans 13 is not a command for blind obedience to the state, but a strategic directive for Kingdom citizens to live non-violently and orderly in a world ruled by lesser, fallen powers, while reserving ultimate worship and allegiance for King Jesus.

If you are interested in what the authors have to say about the book, this video features Dr. Matt Mouzakis discussing the process of writing the book and exploring its underlying theological themes in a conversation about writing worship music. Write Biblically Accurate Songs For The Church with Dr. Matt Mouzakis

If you want to read what I have written about the tension between submission to authority and allegiance to God, see How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did.

Did AI do a good job summarizing the book? I have added to the AI summary I obtained. Did “we” do a good job? If you have read the book, please let me know.

If this helped you, made you curious, or even if you disagree, please feel free to start a conversation in the comments.