Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Jesus Political?

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

We're launching a new podcast! This episode is a sneak peek into Truth over Tribe. Is Jesus political? Is he on the left or the right? In this week's episode, we dive deep into whether or not Jesus even cares about politics. You'll hear us define what a politic is, and then we look into the idea of Heaven and how that might help us decide on Jesus's politics. Later in the episode, we discuss temptations and how addiction to power plays a role in religion and politics. Tune in now! Subscribe to https://podcast.choosetruthovertribe.com/public/98/Truth-Over-Tribe-9f32ad1e (Truth over Tribe). Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilman. And I'm Patrick Miller. If you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you probably remember that we occasionally have longer episodes. We'll go on for a lot longer than 10 minutes and talk about a topic at length. Now, here's the problem with those episodes. They are neither 10 minutes, nor are they quite Bible talks.

So Keith and I decided we wanted to start a new podcast where we do that thing. once a week. It's called Truth Over Tribe. We'll be talking about all kinds of topics that I don't think nice church people are supposed to talk about, but we think it's important to think through not just our political life, but our cultural life through the lens of Jesus. What does King Jesus have to say about these things? So here's the cool part. We are going to put these episodes right here on 10-minute Bible talks, probably for the first five or six weeks. You're going to hear interviews with people like John Mark Comer, Justin Gibney, Oz Guinness. We're going to talk about topics like how businesses have become woke. We'll talk about tribalism and does Jesus care about politics and even

the rise of the religious rights. We've got a lot of really interesting topics coming up. I hope that you will take the time right now, not just to listen to this episode, which is great, but also to go and subscribe to Truth Over Tribe on your podcast player. Do it right now. Just set down the phone. Truth over Tribe, find it, subscribe to it, listen to the episode there and join us on this new journey. Are you tired of tribalism? I think a lot of what the the left supports is satanic. The only time religious freedom is invoked is in the name of bigotry and discrimination. Are you exhausted by the culture war?

If they don't like it here, they can leave. You could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Are you suspicious of those who say Jesus endorses their political party? Is it possible to be a good Christian and also be a member of the Republican Party? And the answer is absolutely not. From certainly a biblical standpoint, Christians could not vote Democratic. We trust the lamb, not the donkey or the elephant. This is the podcast that's too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.

I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. And we choose truth over tribe. Do you? Big day in the Miller household, we took my daughter to kindergarten, oldest child. Tears? No, no tears today. I will confess.

I cried a little bit on. Monday when we did the little visit the school day thing so she could see her classroom. You kind of realize that she was going to be leaving. It's often hard for the first kid to leave home and go to kindergarten. What honestly happened was we bumped into the gym teacher, who I didn't know. And this is a Christian school just to give a little bit of context, because normally teachers don't walk up and start praying with you, which is exactly what this gym teacher did. She walked up to us. She saw that my wife had an injury and starts praying with us. And I start when she's praying. I start crying. Wow. So you were that

Family in need that teachers prayed for later in the day. That family, man, they need help. Prayers. No truer words have been spoken right now. So if your daughter goes to a Christian school, my guess is this is a patriotic Christian school. They tend to be. So my hunch is that they regularly say the Pledge of Allegiance. They do every day.

And given your perspective on that. Conjunctions. Are you okay with your daughter saying the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay. So Keith is bringing this up just in case you don't know. personally do not pledge allegiance. I've had some awkward scenarios in my life where there have been public pledges. And I have not, for example, once I was speaking at a Rotary Club event, I didn't know that they pledge allegiance ahead of time. So here I am the speaker. Everybody's pledging. And I just

stood up and kind of tried to politely put my hands behind my arms and just pray, please no one notice the fact that I'm not doing it right now. Okay. So just to be clear, you refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag in the United States of America because you're a communist. Is that right? No, that's not right at all. Look, I would say I love America. I'm not afraid to say that. that statement. I really do love my country. However, I believe that when I pledge allegiance to a flag, I'm giving the flag in my country something that belongs only to Jesus. So it's kind of a priority thing that you feel like you are committing idolatry if you pledge allegiance to the flag. I have this deep discomfort about putting my hand on my heart and saying that I'm giving my allegiance

to something that's not Jesus. I don't know. I can't explain it. And by the way, you know, I actually posted about this on Twitter and asked for people's opinions on it. And I had great Christians on both sides saying, yeah, I have no problem pledging allegiance. Others saying, no, we shouldn't give our allegiance to a state. In fact, one of them was a vet of the Afghanistan and Iraq War. And so, you know, Christians will fall on different sides of this particular issue. So you bring up that he was a veteran because... Well, I just thought it was interesting.

Someone might expect that a vet, someone who went overseas to potentially fight and die for their country, would be a major advocate and say, yes, you must pledge allegiance. But here he is saying, no, I actually don't think you should. So the point isn't that you don't care about the country. I love the country. You can even go serve in a war to die for your country. And you still might think I shouldn't give my loyalty to my country over loyalty to Jesus. Now, by the way, people, you can like me out there. I do say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I have no problem with that. I've never really thought that much about it. But my kid doesn't go to a Christian national school either. Okay. That's fun. Weirdest public school kids. On today's episode, we are talking about the interface of religion and politics. In fact, the other day, I got into a debate, some might call it an argument with a good friend who said, I don't know why you're doing a podcast like this. Following Jesus is a spiritual matter. It's about saving souls. It's about helping people become more holy, walk faithfully with God, transforming hearts. And now you're bringing something that's in the background, politics that Jesus doesn't really care that much about. And you're bringing it into the foreground. You're making it the main thing. And that's a mistake. Well, I don't think your friend would be the only one making that point. I mean, if you just think how you were raised as a kid, you were raised to not talk about certain things with company that you didn't know very well. At Thanksgiving dinner, you don't go and talk about religion and politics and sex and money and all that kind of stuff. Daniel, did your family talk about fun stuff? Well, I mean, we would keep it pretty PC, but I was going to say that sounds just like a boring conversation at the dinner table. If you're really, if you're not talking about sex, politics, money, what are you talking about? What else is there? I'm with you.

family, we got into lots of political debates because my parents were on two different sides of the political aisle. The funny thing is I actually used to be very much so in the Jesus is just spiritual. Jesus only cares about spiritual matters camp until I went to seminary. And I was lucky enough to have a mentor who was black. And I was talking to him about this exact topic. And he goes, well, that's really cute that you think Jesus only cares about those things. But the reason you think that is because you can afford to think that. He goes, you've never been pulled over for driving while black. Now, I didn't quite know what that was. He goes, well, here's a deal. you know me, I like driving nice cars. And when police officers see me a black man driving a nice car,

they will pull me over for no reason. And this guy's an army chaplain. Yeah. He always got out really easily. He showed him his army idea and they'd say, thanks for serving. Sorry about that. See you later. But he was just making the point that, no, I think Jesus's concerns are more broad than just your heart. Yeah, it's easy, I guess, if you're a white evangelical or maybe of just certain backgrounds. Maybe we shouldn't make it all about race or wealth or class. But it's easy if things have gone relatively well for you and you're pretty independent to say that religion and politics should be separate. But different people, maybe of different races or classes, they live in different places. And they are more comfortable marrying religion and politics because there's a sense in which

they need the government to enact justice for them. You're making me think about the critiques of Martin Luther King from people like Jerry Falwell who said, you shouldn't be out there marching. Your job is to save souls as a pastor. So don't mix these things up. Yeah, I think they said that Laws don't change people's hearts, and that's what we need to end racism. As heart changed. And if I remember it right, Dr. King said something like, you're exactly right. Laws don't change people's hearts, but they can keep them from lynching me. That's a pretty good place to start. I call that a slam dunk. I think he won that particular argument. I think maybe even more importantly is a basic question. Does Jesus talk about politics? Does Jesus have a politic? Did he care about

only the human heart and spiritual matters? Or did he have concerns which expanded outside of that? And the more I've read my Bible, the more I've studied Jesus, the more I've come to the conclusion that the answer to that question is yes. Last fall, right before the presidential election, Christians were asking WWJV, who would Jesus vote for? Oh, so like the bracelet, WWJD, what would Jesus do? Yeah, they wanted to know if Jesus had a vote. Who would he cast it for? Just out of curiosity. Anybody here wear one of those bracelets?

Keith? Heck, no. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I wasn't wearing that one of those. I would be honest. definitely had one. You did? But have you guys heard about the new new one? No. V trendy right now. He would love first. H.W.L.F. I've seen people wearing, they wear both of them. It's a very trendy thing in the college world. I haven't seen it around at all. But you can tell by Daniel's

stories that he grew up in a Christian home. Yeah. Went to a Christian school. Yeah. And had all the bracelets. Probably said the Pledge of Allegiance over and over. You get suspended from that school. Oh, yeah. Expelled. Expelled. Wow. Profound. dozens asked America to be their Lord and Savior. Yep. Daniel's truth. Wow.

That is brutal, man. No, so yeah, this last fall, people are asking, who would Jesus vote for? And so Keith and I, we actually let a class. I was called who would Jesus vote for? And I thought about this question. Maybe some people would say he's going to vote Democratic or Republican. Maybe others would say Jesus would vote for himself. But the truth is, Jesus can't vote.

That's the answer, the question. Because why? He's not a U.S. citizen. Oh, yeah. He doesn't meet the legal requirements. And according to Romans 13, you got to follow the law, baby. You've got to follow the law. So if Jesus had voted, it would have been illegal, like trying to steal an election or something like that.

It would have been vote packing. Even if Jesus could have voted, he wouldn't have voted for himself. I mean, that would have been an incredible demotion. You go from king of the universe to president of one nation with a four-year-time. term. The throne of heaven to the Oval Office. Yeah, I mean, that might be a promotion for you and me, but it would be a big demotion for Jesus. Absolutely. One reason I've become increasingly convinced that Jesus does have a politic is actually around this idea of heaven. Now, for a lot of evangelicals, when they hear the term heaven, what gets really Christians in general, what gets queued up in their

minds are visions of the afterlife. So if you read a passage in the Bible and it says something about God establishing his throne in heaven. What we hear is, oh, this is talking about the place I go when I die. And the reality is when the Bible talks about heaven, that's not what it's talking about. Heaven from a biblical perspective isn't the place of the afterlife. Heaven from a biblical perspective is the place of God's throne. It's the place where God rules, where God reigns. It's his command center. So let's just put some Bible verses to what you just said. Psalm 2,4. says that God is the one who is enthroned in heaven. In other words, he sits on his throne where in heaven, because that's the place that he rules from. And in the ancient world, a throne was the

place where the politics happened. That's where you have your court. That's where you have decisions that are being made about both domestic and international policies. Again, the throne was the Oval Office. So every time you read Throne in the Bible, it should be Jesus's Oval Office is in Heaven. Yeah, like we have a Congress, a judicial branch, an executive branch, but all those are wrapped up in the throne in the ancient world or in any world that there's a monarchy who rules the nation. So in other passages, the Lord has established his throne, his Oval Office, in heaven, and his kingdom rules overall.

If Jesus isn't political, that's a nonsensical statement. His kingdom is ruling overall. Well, that's a politic. That has something to do with how he engages with other nations. So when Jesus presents himself in his ministry, think about how he presents himself and what title he takes on. Because I think when we hear his titles, we think of them as religious or spiritual. But if you lived in the first century, you wouldn't have heard it the same way. So one example, Son of God. I was always taught that Son of God was a way of saying that Jesus is God.

But is that how people in the ancient world would have heard it? No, not at all. The Son of God was the Roman emperor, specifically Augustus, who's the Roman emperor, declared his kind of adopted father, Julius Caesar, to be God after his death. So that he could be called the son of God? Exactly. And in fact, when we see Roman coins with Augustus's picture on it, he's called the son of God. So now when Jesus comes and he takes that title, do you see what the people in the first century are hearing?

They're hearing that Jesus is taking on the name, the title, the authority of the Roman emperor, the king of the known world. And it's not just Son of God. Jesus calls himself Savior. He calls himself Lord, the bringer of peace. His birth is announced as a gospel, as good news. And again, if you know anything about Roman culture, these were all titles and terms that were used to talk about Caesar. Caesar was called the Savior. He was called the Lord. He was called the bringer of peace. And there's a inscription that was actually found that was made in Pree-N. And it says that Caesar's birth is the gospel. It's the good news that he was bringing peace to all humanity. When you realize that when Luke starts calling Jesus all of those things and describing his birth at that time, this is a radically political statement. So in Rome, the good news was that Augustus had come and he was going to bring the Pax Romano or the Roman peace to the whole world. And now here comes the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is that the true king of the universe has come to bring real universal lasting peace. And then think about Jesus' death. After he's nailed to the cross, they put on that cross.

the title, King of the Jews. Which was his sentence. That's what he was convicted of. So it's pretty clear what they were crucifying him for. They weren't crucifying him because he was this guy who went around and said, Love your neighbor. They were crucifying him because he claimed to be a king, and that kingship of Jesus was a threat to Rome. Yeah, he was crucified for treason. He wasn't crucified for saving sinners. Now, his crucifixion does, by the way, save sinners, but that's not why he was killed.

And it's also not why the early Christians were martyred one after another. You know, the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 320 that we are citizens of heaven. Again, that's a treasonous statement if you are a citizen of Rome. And Paul was a citizen of Rome. Let's just go back for just a second. Think also of Herod, King Herod, when the magi come, they've heard about the birth of this new king. And Herod freaks out and tells them to go worship the king, but then come back and tell him where he is. Why does Herod freak out?

Well, it's because he thinks he's the king of that area. that area. And now he's being told that there is a new king and he wants to eradicate that king, which is why he sends his people to go kill all the babies, because he's trying to eradicate the king. So Jesus comes on earth and he announces himself as a rival to Caesar. That's political. His followers then follow that up by saying, and by the way, we aren't citizens of Rome. We're citizens of heaven. We're citizens of the place where Jesus's oval office, his throne is. That's what determines our politics. That's what determines how we live. And again, this is why they are executed. And all this fits, by the way, into the bigger picture of the Bible and how the Bible talks about

world powers, which makes me think about the book of Daniel, a book which talks a lot about the empire. So in Daniel chapter 7, he has a vision of these monsters. There's all these crazy beasts. They're coming up out of the water. And one is devouring the next, is devouring the next, is devouring the next. And he goes on to reveal that each of these violent monsters is a different empire. You've got the empire of Persia and then the empire of the Greeks and the empire of the Romans. And at the end of all of those empires, something new shows up, except it's not an animal. It's a person. It's a human.

And this human conquers all of the animals. And that human calls himself the son of man. So the point Daniel is making is that all these empires come and go. They look fierce. They look like they're going to last forever. They have so much power, so much glory, but they eventually crumble. And they crumble in the presence of the one who is the true king, whose kingdom will never end. That while we look at our world and see it ruled by human empires, the reality of now and fully later is that Jesus's empire is the one that will last. Yeah, Jesus called himself the son of man. In fact, it was his favorite title for himself. And he's clearly going back to Daniel 7.

So if you want to say Jesus isn't political, you've got a major problem because the titles he picked for himself, not just in terms of roaming culture, but also in terms of the story of the Bible, all suggests that he saw himself as the one who is coming to conquer and end the reign of human powers. That is an incredibly political idea. Now, I can imagine that some of you are uncomfortable because when you hear us talk about Jesus being political, what you're hearing is not what we're saying, but what you're hearing is that Jesus is partisan. He's a Republican. He's a Democrat. He's a libertarian. That Jesus supports a particular party platform or a political candidate. That's not what we're saying. In fact, I've known a lot of Christians who have a Democratic Jesus. Other Christians who have a Republican Jesus. What about therapy Jesus? There's Therapy Jesus. Plattitude Jesus. Starbucks Jesus. There's dinosaur. There's dinosaur Jesus is your buddy. Jesus is your homeboy. That's not what we're trying to do right now. We are not trying to present Democratic Jesus or Republican. because Jesus isn't partisan. At least the real Jesus of the Bible, he's not partisan. He is political.

So does Jesus have a political party right now in 2021 in the United States of America? Well, of course not. No, absolutely not. But he does have a politic. Now, maybe we're using that word in a way that you're unfamiliar with. Yeah, I mean, I've said the word politic about two dozen times. I'm sure someone wonders, what in the world is a politic? So maybe it's time to define it. There's a guy named Lee Kamp. He wrote a book called Scandalous Witness and just for fun, let me tell you, that I was reading this book about a year ago and I'm halfway through it, maybe not even that far. And I'm on my elliptical early in the morning reading and I stop and I text Patrick like at 5.30 in the morning and I said, I just found your new favorite book of 2020.

And it turns out, I think he nailed it. I think I read it several times in 2020. I bet you have. It's not very long. No, it's easy to reread. But Lee Camp defines what a politic is. So let me just read this paragraph. And just ask yourself this question as Keith is reading.

Does Jesus talk about this kind of stuff? He says, a politic is an all-encompassing manner of communal life that grapples with all the questions the classical art of politics has always asked. And now he's going to list some of these questions. How do we live together? Yeah, Jesus talked about that one. How do we deal with offenses? How do we deal with money?

How do we deal with enemies and violence? Definitely something Jesus never talks about. How do we arrange marriage and families and social structures? How is authority mediated, employed, ordered? How do we rightfully order passions and appetites? And much more besides, but most especially at these. Where is human history headed? What does it mean to be human? What does it look like to live in a rightly ordered human community that engender is flourishing, justice, and the peace of God? So every political party has answers to those questions. Every nation state has answers to those questions. And Jesus has answers to those questions. And that's what we mean when we say that Jesus is

political, not partisan. He has his own answers. He doesn't need to ask Joe Biden or Donald Trump or anybody else to get his opinion on these issues. He doesn't need to listen to Fox or CNN. Jesus has the answers. That's his politic. So the question is, how do we give our loyalty to Jesus? Remember, that's where we started this whole conversation about can we pledge allegiance to the flag or not. The real question there is who gets our ultimate loyalty. Jesus is our country. And of course, we want to say Jesus, but now we're still citizens of this country. And now we've got to figure out how do we operate as Christians to bring God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, which is what Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6. And I think if you're personally partisan, you have to ask

yourself the question, what comes first in my heart? Is it going to be my political party, my political party's agenda, or is it going to be Jesus's political agenda? One of the best examples I've seen of this in recent history was a guy named Tim Farron. Keith, maybe you can introduce who he is. Tim Farron was a British politician. He had risen to the top of his party, the party leader of the liberal Democrats. Now, you can't always make a one-for-one correspondence between English politics and political parties and American political parties.

But nonetheless, Tim Ferren was the leader of this party, and it was. more left, more progressive. It was a very progressive party. Especially on social issues. So Tim Faron is a man of deep Christian conviction who's trying to lead a political party that is pro-choice for same-sex marriage and is more liberal and progressive on other social issues. And his personal position, I believe, is that he was pro-life and he was not personally for same-sex marriage, but he didn't necessarily bring that. He was happy to work with the party and go the other direction. So we can all have some sort of sympathy to him because to be involved in politics, whether it's England or the United States, is to have to figure out how do I keep my convictions,

knowing that everybody else in my party doesn't necessarily share those convictions. So he started getting a lot of negative pushback from people in his party who held the progressive policy positions and they demanded that he hold them to. Not just that he lead the party through it, but that he personally hold those convictions. And he was in this tough spot. How do I lead a party from my Christian convictions when a party doesn't align with my own personal beliefs. So he ends up choosing to resign. And his speech, you can listen to the whole thing on YouTube, it's actually great, but there's one part at the very end that I find deeply moving.

So let's listen to that. You see, I joined our party when I was 16 years of age. It is in my blood. I love our history, our people, our values. I love my party. Imagine how proud I am to lead my party. And then imagine what would lead me to voluntarily relinquish that honor. In the words of Isaac Watts, it would have to be something so amazing, so divine. It demands my heart, my life, my all. Thank you. Yeah, so the point to take away here is that Tim Farron put his loyalty to Jesus above his political party. Now, when we think about Jesus' politics, what we want to remember is that they're not left,

they're not right, and they're not religious. That's exactly right. When we think about Jesus' politics, it doesn't neatly fit onto the left or into the right, and it's not religious. Now, I think we should take each one of those backwards. Let's start with what it means that Jesus' politic is not religious. It's kind of goes back to where we start with my argument, with my friend, that there's a lot of people who think that you have your spirituality in one little compartment, and you have your

politics in a different compartment. An interesting illustration of that was John F. Kennedy. He was the first Catholic president to be elected, and there were these questions that circling him of if he became president, would the Pope control him? Yeah, and the run-up to the 1960 election where he ran against Nixon, people were afraid that if Kennedy was elected, that the Pope would really be the president of the United States and that JFK would simply be his puppet. So to help assuage Protestant Americans, he goes in front of a very large group of Baptist pastors,

and he gives a speech about this topic. And catch what he says. He says, whatever issue may come before me as president, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling, or any other subject, I will make my decision without regard to religious pressures or dictates. That probably won him a lot of Baptist votes, right? That's what they wanted to hear. But I take it that you're saying that it's not necessarily the Christian way to think about it. Yeah, well, I mean, think about what he's communicating. He's saying, my Christian faith is private.

It's a private personal matter about my maybe personal moral. and how I run my own family, but it has nothing to do with the public sphere. I won't bring that into my politics. And there's a lot of cultural pressure on Christians to keep their faith out of the public square. In other words, they don't care if you're a Christian in your home or your private life. What they care about is if you try to bring that faith into discussion about cultural or political ideas. So there's a New York Times columnist. I think he's a former columnist now. He's gone on to Duke University to be a professor if I got it right. His name's Frank Bruney. He's an openly gay columnist of The New York Times. I loved read him. I thought he was a great writer. I remember when he was writing

in 2015 on the Obergefeld decision leading up to that court case, he said this in his column. He said, I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish in their pews, homes, and hearts. So you see how he wants you to keep your faith private, but don't bring it into the public discussion, I don't think Jesus goes for that. And unfortunately, there's plenty of Christians who would happily agree with Frank Bruni on this point. I see two big problems with this. The first one is, if Jesus isn't shaping your politics, who does? Somebody is going to fill the void. It might be Fox. It might be CNN. It might be your favorite politician, but you're not going to become apolitical. Right. Everybody brings their

worldview into a political discussion. And what they're saying is we're going to bring our worldview in, but you people of faith, you keep it out. And if you're willing to trust Jesus on the most significant things, I'll trust you with my salvation, with my life, with my eternal security, but politics, I think there might be some people who know a bit more than you on this one. I'll trust you with my eternal life, but not my daily life. I think when we start thinking about it that way, we realize how absurd it is. Jesus is the wisest human to ever live.

He's the best king to ever reign. If there's anybody to ask political questions to, it's got to be Jesus. And the second problem is that when you read the Gospels, you encounter a Jesus who makes claims about all of life, not just the spiritual area of your life. Yeah. When he starts his ministry, we read about it in Luke 4. He's in Nazareth, his hometown. And I guess in his hometown, he was the most popular Torah reader. They brought out some scrolls.

This one's from the book of Isaiah. And he begins to read this passage from Isaiah where he says, I am the fulfillment of these things. And if I understand it right, he picked this passage to read, correct? He's selected. It says they gave him the scroll. He opens it up. He finds the place and he says, this thing that Isaiah talked about, it's happening now in your presence. He's making a point. Ask yourself the question. Is Jesus talking about spiritual or material things? Okay, let's go. Luke 418. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, spiritual or material. Well, he didn't say the poor in spirit. He says that in other places, but here he just says, I'm giving good news to economic

impoverished people. Okay, let's keep going. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, just prisoners to their sin or literal prisoners. Again, let's pause here. In Luke's second edition, he has lots of stories about literal prisoners being set free. Luke's second edition. Axe. Oh, okay. His second book, his follow-up. Luke two. Revenge of the Luke. What edition do I have in my Bible? Is it the first? The second book? That's good. Yeah, the second edition of Luke. I don't know if you've heard it. You mean the sequel? The sequel. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, that makes more sense. Not his second edition. You're right.

Okay, let's keep going. But just to note what Jesus said, he is proclaiming freedom for prisoners, which literally happens later on in the story. And recovery of sight for the blind. Did he say people who are spiritually blind or blinded by their sin? Well, no. And I do think Jesus deals with that. But what does Jesus do in his ministry? He goes around, he finds real life blind people, and guess what? He gives them sight again. He says, to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And that last phrase is taken from Leviticus. And talks about this time called the Jubilee, when people would be set free from their deaths. So again, it has this economic dimension to it. So it's hard to say, if Jesus is going to start

his ministry reading this passage saying it's coming true, it's hard to walk away and say he only cares about spiritual things. Yeah, I think depending on the tradition you've come from, this might be blowing your mind that Jesus isn't just concerned about attending church or a Bible study or memorizing verses. He's concerned about your whole life. And just to pick up on the theme that Patrick's talking about in the book of Luke, the same author writes the book of Acts. And what you find is that where the gospel goes and where the church goes, it attacks not only spiritual problems, but also physical, real world problems. For example, the early church shares resources, food and other financial resources to take care of the needs of real people.

You might call it communitarianism. But not communism, Patrick. It's not communism because it's not run by the state. But it's community-oriented. It is a community-oriented generosity. And they do the same thing when it comes to the famine in Jerusalem. Paul goes around and he collects money to take care of the people who are experiencing the famine. Or you see, like Patrick already alluded to, that there are many prisoners who are set free. So what you're seeing is the prophecy about Jesus coming true in real time. And it is both spiritual and physical.

We want to be clear. We're saying both. We're not saying it doesn't matter. if you read your Bible. I mean, we've got a whole podcast called 10-minute Bible talks where we help people. We're pro-bibble, right? Yeah, we're for the Bible. We're for your heart being transformed. We're for personal holiness. We just don't want to stop there. We want the whole Jesus, not just the little part of Jesus. Maybe the last illustration of this point is the prayer that Jesus taught us all to pray. Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come on earth as in heaven. He didn't teach us to pray,

your kingdom come when I die and go to heaven. So Jesus has a politic here. He's, He wants his kingdom to come to earth. He wants the politic of heaven to be alive on earth. Yeah, so it completely blows your mind to think that God's kingdom is going to come on earth instead of us leaving earth and going up somehow in the sky to God's kingdom. But the main takeaway here is that Jesus' politic is not religious. It's not only concerned about the spiritual area of your life. It's concerned about all of life.

So if Jesus' politic isn't religious, it's not. just Jesus concerned about spiritual things. Maybe the next temptation is to think that his politic is a politic of the right. Because in America, at least, in our modern moment, religion and the right, they've had a little merger. Well, there's a lot of people in Jesus' day who wanted him to restore Israel, that they were looking for make Israel great again. Right? I mean, they were. That Rome had come in and Rome had oppressed them. They'd had a number of oppressors throughout the years. And what they were hoping is that Jesus was going to come, sit on a throne in Jerusalem, appoint the disciples to important roles, and reign and rule Jerusalem, overthrowing the Roman

overlords. So there was a temptation in Jesus' day to do two things at once, to seek after power so that you could make your nation the best. You could make your nation the greatest. And I think we see that exact same temptation happening on the right. So just as Christians today are tempted with power, including political power. So Jesus was offered the same political power if he would just worship Satan. Here's how it plays out in Matthew 4.8. This is in the desert where Satan is tempting him. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world

and their splendor. All this, I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Now, you hear the temptation. You can have power. You can bypass the cross and go right straight to be the one who is in charge of all the kingdoms of this world. You can make Israel great again. But Jesus responds, away from me, Satan, for it is written, worship the Lord your God and serve him only. In a few weeks, I'm not quite sure how many will have an interview with a guy named Greg Walk. If you don't know who Greg Locke is, that's probably not a giant deal. But a lot of people do. He's got about 2.5 million followers online. He's become famous for being anti-vaxxer and telling people they can't come to his church if they wear masks. But part of this is also interfacing with what we're talking about, a form of Christian nationalism, where he has, for example, he was there on January 6th to lead prayer events. And he has this idea that God wants to, in some sense, make America a great country. And when I asked him the question, why do you like Donald Trump?

His answer was really straightforward. He goes, because he gives me power, because he's giving me a seat at the table. power is an incredibly addictive drug and we'll do almost anything to get more of it. That's what makes Jesus is turning down the power that Satan offered him so remarkable. Oh, it is remarkable. Let's assume the best in the temptation. Jesus might have thought to himself in this moment, well, gosh, if I got all the power, think about all the good things I could accomplish, all the wonderful things I could do. And yet he resists it because he understands there are both right and wrong ways to get power.

And unfortunately, according to Jesus, the right way to get power is dying on a cross and laying down your life. It's not compromising your ideals by, in his case, worshipping the devil or your nation or whatever else might come before God. So Andrew Sullivan is a heterodox thinker who has been let go by major media corporations and now has his own substack that is behind a paywall. Before he went behind the paywall, Andrew Sullivan wrote an article for New York Magazine called America's New Religions, where he talks about how politics is the new religion. in that article, he takes to task both the right and the left. Now, in a moment, we're going to get to the left. But first, let's start with how he takes the right to task, especially in how they crave power.

Maybe we'll cue up some fun music for this one to capture the spirit of the moment. Oh, I've got it. Okay, here we go. Yes, many evangelicals are among the holiest and most quietly devoted people out there. That's me. Some have bravely resisted the cults, but their leaders have tribalized a religion explicitly built by Jesus as E.T. Tribal. They have turned to idols, including their blasphemous belief in America as God's chosen country. They have embraced wealth and nationalism as core goods. Two ideas that are utterly anathema to Christ. They are indifferent to the destruction of the creation they say they believe God made. And because their faith is unmoored, but their religious impulses, strong. They seek a replacement for religion. This is why they could suddenly rally to a cult called Trump. He may be the least Christian person in America, but his persona met the religious need their own faiths had ceased to provide. The terrible truth of the last three years is that the fresh appeal of a leader cult has overwhelmed the fading truths of Christianity. So you hear there's

two temptations here. There's a temptation to power, and there's a temptation to nationalism, kind of American exceptionalism. America is the greatest nation on earth. God's behind America. God promises to bless America. All that's wrapped up in what Christians on the right are often tempted to. Yeah, we're not, by the way, saying that all Christians on the right buy into these idols. We're saying this is the temptation. This is the risk on the right is to idolize nation and to idolize power. And that's problematic because Jesus chose against power. And Jesus's tribe, the people he's brought together is people made up of every tribe, every tongue, nation. So there is no special nation for God. To be really clear, we're not saying that you shouldn't love your country. Just like Patrick was pointing out, there is a veteran of the Afghanistan war who was

willing to go risk his life for his country, loved his country that much, but was unwilling to say the Pledge of Allegiance because he wanted to make sure his loyalties were in the right order. So that's all we're saying. Love your country. Let's just make sure our loyalty is to Jesus first. It's like Russell Moore, who's a great theologian said, we can be Americans. best if we're not Americans first. In other words, put Christ first. That'll make you a better American. So if Jesus's politic isn't religious, it's not just Jesus cares about spiritual stuff. If it's not on the right, it's not buying into the idols of power or nation, then could it be that Jesus's politics is on the left? Let's talk about that next. So if Jesus isn't on the right,

I guess that means he's on the left. We finally narrowed it down. You've cracked the case. Okay, let's move on. Thanks for listening. All Christians vote Democratic. Well, maybe not so much because if people on the right are tempted by power and nationalism, people on the left have their own temptations. And that is that they believe that government and maybe humanity in general can create its own utopian society in the here and now. It's almost as though we want the kingdom of God without King Jesus present. I love that.

So who's going to bring in the kingdom, if not Jesus, themselves? The state or political candidate? a cultural movement. We want the kingdom. We want all the blessings that Jesus has offered and promised, but we don't want Jesus to be the one who does it. We want to do it ourselves. And interestingly, this was a temptation that Jesus himself had to face. There's a story in all the Gospels about Jesus feeding 5,000 people miraculously. But John is the only one who tells an interesting story about what happened afterwards. It says that Jesus, this is John 615. Jesus, knowing that they, the crowd, intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew to a mountain by himself.

And so let me try and paint the picture in its cultural context. In that day, people went hungry all of the time. And feeding people was a major political act. If you were the one who could feed someone, you were the ruler. Feeding people was utopian. And so Jesus comes along. He feeds people. And what do they say? We want to be a part of this kingdom. We want to be a place where our bellies are full. We want utopia. And they come after Jesus and say, hey, we're going to make you king, let's start the utopia right now, and Jesus says this isn't how it works. Yeah, can you imagine having people say that they want you to be their king, their ruler, how much we love power. You can imagine Jesus being tempted to say, yeah, make me your king, make me your ruler, but he knew that they didn't really want him as king. What they really wanted

was full bellies. But can we just pause for a second and say that it seems easy for someone to just go to the mountains. Hey, I can't deal with this situation. I'm going to go to Breckenridge, right? Are you stressed out looking for a vacation? Well, I'm just, saying, you know, every time I hear, oh, hey, let's just go off to the mountains. Let's experience the piece of the mountains. I'm like, that's expensive. I don't think, I don't think Jesus was going to Breck. I think he was just escaping. He was escaping. He was escaping the crowd. And he was escaping the crowd to make it absolutely crystal clear that he wasn't going to allow himself to be co-opted into his social justice mission.

So remember Patrick read from the Andrew Sullivan article about politics becoming the new religion. And we said he would not only take on the right, but he would also, Take on the left. So if you enjoyed him going after one side, well, you get it now. It's about to burn. So here we go. Hit it, Dan. And so the young adherence of the Great Awakening exhibit the zeal of the Great Awakening.

They punish heresy by banishing sinners from society or coercing them to public demonstrations of shame and provide an avenue for redemption in the form of a thorough public confession of sin. Social justice. Now he has that in quote. justice theory requires the admission of white privilege in ways that are strikingly like the admission of original sin. A Christian is born again and activist gets woke to the belief in human progress unfolding through human history, itself a remnant of Christian eschatology. It adds the linenist twist of a cadre of heroes who jumpstart the revolution. So Andrew Sullivan's point here is that the left, again, is tempted to create a utopia.

But the way it creates that utopia is incredibly religious, as he points out, instead of admitting sin, we admit privilege. Instead of being born again, you get woke. Instead of believing that God's kingdom is coming to earth, that's Christian eschatology, the idea that there is going to be an end to this story. It says, hey, that's going to happen now. And the way it happens now is through activists and heroes who are willing to jumpstart that revolution. Today, the revolution on the left is led by a group of progressives. Well, there were progressives in the first century, too, that wanted to throw off the oppression of those in power. It sounds very familiar to the political discussion that is happening today on the left.

But I think you'll be surprised by who the moral progressives were in the first century. So the group that modern progressives are closest to is actually probably the Pharisees. Now, I know that's going to shock some people. When you hear Pharisees, you probably think about conservatives, people with conservative sexual ethics, that kind of thing. But that's not the case in Jesus' day. You see, the Pharisees were at their heart a revolutionary movement. They wanted to throw off the yoke of Rome, and they thought the way that God's kingdom would come on earth was by living out highly moral, highly just lives. That's the way the revolution happens. And so this meant that they enforced strict morals, which included public shaming and

public confessions of sin. Sound like anyone? It included, on top of that, exclusion of people who did not abide by their moral norms, again, very similar to modern progressives. It included public demonstrations in favor of their political agenda. And they thought by living these kinds of lives, that was going to be the thing that caused the revolution. And I think we're seeing the exact same thing happen with progressives. Just add to that list that the Pharisees were big on public shaming. Think of the woman who's getting ready to be stoned for adultery. And that's the same kind of public shaming that we see today on social media or people being run out of their jobs because they've said the wrong thing. Or when you look at diversity trainings that are being forced in HR departments,

which is essentially saying you have to change the way you think because until everybody thinks the quote unquote right way, the revolution can't start. We can't transform. And again, Pharisees had an entire education system built around changing how people thought and acted morally and they were vigorous about enforcing their morals against people who disagreed. Now, just to be fair, there have been times where conservatives in our country have taken on the role of the Pharisees and tried to enact legislation or tried to force people into acting a certain way, thinking that by acting according to a moral code, God's kingdom would come. But today, at this particular moment that we're speaking into, the left has a lot in common with the Pharisees. So if Jesus' politic isn't spiritual, it's not religious, if it's not on the right, it's not tempted. by power and nationalism. It's not on the left. It's not seeking to build a utopian society through

moral rules rigorously enforced. Well, then we're left with the question. What is it? All right. So Jesus' politics is not right. It's not left and it's not religious. Well, so where does that leave us? And that's what we're going to wrestle with on truth over tribe. That's what a lot of our conversations together, a lot of the people that we're bringing in to interview, those are the kind of things that we're going to discuss. And we're not saying that we have all the answers. If we could in one podcast summarize Jesus' politic, we will have accomplished something no one else has. I'm not very hopeful about that. But we do think that Christians should be actively dialoguing about political and ethical and cultural topics and thinking through them

carefully, both in light of what Jesus says and in light of what we know to be true about the world. Yeah, so we as Christians have a responsibility to bring our faith in a winsome, loving way, into the public square and bring it to bear on the conversations our culture is having. Now think about this for a second. If we're only going to talk about Jesus paying for sin and going to heaven, I don't want to minimize that. All that's important stuff. But if we're going to have that as our primary thing we're talking about, then we're going to miss out on this large conversation that our culture is having because they're trying to figure out how do we think about the environment and business? How do we think about racial justice?

How do we deal with this virus and provide safety? And yet at the same time allow for freedom. These are the conversations the culture is happening. every day, and Christians have something to say in that moment. We have something to speak into that conversation, but we're going to have to be thoughtful. We're going to have to be winsome and how we approach it, and we're going to have to be willing to be courageous to speak up in a humble, kind way. So over the next few months, we're going to have episodes that touch on topics that maybe

you're not used to hearing Christians talk about. And I think this is a huge opportunity to engage in the conversation Keith just opened up. We're going to listen to voices that we agree with and voices that we disagree with. We're going to try to model what it looks like to be people who are willing to have dialogue in the public square and not just come up with the answers and offer them to everybody else. This is going to be hard for you to listen to if you're the kind of person that can't handle disagreement, gray areas. You can't handle pushback on your views. I love that kind of stuff. There's nothing better than to be shown I'm wrong because I know I'm wrong on things.

It's just I don't always know what they are. And so if somebody can show me where I'm wrong, now I can leave my wrong position and embrace a right position, a true position, more helpful position. So Patrick and I love to dialogue with people who disagree with us or just have a new perspective. So if you're willing to go along on a ride with this, if you're willing to be open-minded, if you're willing to be challenged, if you're willing to suspend judgment, to not have to be right, to not have to defend your turf or your tribe, I think you're going to love the next few months in what we have to. have in store. But on the other hand, if you're the kind of person that's always got to be right and everything's got to be put neatly in the box. Just turn us off because I don't want any hate mail. Yeah, it'd be better for you to find something else to listen to because this is going to be way, way, way too stressful for you. So here's a closing thought. Heaven has a politic. Jesus has a politic. And we are going to be most faithful to him when we

apply his political vision to our lives, to our communities, and to our country. Now, that's not easy to do. It's not always clear what the answers are, but that's the journey we want to go on right alongside you. Thanks for listening. If you found this podcast helpful, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. And make sure it's at least five stars. Stop. No, just be honest. Reviews help other people find this. Okay, okay. At the very least, you can share today's episode, maybe put it on your social, your favorite text chain. And if you didn't like this episode, awesome. Tell us why you disagree on Twitter. At truth over tribe underscore. We might even

share your thoughts in an upcoming newsletter. If you're still listening after the credits, thanks so much for joining us. I really hope that you will take the time right now to go and subscribe to Truth Over Tribe on your podcast player. We want to go on this journey as a community, thinking about politics, about culture, about our life together in a Christian way. We know that we won't agree on everything with you, and that's part of the fun. We'd love to hear back from you.

You can tell us where you disagree. And if you become a part of this community, we might even share some of your thoughts.