Silencing the Critics, Part 1

It is the mission of individuals within the church to accept their vocation, their sacred calling from God, where God has placed them to take into that world their Christian conscience, their Christian conviction, their Christian character to bear upon their world of education and science and mathematics and law and government or whatever influencing them who will never come in here. It's God's desire that his people be influential.

It's not that we're trying to make our own mark on the world, but rather we're trying to impact our world for Jesus Christ. One of the areas where Christians can make a difference is politics. What's the relationship between the believer and the government? How important should politics be in the life of a Christian? What's the biblical limits on our political engagement? Today, Stephen Davey begins a series called, Above Politics and Parliaments.

He's calling this first message, Silencing the Critics. When the Apostle Peter was writing, times were troubling, political upheaval, moral digression, philosophical and religious emptiness and confusion, government corruption, a rise in taxation and economic burdens and on and on and on and on, and this growing threat of persecution which was coalescing. Christians are now scattered all around the empire, misunderstood, maligned, rejected by family members, singled out by employers. Some were even beginning to experience imprisonment and abuse, even some experiencing death.

In addition to all of that, all of these citizens of Rome were living under the reign of an emperor who was growing increasingly insane, even more alarming, all the more brutal and hateful of Christianity. So when the early church, under the reign of Nero, receives a letter like this, it's of course read in the assembly, and by the time you get to chapter two, it becomes a rather startling announcement to the Christians, in fact so much so that I think some of them would have wondered if Peter was slipping into some form of insanity as well, losing his own mind. In fact, if you'll turn to first Peter in chapter two, we're going to read the opening lines in a series of new studies because Peter changes his subject at hand. I'm simply going to call this new series Above Politics and Parliaments. Now as verse 13 opens, which is where we pick up our study, I want you to read it, but at the same time recognize that his audience, the audience of the first century Christian, would have been absolutely stunned, shocked, disturbed to read these words. First Peter chapter two and verse 13, submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him.

Now let's just kind of stop there for quite a while. Actually we've got to lay a little groundwork in context here. In the minds of the early Christians, questions having heard this would be flying around the assembly.

In fact, probably I would guess people would begin to mutter and talk out loud. This subject was so controversial that both Paul and Peter will elaborate on it in their letters. Now the immediate context of verse 13 is provided in the previous verse where we finished studying last Lord's day where the believer is to demonstrate to his culture excellent behavior, this excellent work ethic and attitude, this life of integrity that basically forms an apologetic for the slander against them and for the gospel they believe. Peter reminds them in verse 12 that they are all being scrutinized, they're all being carefully watched by their culture. Evidently, some of their good works is going to spill over into what it means to be a good citizen. Now the larger context that every believer grapples with in every generation, including ours, is how does a believer respond to government? How does a believer interact with government and does a believer attempt to even influence governmental institutions? Now you asked that question today and you're going to get a number of different responses and perspectives. I'm not going to give you all of theirs, I'm just going to give you the right one, okay?

As we dive in, tongue in cheek here. I will say this, there are those, and there are brothers that I appreciate in ministry, who would say that we ought to effectively abandon our culture and abandon politics and the government entirely, emphasizing the preaching of the gospel to the exclusion of any attempt to influence government or political institutions. And yet it's interesting to me, the older I've lived, and I've had my own views tempered over time, those same people would with me express great admiration for people like William Wilberforce.

I mean, what do you do with him? I've often wondered, what would I do as a pastor if William was a member of this church, giving his life and his energy and his wealth to attempt as a member of parliament to stamp out slave trade throughout Great Britain? He was a political leader.

He was driven by his Christian character and his Christian conscience. In fact, both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter clearly emphasized the point that political leaders happen to be appointed by God. And aren't we glad when some believers are appointed? Aren't we glad when there's a Daniel of old or a Joseph with wisdom, leading, involved in the upper echelon of national governmental institution? Aren't we glad to find somebody who acknowledges the glory of God after they've been elected? I see men doing that before they're elected.

I really love it when they do it afterward. Now, while the mission of the church is clearly spiritual and our gospel message is the primary message, God happens to call men and women into spheres of influence, vocatio or vocatio, sacred calling, where they carry their biblically informed conscience, their character, their wisdom, their skill, so that they then spread their influence throughout their worlds of industry or law or medicine or agriculture or education or labor or whatever, even into the world of politics and government. Augustine, the early church theologian from the fourth century, wrote that believers who served in governmental positions were, quote, blessings bestowed upon mankind. And they really are, aren't they? Wayne Grudem, whose massive recent book, in fact, it's just huge. You could hurt somebody with it. It's a big book.

I'm kind of wading through it. It's simply called Politics. Wayne has preached for me in the past, and this theologian and educator summarizes the influence Christians have had on government that we all would applaud today. Christians, he writes, were primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide. They worked hard to outlaw child abandonment and abortion in the Roman Empire by 8374, a number of reforms had taken place. They outlawed by 8404 the brutal battles to the death of the gladiators, which is romanticized in our American media, but it was brutal and evil. They even outlined the punishment of branding the faces of criminals, especially horrific. They instituted prison reforms that included segregating male and female prisoners. Can you imagine what it would have been like prior to that? They stopped the practice of human sacrifice among the Prussians and the Irish.

I've got a little Irish in me. I didn't know they were sacrificing each other, but they were in the past. They argued against and eventually outlawed pedophilia. Christians were primarily serving behind the scenes that brought about the granting of property rights and other protections for women. In fact, they prohibited, if you read the biography of William Carey, you'll find that he combated this with the gospel message, ultimately the changes of the art, but in the middle of it all, he's trying to stop this as well because it was their practice that a widow was burned alive with her deceased husband.

It was considered to be the right of the widow to die. By 1829, they found that to be finally outlawed in India. William Wilberforce gathered weekly with a group of wealthy and influential individuals in Great Britain, and they would strategically plan and pray in how to use their conscience governed by Christ, how to influence their world for the glory of God. They certainly were successful in ending the slave trade by 1840 throughout Great Britain. What's a little lesser known is what they established. They established all these societies. They were called societies. They organized the Society for the Education of the Africans. They didn't just want them free, they wanted them educated. They organized the Society for Bettering the Conditions of the Poor, the Society for the Relief of Debtors. By the way, they saw the release of 14,000 prisoners in a five-year span who were in prison because they were in debt, which then allowed them to get jobs so they could pay off their debt, kind of a novel idea, but they were behind this. They also established hospitals for the poor and the blind.

In fact, if you go back to the first century, the Christians would eventually establish what we would call hospitalization, and Rome only cared about the military, and they were the only ones that received any kind of medical help. They also helped war widows and veterans in need of medical and psychiatric help. And listen to this interesting statement that is brought out by another author I'm reading. He said that Wilberforce and his friends were nicknamed the Saints. They truly were. And we read that they bore this name, which was a derisive term, with gladness. I just happen to be reading the biography of Hannah Moore. I always try to keep one or two of these going.

I find illustrations in them. The biography of Hannah Moore was, she was an interesting woman in Great Britain, and she was a close friend of Wilberforce and just found that to be coincidental, frankly, to my other reading, but she was also a friend of John Newton, whose lyrics we sang earlier, the converted slave trader and author of the more famous hymn Amazing Grace. Hannah Moore's biography, which I'm about halfway through, it includes an anecdote unrelated to her, but because of their friendship, she included it that there was a time when Wilberforce struggled with being a Christian and being in politics, not unlike the struggle I know many have, and the church probably didn't help a lot in that regard. But he wrote his friend and mentor, John Newton, asking him if he should decline political involvement and just focus on his Christian commitments. And John Newton, now an aged pastor, answered Wilberforce by writing him a letter and in the letter saying this, and I quote, stay at your post, do not give up your work, for you have been placed there by God. That's biblical advice. In fact, Paul would write, the governmental authorities have been appointed by God.

Romans 13. By the way, and this is the illustration I kind of wanted to get to, Hannah Moore went against the status quo of her own generation, which viewed the education of women quite differently than we do today. In fact, it was the viewpoint of Rousseau that had won the day, Rousseau lived while Hannah Moore lived, and he didn't believe that a woman ought to be educated, but only to a certain degree, and certainly not in the same classical sciences that men were to study.

In fact, he wrote during the same time Hannah Moore started her school for women, he wrote this, this is Rousseau, you're not going to hear this in the secular education world, certainly, but he wrote that women were only to be educated in whatever related to men, how to please them, how to be useful to them, how to raise them when young, and to care for them when grown. Now, I appreciate all that. In fact, if it weren't for women, we'd all starve, right men? Right men?

Amen. Okay, lunch is coming. I just want you to be aware of that. Now, here's what he said.

This is amazing to me. He said, women should be expected to know just enough to be entertaining for an hour. So, Hannah Moore's ideas about educating women wasn't welcome. In fact, one medical doctor writing during the time of her school agreed with Rousseau, and he wrote with some kind of knowledge, he wrote, now it's laughable, but he said, if women are educated in the same subjects as men, it will harm their reproductive organs. So, what compelled Hannah Moore to violate the status quo and to seek to influence her culture? It was nothing less than the Protestant Reformation and the doctrine of the individual priesthood of the believer.

In fact, she was convinced that women should be able to read the Bible for themselves even in the original languages. And the mission of the church is not to make sure people can read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew or whatever. It isn't to wrestle for government and their control. It isn't as a mission to identify or structure medicine or education or science or law or whatever.

However, this is the point that I think is missed. It is the mission of individuals within the church to accept their vocation, vocario, their sacred calling from God where God has placed them to take into that world their Christian conscience, their Christian conviction, their Christian character to bear upon their world of education and science and mathematics and law and government or whatever influencing them who will never come in here to hear me until perhaps you win them by your testimony and influence. Frankly, I don't know of anybody in the evangelical world today who looks down on a William Wilberforce or a John Newton in his advice or a Hannah Moore in her passion. In fact, the unbelieving world would now look on all that they have done and say, you know, that was good. The status quo was wrong. Culture was wrong.

It took somebody governed in their conscience and character by the word of God to say that's wrong. Frankly, I believe we need a new generation of William Wilberforces and Hannah Moores and John Newtons, a fresh generation of reformers in education and finance and law. We need a Christian conscience on the school board of education in Wake County, by the way. Maybe one of you will run for it. Thank you.

Maybe you'll run for it. We need Christians in every phase of life. I think it's interesting that Paul will commend and greet in his writing to the Philippians in chapter 4, verse 22, because of you who are in Caesar's household.

That means administration. There were believers tucked in there, asking God no doubt for wisdom in how to bring their Christian conscience and character to bear. We need men and women who love Christ, first and foremost, but who like William and others accept their post as that of God's assignment, who will love Christ enough to introduce him to that world of education or business, that classroom where you work into every phase of life. Now that's exactly, I believe, what Peter and Paul have in mind. Now with that in mind, let's dive in and take a closer look at this exhortation.

First of all, I want you to notice the command, verse 13. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Submit yourselves. Literally place yourselves, place your attitude and your posture into that of submissiveness, quiet submission. It carries a sense of urgency by the way.

I think that's because we've already learned in our study that there were slanderous accusations that Christians were seditious, they were treasonous, they wanted to overthrow the government. Well, how do you battle that? Don't plan to overthrow the government. Don't be seditious. Don't rail against the emperor. Submit yourselves, which then means it doesn't matter if you elected them or not. By the way, these people certainly didn't elect Nero. There weren't ballots back then. It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. It doesn't matter if you like them or not.

There was little to agree with or like about Nero. Paul clearly said in his letter in Romans 13, there is no authority except from God. And those which exist are established by God. In other words, they've been placed in power by God, which means that you might not have wanted them, but God evidently did because there they are. So imagine that rather startling statement of God's sovereignty really wants to take you in your perspective over and above politics and parliaments. After all the duty we perform in this free system, which we love, but after all the campaigning and all the debating and all the rhetoric and all the praying and all the talking and all the voting, God's candidate is always elected. See, that's our higher perspective.

At this point in Peter's letter, this would have been a great time for Peter to roll out the Christian strategy for unseating Nero. Persecution is brewing. He's obviously lost his grip on sanity. He has brought his horse to become a member of the Senate.

He's married openly, both men and women. I mean, he's lost it. Now it's time to overthrow the Roman Senate for being so weak as to not stand up to them. But isn't that the way of the world? Isn't that their only hope? Isn't that their only solution? Isn't the world always working on its power moves? They live and breathe that stuff. In fact, it won't be long before Nero's throat will be cut by political opponents.

Study that history and you'll soon learn that emperors normally didn't die natural deaths. So here's how the church shows herself to be unique and different. We have a posture of respect for the office. We work quietly with such excellent behavior and good work, so long as the Scriptures are not violated, by the way.

I don't know if I need to say that, but I'll say it. We're known for our submissive posture, in fact, it's a military term that refers to lining up in rank and file. A soldier might not like his orders. A soldier might disagree with his orders. A soldier might lose his life because of the orders, but he will obey his commanding officer. The Christian happens to have this higher perspective. He knows ultimately that God is in control, that God's purposes are being fulfilled, and we're simply called to demonstrate good works by continuing to do our best and literally helping and influencing our world that does tend to lose its grip on sanity with our Christian conscience and conviction and wisdom and grace.

Now, in case you're wondering if there are any loopholes in this command to submit, Peter's going to kind of close them all down. Notice verse 13, he stops at the very top of the food chain, whether to a king as the one in authority. So he's just starting out at the top of the heap, okay? If you're in an African village, you would render that in your culture – you would understand it to mean chief. If you're in a communist country, you would understand that to be the chairman.

If you're in a democratic culture, you would understand that to be president or prime minister. Here, for Peter's generation, this would mean the emperor. Then Peter adds in verse 14, not just to the king, but to governors as sent or appointed by him. In other words, any official representing the emperor was also one to whom we submit. This would not make it any easier, certainly, especially during the days of Peter because corruption didn't start and stop with the emperor.

It infiltrated the entire empire. Keep in mind that one of the duties of the Christian was to voice disapproval kindly, respectfully. It doesn't mean that just because they were to submit to that authority, that it would violate their own conscience. In fact, it's interesting to me, if you just sort of ransacked the New Testament, you have John the Baptist who spoke openly against Herod's immoral, adulterous relationship with his sister-in-law. By the way, how was that resolved? John literally lost his head, right?

That's why. Pontius Pilate, also a governor, it was to Pilate that Jesus Christ, by the way, delivered that higher perspective that Peter and Paul reinforced that I'm preaching today. Pilate said to Jesus, do you not realize that I have the authority to either release you or crucify you?

Jesus calmly, graciously responded with the truth, you have no authority over me unless it has been given to you from above. There's that higher perspective that takes you above politics and parliaments. It's easy to get caught up and even carried away with politics and government.

Politics is an area that often ends up being divisive and it can become all about winning and losing. As believers, we have a different perspective or as Stephen just put it, a higher perspective. We have more to learn from this message, but we don't have time to get to the end. So we'll stop here and resume this lesson next time. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davy. Today's lesson was part one of a sermon called Silencing the Critics.

It comes from Stephen's series entitled Above Politics and Parliaments. If you missed a portion of this lesson, it's available on our website, which you can find at wisdomonline.org. This series, as well as the archive of all Stephen's teaching is posted there and you can listen to each sermon or read Stephen's manuscript free of charge. That address again is wisdomonline.org. Between now and our next broadcast, we'd enjoy hearing from you.

It would encourage us to learn how God's using this ministry to build you up in the faith. Our mailing address is Wisdom International, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. Let me give you that again. You can write to us at Wisdom International, P.O. Box 37297, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27627. Thanks again for joining us today. Come back next time for the conclusion to this message here on Wisdom for the Heart.