Excuses for Avoiding the Responsibility of Christian Education #2

Christians in the West are gripped in a fearful idolatry. We, like the ancient Israelites, cannot decide who we worship. Elijah asked the Israelites, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” Today we could say, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions. If Christ is king, follow him, but if the state, then follow it.” Nowhere is this idolatry more obvious than in our capitulation in education. Christians give their children to the enemies of Christ in the hope that their minds will be trained. A few weeks ago we began a series on the excuses Christian parents make for avoiding the responsibility of Christian education. There we looked at perhaps the most sanctified excuse – that of wanting our children to be salt and light. Today we investigate another common excuse: socialisation.

Excuse 2: Socialisation

Many parents have noticed that children who are homeschooled, and even to a certain extent children who attend Christian schools (and I’m not talking about the Christian veneer type schools, but Christian down to the roots types), are…well different. They tend not to be as aware of or obsessed with current fashions in clothing, music and thought. It shows. And parents, because they love their children, do not want their children to have a tough time. They want them to have friends and fit in. They don’t want ‘nerdy’ children. They often want their children to be ‘cool’.

However, this ought not to be the primary goal of a Christian parent. We should seek holiness for our children. And that ought to mean they are different to the children brought up with the secular values of mainstream society. Socialisation is the process of a child internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Now if a society is secular and anti-Christ, then we ought not to want that for our children. In fact, if we want that, we cannot call ourselves Christians in any meaningful way. A Christian wants what Christ wants, and Christ wants followers who are not of the world. We want our children to be different. They ought not to fit in. They ought to be an irritation to a society that is in high rebellion to Christ because they will be constantly reminding them of their need to repent, not only by their speech but by their different values expressed in the way they live with Christ as Lord of all.

In Idols for Destruction, Herbert Sclossberg deals briefly with the concept of socialisation and a Christian response.

Society’s most important institutions serve the socializing function, making people better balance and adjusted to the way things are. And that is why they are so dangerous. All education is of necessity value-laden, and the public school is the most powerful of these instruments of conformity. Its goal is to instil society’s norms and to discredit deviant ideas. The best elements of the Christian school movement…is a determined No! by parents to the homogenization of American life, a recognition that the model to which their children are intended to be conformed has become evil.

The Directory for Private (Family) Worship #14

Today we complete our look at the Directory for Private Worship with the fourteenth direction and the concluding paragraph. First the last direction.

XIV. When persons of divers families are brought together by Divine Providence, being abroad upon their particular vocations, or any necessary occasions; as they would have the Lord their God with them whithersoever they go, they ought to walk with God, and not neglect the duties of prayer and thanksgiving, but take care that the same be performed by such as the company shall judge fittest. And that they likewise take heed that no corrupt communication proceed out of their mouths, but that which is good, to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers.

The authors of the directory recognise that there will be times in life where members of a family may be away from each other and perhaps thrown together with other Christians. These Christians will greatly desire God’s presence with them, and therefore they ought not to neglect private worship in these peculiar settings. With Christian wisdom, they will determine who should best lead the ‘family’ worship in these times in such a way as to avoid corrupting speech but rather promote speech that edifies.

The concluding paragraph turns to the two main purposes of the Directory.

The drift and scope of all these Directions is no other, but that, upon the one part, the power and practice of godliness, amongst all the ministers and members of this kirk, according to their several places and vocations, may be cherished and advanced, and all impiety and mocking of religious exercises suppressed: and, upon the other part, that, under the name and pretext of religious exercises, no such meetings or practices be allowed, as are apt to breed error, scandal, schism, contempt, or misregard of the publick ordinances and ministers, or neglect of the duties of particular callings, or such other evils as are the works, not of the Spirit, but of the flesh, and are contrary to truth and peace.

Firstly, the aim of the Directions is to encourage godliness amongst the members of the church while suppressing impiety and godlessness. Secondly, the Directions seek to prevent meetings that are liable to lead to error or schism and a disregard of the church authorities. This is an interesting aim that clashes with modern sensibilities. We do not think that the church authorities ought to determine who we meet with and share the Scriptures with. It’s something I haven’t had to think too deeply about. While I wholeheartedly agree that every Christian ought to be a member of a local church and be under the authority and pastoral care of church leaders there, I wonder if it is too high-handed for such a controlled approach to Christians meeting together. Do church leaders have the legitimate (by which I mean God-given) authority to control which Christians meet with others to share Scripture and talk about their faith? While I can see a biblical mandate for elders rooting out heresy and contending with those who are attempting to create schisms, it seems that this would be better done by shepherds knowing the flock well rather than trying to prevent ‘unauthorised’ meetings. Perhaps I’m wrong here. I’d be interested to know if there is a biblical warrant for such a heavy-handed approach.

Incompetence and Waste

Those who are regular readers will know that we at The Sojournal are opponents of statism. We believe the state has a legitimate role. It is indeed a minister of God, but it has rebelled against God’s role for it and has arrogated more and more power. We have theological reasons for opposing much of its spending and regarding it as theft. However, we understand that not all Christians are yet theologically convinced of our position. After all, most of us have grown up in an environment of statism. It is only natural for us to assume it is normal and right. It’s an unquestioned assumption in our lives. It’s hard to see our cultural blind spots.

However, let me appeal to the pragmatists among you. State control of things outside what we at The Sojournal consider to be their God-given realm tends to be inept and incompetent. You know this. Accountability matters. And when you can’t take your business elsewhere, there is no accountability, and therefore there is always wastage. Today let’s consider the much-vaunted Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme.

On the Ministry of Education website, we are informed that school lunches will be provided at a maximum per child, per day cost of $5 per Year 1-8 student and $7 for high school students. Now any parent with a few kids living on a budget knows that you can feed your children a healthy lunch for under $5 easy. But even this amount seems mild compared to the actual cost to the taxpayer.

A screen capture from the MOE website on 28 August 2021. Highlighting is mine.

According to the Treasury budget at a glance document for 2021, we are allocating $527,000,000 toward the school lunches programme. According to the document which is dated 20 May 2021, there are currently 144,000 students receiving these ‘free’ lunches. Now let’s do a little basic arithmetic. $527 million, divided by 144,000 students should give us the amount it costs to feed one child lunches per year. Then let’s divide that number by the number of school days in a year (190 in 2021). This gives us a figure of $19.26 per child. Now let’s be generous and assume that there is going to be an increase in the number of children being fed. Let’s #be kind and assume that they managed to get this up to 200,000 students. That would reduce the cost to $13.87 per child.

What does it actually cost to feed a child? I feed my children 2-4 slices of bread for lunch, with their favourite spread and provide them with a piece of fruit as well. Sometimes they’ll get a homemade biscuit. How much does that cost? Around $1. I am almost 14 times more efficient than the government at feeding my children. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I am a grumpy old scrooge-like curmudgeon who is half-starving my children, and I ought to spend double what I do on their lunches. That still makes what the government offers nearly 7 times less efficient than me. Furthermore, because I know what my children like, they will actually eat the lunches I provide while “thousands of taxpayer-funded school lunches are being left uneaten by students each week.” Imagine for a moment the good that all this wasted money, confiscated from citizens through taxes, could be used for if its owners were able to choose how to spend it themselves.

Having thus appealed to the pragmatists, I urge you to consider why this is so. Why is it that the government seems to be so incompetent at as simple a task as providing a child with lunch? Why are its attempts at providing welfare, housing and education so bungling? Is it possible that God has so ordered the world that blessing tends to follow cutting along the grain, and cursing and difficulty follow cutting against it. God has ordained the world with different spheres of authority that are charged with different roles. It is not the role of the government to provide food for children. It is the role of parents. God has ordained that the family is to provide food for itself. The father is the God-ordained protector and provider of the family. He is to provide for his children (Genesis 2:15, 3:19). When the family is functioning as it should, it is going to be far better placed to provide food for children.

Should We Seek a Secular Public Sphere?

What most modern Western people (including many Christians) are asking for in the name of ‘freedom’ is in fact a new slavery, when they attempt to secularize the public sphere and pursue freedom without the Lordship of Christ. To object to this by saying that non-believers are not accountable to God’s covenant law (moral law) is finally to say that we have no basis for presenting the gospel to the unbeliever – since Scripture defines sin as lawlessness and only lawbreakers need the gospel!

The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society by Joseph Boot)

Sin is Social

You don’t have to travel far either in the real world or the internet realm to hear a modern man or woman assert that they are OK with an adult choosing to do with their body whatever they want to do. Thus if an adult man wants to sleep with another adult man, that’s OK. If he wants to have his genitalia removed, take hormones and have bits added to him, that’s fine too. If he wants to be involved in polygamy, that’s not a problem. The individual reigns supreme, as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else. Unfortunately, comments like these can even be heard from Christians – which shows how thoroughly secular pluralism has infected our thinking.

A Christian response should be, “What do the Scriptures teach?” They teach that we are not just free-floating individuals. We are social beings. Yes the individual matters, but we are all interconnected. This is seen in the truth that we are literally all connected. We are all descendants of Noah and through him of Adam. We are further connected by the design of the world. God has so made the world, that we cannot live without each other. I cannot build, or do electrical work, or conduct surgery. I need others. This pattern is also seen in the moral design of the world.

So what ethical implications does this connectedness have? It means that all sin is social. Sin is never just individual. No matter how small, it has ramifications for society through the web of relationships that it impacts. The classic case of course is in our representative head Adam, whose sin caused all of his descendants to be caught up in its effects. Another case in Scripture is the story of Achan whose disobedience to God caused his own death, the death of his family, and the deaths of 36 other Israelite men. David’s sin with Bathsheba led to the slow trainwreck of his family. Solomon’s sin of marrying foreign women and going after their gods had geopolitical implications that caused suffering and misery for centuries to come.

Sin is social. This truth is denied in the statement, “He can do what he wants as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone.” Sin always hurts society. Fatherless homes have an impact. Homosexual unions have an impact. This is why Mosaic law dealt with things in a way that seems more than harsh to us. Adultery was punishable by death. Why? Because the impact on society of this sin is horrific. It doesn’t just hurt the rejected spouse and their children. The effects of sin ripple out through our social connections. So as moderns, we think we are over the barbarity of such responses to adultery. Yet our ‘mercy’ is truly cruel. In our ‘kindness’ we allow and promote behaviour that leads to more crime, more teenage promiscuity, a mental health epidemic among teens, and a high rate of suicide. We all have to live with the effects of that kind of society.

Conversion Practices Prohibition Submission

Dear Prime Minister Ardern and Minister Faafoi,

I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing this submission to implore you by the authority of the God of Nations, to abandon this bill and turn from the unjust and wicked spirit that would compel you to write it in the first place.

Both of you bear the honourable title “Minister” and occupy an office worthy of respect and submission. The very title “Minister” as it pertains to civil rulers, comes from the Bible. Romans 13:1-4 teaches that governing authorities are God’s servants (literally ministers) who are obliged to punish evil and praise good. Therefore, Christians are commanded to be in subjection to your God-ordained authority.

Be that as it may, you have betrayed the solemn responsibility of your office. Your authority to govern comes from God. Yet you have betrayed that authority and trust by supporting and promoting this bill. Rather than obediently honouring God in your office, you have sought to usurp authority that was never given to you. You have attempted to take the rights and responsibilities that belong to God alone.

You will give an account before God for the following:

1. The deceptive nature of this bill

From the outset, this bill has been an exercise in manipulation through the control of language. When we hear the phrase “conversion practices” most ordinary people think of electric shock therapy and other abusive practices that do not currently exist in New Zealand. This is clearly intentional. You have intentionally lumped these abusive practices in with ordinary Christian teaching as a bait and switch to coax along ignorant chumps.

You clearly don’t think too much of ordinary New Zealanders, but we see through this. When a teacher, like myself, offers Christian counsel to a student confused about their sexuality, we should not be lumped together with torturers and abusers.

From the beginning, this bill has been championed by radical anti-Christian activists like Shaneel Lall. It is clear that this bill has been designed to target Christians. That much is plain. What is more subtle is the deceptive way you have gone about it. The bill purports to target “conversion practices”, when in reality, it targets those who are trying to affirm boys, girls, men and women in their gender.

2. The unjust treatment of Christian pastors, parents, and teachers

As Christians, we recognise that this world was made by, and is governed by God. He has made mankind as male and female and heterosexual marriages are the natural expression of sexual desire. All attempts to overthrow this creation reality are highhanded rebellion against the king of the universe. We recognise that since Jesus died to pay the penalty for sinners like us, we should gladly submit to his righteous standards for ethical behaviour and moral living.

We teach others to turn to Jesus, recognise him as Lord, and obey all his teachings. This is foundational to our obligations before God. This means that we will indeed teach that God has made boys to grow up into men who love and marry women. This means we will encourage our children, students, and congregations to live in accordance with all that God made them to be. We will teach people to be transformed by the powerful word of God and supress lewd and sinful sexual desires. We will teach people not to rebel against God by seeking to be a member of the opposite sex. We will explain the destructive and perverse results of lifestyles that fail to recognise God’s created order. And we will teach against the radical LGBTQ ideology that is being promoted by our government and many other institutions.

As a teacher in a Christian school, I cannot abide by the proposals of this bill. By definition, I would be castigated as a criminal because all the students I teach are 18 years or younger. Criminalising people like myself for teaching the Christian message and worldview is reprehensible. By doing so you are inviting the judgment of God and placing yourselves under his curse.

Additionally, these laws absolutely exceed the sphere of authority that has been assigned to you. You have no right to tell parents that they can’t encourage their children to live out a Biblical sexual ethic. They are not your children!

All those who set themselves against the Lord and against his people will be held in derision and will come under the wrath of God. Stop seeking to punish the good and righteous teaching of God and his people.

3. The promotion of child abusing LGBTQ ideologies

The real danger to our children and to society is the radical and destructive ethic of the LGBTQ movement. The real and dangerous conversion therapy is practiced by those who seek to chemically and surgically overturn the created order of God. Promoting rank and open rebellion is what should be outlawed, yet this government has demonstrated time and time again that they have no interest in truth and justice.

In order to know how to live and flourish in this world, we must be directed by the life changing message of the gospel. The law of God teaches us how we can best love God and love our neighbours. All other worldviews are ultimately doomed to failure. At the top of the list of destructive worldviews would be the God-denying, self-promoting worldview of radical individualism.

We do not have the right to define what it means to be human. We are creatures. Only the creator has ultimate say about what and who we are, and he has spoken, both in his word and in creation. All attempts to silence his voice can only lead to disaster.

Conclusion

Jesus Christ is Lord. By virtue of his death and resurrection, he has assumed the place of highest authority. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, your authority is a derivative authority. This means that your authority is limited. You do not have the right to legislate immorality. Jesus will judge ministers harshly who have abandoned their duties and who have engaged in open rebellion and warfare against him.

Be that as it may, Jesus is a kind and compassionate ruler who loves to show mercy. In fact, he died to take the penalty for wicked and rebellious servants. He died for homosexual rebels, transgender rebels, and tyrannical rebels. He died to save them from the penalties of their lifestyles, and he now lives to transform them to be made new in Christ.

Recommendations

By the authority of Christ, you are commanded to repent. Abandon this bill. Assign it to the trash heap. Repent for your self-aggrandising lust for power and autonomy. Recognise that Jesus is Lord. Recognise that the only way to govern justly is to do so in light of his Lordship!

If you turn to Christ, you will find him to be a perfect saviour. You will find that his stipulated standards for righteousness and justice are the measure by which you should rule.

I will be praying that you do this.

In Christ,

Ethan Apollo Aloiai

Eternal Fire Insurance Marketing

The modern evangelical tendency to reduce evangelism to a form of ‘eternal fire insurance marketing’ seriously impoverishes our ability to capture a vision of the Messianic kingdom that the evangel is meant to announce and embody.

“The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society” by Joseph Boot

A Childlike Faith

More frequently than I would wish, I come across young Christians who are strongly socialist in their leanings. They vote Labour or the Greens. They have some knowledge of the Christian doctrine of sin, but do not seem to apply it universally. For them, individuals can be sinners. For example, landlords can be greedy when they want to raise rents. Corporations and businesses can sin, as in when they ‘oppress’ their workers by not supporting the raising of the minimum wage or sick leave entitlements. Whole classes and races of people can be responsible for sin; the current example being white privilege. Yet the strange thing is, they never seem to apply this to their political heroes. Whenever you point out that their heroes are promoting legislation that is antithetical to a Christian worldview, they reflexively defend their heroes. For example, attempt to criticise the hate speech legislation as dangerous, or point out that the conversion therapy ban is over the top and liable to lead to parents being hamstrung and they will retort with some vacuous nonsense like, “As Christians, we are called to love,” or “No one is going to punish a Christian parent for speaking biblical truth to their child when they are sexually confused.” Their naivety is culpable stupidity. They are Lenin’s apocryphal useful idiots. Their 17-year discipleship of secular indoctrination has clearly worked.

Dear young socialist Christians. Your child-like faith is misdirected. Placing that child-like faith in anyone but Jesus Christ is idolatry. Repent and develop a healthy scepticism of those in rebellion against your true king.

The Directory for Private (Family) Worship #13

We come now to our penultimate post on the directory for private worship.

XIII. And, because it is not given to every one to speak a word in season to a wearied or distressed conscience, it is expedient, that a person (in that case,) finding no ease, after the use of all ordinary means, private and publick, have their address to their own pastor, or some experienced Christian: but if the person troubled in conscience be of that condition, or of that sex, that discretion, modesty, or fear of scandal, requireth a godly, grave, and secret friend to be present with them in their said address, it is expedient that such a friend be present.

The language here is a little bit difficult. What is being said is that there will be situations where a person might not have someone who is able to give them apt biblical exhortation. Perhaps the situation might be in a family where the head of the household is not a Christian, or new to the faith and ill-equipped for the situation one of the household members finds themselves in. In these situations, when ordinary means, both private (which I take to mean individual Scripture reading and prayer as well as family worship) and public (which I imagine includes the exhortation from the pulpit), have been exhausted and unfruitful, a person is encouraged to seek individual counsel from their own pastor or an experienced Christian. The framers wisely point out that this should be done in a way that avoids potential scandal.

It is interesting to note that this ought not to be the normal way Christians find help. The authors of this directory seem to see this kind of counsel as extraordinary. Building strong Christian homes ought to minimise the need for this kind of counsel. In my experience as a teacher, children from well-grounded homes are far less likely to have mental health issues or require help from others outside of the family.

Render to Caesar What is Caesar’s

In yesterday’s article, we highlighted the general weakness of the church in its thinking on government. It is so weak, that when I use the word government, many Christian readers will automatically assume that I am talking about state government. Some will be unaware of any other God-ordained governments. This is because we live in an era where the state government has increased in power and usurped the power of other legitimate and God-ordained spheres of government causing these to atrophy.

In my experience, when one talks to Christians who have imbibed the statist culture about the immorality of the state’s involvement in education, healthcare and welfare or of the evil of redistributionist taxes, one does not have to wait long before one is told that Christians ought to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. What is most frustrating about these conversations is that what is Caesar’s is automatically assumed to be the status quo. It seems Caesar can never overreach his authority.

The Context

So today we will briefly look at this passage. Jesus was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, and he had aroused the envy-ridden ire of the religious leaders. Jesus had just not-so-subtly condemned them for their unwillingness to submit to him and celebrate him as the son of God in a parable that ended in their destruction and the destruction of their city, a not so subtle reference to Jerusalem. In response, the Pharisees set about fulfilling the prophecy by plotting to entangle Jesus. They wanted to get rid of him. However, Jesus had not only made enemies of the religious leaders, but also the political leaders. Herod was not so fond of him either.

This led, as it has throughout history, to the odd alliance of secular power with religious leadership. Some of the disciples of the Pharisees and some Herodians joined together in an attempt to trap Jesus. The Pharisees hated the idea of Jews paying taxes to some foreign overlord. The Herodians, like Herod, were cosied up to the Romans and wanted the status quo to remain. So this unusual alliance comes to Jesus with flattering words. The attempted trap was a question. “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” The trap was laid and ready to be sprung. They thought they had Jesus. They knew his claim – to be the son of the king. They had witnessed the Messianic triumphal entry. They had rebuked him for not suppressing the kingly ascriptions of the crowd and children who entered the temple precincts with him. They knew the Scriptures. The Messiah would rule the nations and dash his enemies to pieces. But they did not believe Jesus was the Messiah.

So their trap was an attempt to force Jesus to make explicit what had been implicit up until this time or suffer the wrath of the people. If Jesus was truly the Messiah, they expected he would own it by saying everything belongs to me, and therefore Caesar does not have the right to take money from the Jews, my people. This would make him an enemy to Caesar who would brook no opposition to his claims to deity and rule. That would mean death. If on the other hand he wavered and claimed Caesar had the authority to tax the Jews, he would lose the popularity that so provoked them.

Jesus Reply and Its Meaning

So this is the context of Jesus’ reply. It was a trap. Jesus knew his time was very near, but it was not yet. He must die when the times were fulfilled. He had to be the Passover lamb. So Jesus asks for a coin to be brought to him. He asks whose inscription is on the coin. Of course, it is the image of Caesar. Then Jesus says, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God, what is God’s.” The response of those who heard this was to marvel. Jesus had not been trapped and answered in an amazing way. Our problem is we don’t see how amazing his answer was. It was not an answer that ruled in favour of the Herodians or the Pharisees. If we don’t get that, we miss what we should marvel at. Jesus took the trap by its jaws and broke it.

First of all, his listeners are told to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, or what is due to him. That means Caesar does have things that are due to him. Caesar can tax. Caesar does have a legitimate realm in which to exercise authority. The Pharisees, whose hatred for the Romans caused them to reject the tax, hated authority in general. Their king had come, and they plotted how to take his authority. To them, Jesus says, “There are things that you must render to Caesar.”

But there is more. And this is what our modern secularised statist Christians fail to understand. Too often, Christians assume that Jesus is saying that government has carte blanche on what Caesar owns and ought to be rendered. When they tell us to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s they leave the very question of what belongs to Caesar unanswered. They assume Caesar is due everything he claims he is due. Why? Because their secular education with its idol of state and demos has trained them in worship well.

However, as Douglas Wilson often points out, one of the things Caesar is not rendered is the right to determine what should be rendered to him! Jesus’ answer was not simply “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” He finished by saying, “and to God what is God’s.”

The very coin that Jesus asked for, the denarius, had an inscription of Caesar on the coin, and would have had the words “Tiberius Caesar Augustus Son to the Divine Augustus” and on the other side, “Highest Priest”. Do these titles belong to Caesar? Should the early Christians have rendered them to him? Well considering he lies dead to this day awaiting the command of Christ to come out from his grave….of course not. Caesar thought he ought to have these titles rendered to him but they belong to Christ.

Furthermore, his first-century audience, well-versed in Scriptures would have been reminded of another image on something more valuable than a cold dead piece of metal. Man was stamped with the very image of God. Thus each one of those men in front of Jesus ought to have been rendered to God. The Pharisees, who stood in the way of the king ought to have bowed down before him. The supporters of the immoral Herod ought to have given themselves to Christ. All men ought to be rendered to God. All positions of authority ought to be rendered to God. All things ought to be rendered to God, because they are all his.

What does this mean? It means Caesar ought to render himself to God, by governing according to God’s laws, and not arrogating to himself what God has given to others. If he refuses to do this, he is not following Christ’s dictum here. In these very words, Jesus signaled the coming of the end to all totalitarians and self-aggrandizing powers. Nimrod in the days of the tower of Babel, the Pharaohs of Egypt, the kings and rulers of Assyria, Babylon and Persia and Greece, and yes, the Caesars of Rome were totalitarians. They abused and oppressed their citizens. But now, Christ has come, and he sounds the warning to all would-be oppressive regimes. Their end is nigh. Christ is king. He rules. Rulers and enemies who take counsel against him will be dashed in pieces. For he reigns. His yoke is easy and his burden light. And he shall have dominion, not they.

As Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, it conquered in a slow and gradual way. Even Caesar eventually rendered himself to God. As this took place, and as the fruit of Christianity gradually spread over the ensuing two millennia, where Christ’s kingdom has held sway, tyrants have been toppled and a Christian view of government has gradually developed and influenced society giving freedom to citizens. It is because of Christ’s words here in Matthew, and elsewhere that absolute monarchy was abolished. It is because of his words that the Constitution which granted rights to the individual became the founding document of the United States of America. Christ’s rule and reign brings freedom from the old way of tyranny. Unfortunately, as nations turn against Christ and embrace the idol of statism, they will once again suffer tyranny. If we will not render ourselves to God, He will hand us over to the not-so-tender love of our false gods.

In our current setting, we are really in little danger of refusing to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. This is not a problem many of us have. But in what seems a common danger, our leaders will use verses like these ones to challenge us on a sin that few of us are likely to commit while neglecting to highlight the very real danger almost all of us are in. “Make sure you give Caesar his due,” they remind their law-abiding congregations as we struggle to support our families on one income under exorbitant redistributive taxes that reward idleness and immorality. We will rail against a sin that we are unlikely to be committing because it’s more comfortable that way, and our religious leaders can remain ‘respectable’ in the eyes of the secular elite. Once again, just as in Jesus’ time, our religious leaders and secular leaders seem united in their opposition to Christ’s claims of universal lordship.

Let us not settle for that uneasy truce. Let us remember the things we ought to render to God. First of all, we render ourselves to God, not Caesar. We belong to God, not our rulers. When our governments try to tyrannise us or threaten us as if we belong to them, we should tell them in no uncertain terms that they ought to render themselves to God, and that we most certainly will never render ourselves to them. We will say as one, “I will never render complete and utter obedience to you, because I belong to God, and therefore I am not your slave. I was bought by Christ and I am now free.”

Secondly, we will never render our children to them. My children have the very image of God stamped on them. Of course they do not belong to the government! Therefore I will not let an out-of-control and self-aggrandizing government take my children and brainwash them in their overweening attempts at control through education. That would be idolatry on my part. So I say to the state, “They are not your children, they belong to Christ.”

Thirdly we will not render our work to the government. Sure, because they are bigger than us, and can unjustly take our money from us to give to their pet idolatries, we might be bullied and forced to give up the fruits of our labour. But we will recognise that this labour and its fruit does not belong to them. God has called each man to the task of dominion. As God enjoyed the fruit of his work, and blessed it, so each man ought to enjoy the fruit of his own work. It ought not to be confiscated from him and its blessing be transferred to another. This is unjust, and the God of justice will judge such wickedness.

Fourthly and on a related note, we will remind them, and our fellow citizens that the role of the state is a minister of the sword. God appoints the state to administer justice. They are stewards of the authority he gives them. Christians who are not naive realise that despite allowing the state to bear the sword, Christ does not authorise it to kill indiscriminately or make up its own standards of justice. This same logic applies to the role of the state. Yes, Christ commands us to render tax to Caesar and Caesar can lawfully tax. But that does not mean he cannot unlawfully tax. When Caesar taxes to usurp authority that Christ has not given him, he is in rebellion against Christ. Christ has given the state a particular role. It is not the minister of welfare. Nor is it the minister of education. And it certainly isn’t the minister of economics. It is not minister of the Word and Sacrament. Whenever the state steps outside of its God-given bounds, it is rebelling against its king, Jesus Christ. We will do all we can to encourage our fellow Christians to reject the idolatry of statism and to worship Christ alone. We will encourage them to reject the easy, but almost always idolatrous answer to all problems that begins with the words, “The government needs to…” We will work to see the state reject its idolatry and fulfill the calling Christ has given it. This means we need the gospel of Christ’s lordship to be preached and accepted in the hearts of our fellow citizens. Repent and believe. Christ is Lord, not Caesar.