“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
Genesis 1:3

”Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”
Mark 8:18

“Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

God Is Communication
Of all the domains, communication is the most difficult to isolate and study. The entire Bible is made up of books, poems, and letters, which God intended, along with everything else He made, to communicate Himself. He is the Word. The visible world reveals His invisible attributes. Man is made in His image. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth and Jesus reveals the Father. Everything God does is communication and everything you and I do communicates. We are communicators made in the image of a communicating God. One great difference between biblical thought and all other worldviews and religions is that scripture records God communicating with man while others are attempting to find God. Again, we have no single text for this domain because the entire Bible is communication, but we will look at an overview of the subject.

God compares Himself to words. He calls Himself the Living Word (John 1:14) and says that words have power if we give them power. As much as any other arena, the domain of communication reveals the sovereign will of God’s human creation and our individual ability to choose to listen, see, believe, and say what we like. God will not overrule that sovereignty of the individual, even for His own message. We have the power, we have the right, to accept or reject anyone’s ideas, concepts, or words. Our job as Christians is not to overpower others with our view of the world, but to persuasively communicate our message – to give others a choice so that, by the grace of God, “we might win some.”

We Are Sovereign
God is sovereign and, created in His image, we are sovereign. What are we sovereign over? We are sovereign over ourselves. We should not sin, but we can sin. God does not desire to be separated from us, but we can choose to separate from Him. We do not have to spend eternity in heaven; we can accept or reject the truth when it is presented to us. When we study communication and the domain of the individual we see the power of sovereignty and just how wonderfully, and terrifyingly, we are made.

Research reveals that we are literally able to see and hear what we want to see and hear. We filter out messages that we reject or that make us uncomfortable. For example family members of alcoholics literally cannot see the pattern of abuse because it is too painful. Whole people groups can be virtually invisible within a culture, such as women in Afghanistan or Indians in America. I see this every year in the productions of our communications students’ videos. Whether Asian, black, islander or white, they fill their pieces with their own kind. No matter what the dominant race on location, they film those who are like them because that is whom they see.

This difference of perspective is so predictable in human society, that if two or three witnesses in court testify that they have seen exactly the same things, the testimony is thrown out. It is assumed by the court that they have collaborated on their testimony. We have such a powerful sovereign will that we are literally able to rule over the messages we are willing to receive and reject.

Today’s World View
Today, the view amongst most non-Christians and Christians alike is the opposite of what God stresses in His Word. We claim that culture, family, individuals are being destroyed by television, movies, music, and mass media. But God says in His Word that He has placed authority with the individual; He has given His human creation the power to choose.

If communication media were powerful in and of themselves, evangelism of the world would be simple and cheap; we could just broadcast God’s Word from every street corner in the world. The power of the media would overwhelm people and they would be converted. Or we could use television or radio. But as soon as converts were exposed to a different message they would be unconverted. If they watched Christian T.V., they would convert, but if they switched the channel and watched an atheist program they would unconvert. Of course, this is ridiculous and I am being facetious, but that is a fair conclusion to this exaggerated sense of media power. The media are not powerful in and of themselves. They are an influence that we, the audience, choose to empower or not. God clearly conveys in His word that power on earth rests with the individual. Why? Because that is the way God made us.

Does that mean content doesn’t matter? No, not at all. There is good content and bad content, good quality and poor quality. But at the end of the day, people have watched and listened to what they want to be influenced by. The popularity of a given message is a reflection of the audience, not the power of the message itself. The power belongs to the individual and when we embrace this as the way God created us to function, we embrace our role as communi- cators who offer people a choice.

Jesus Did Not Silence Anyone
If we are to think like God, we must be more concerned with what is not being conveyed through the media than what is. We get so busy trying to silence those who disagree with us that we fail to notice that the truth is not being conveyed. We worry that the Internet is proliferating pornography and forget the printing press did the same thing. The Gutenberg press that helped create a revolution in printing the Bible also created a revolution of smut. Technology is neutral. It multiplies the message, good or bad. So for what “good” are we to use the Internet? What alternative are we giving those who are surfing the web? The problem with the media since the invention of the television is what is missing rather than what is there. Are there choices? Can the truth be found? That is our responsibility as God’s people. We can see this in the life of Jesus.

If you study the New Testament carefully, you will find no documentation of Jesus silencing anyone…except demons, and they were all speaking the truth.¹ Jesus made no attempt to stifle the voice of the Romans, the Greeks, the Zealots, the Pharisees, or any of the hundreds of messages flooding His region of the world that He did not agree with. All were given free reign to continue disseminating any message they believed in. Jesus did, on the other hand, safeguard His right to continue freely bringing His message until He knew it was time for his arrest.

The absence of righteousness and truth in others’ messages was not a concern to Him. He focused on the freedom to bring His message into that open forum. God was giving people a choice, not demanding control of what they were hearing. Truth, in a free forum, speaks for itself. God is not interested in hiding evil. God is interested in us comparing light to darkness and making a choice between the two. Truth in the midst of a free forum is self-evident. The absence of righteousness means people have no choice. Rather than focusing on what is in the public forum, our concern as the people of God should be what is missing. Rather than spending all our energy on silencing those we disagree with, we should spend time making our message available. Scripture indicates that the light actually has more impact in darkness.

Developed Vs. Undeveloped
These principles of communication, applied to communities and nations, produce interesting evidence. Not one developed country today is without a free press. Perhaps more importantly, not one undeveloped country has a free press. It would seem that the freedom of expression of ideas is tied directly to people feeling responsible for their societies. It is true, with a free press, lies can be told and the freedom abused, but with a free press, the truth can be told and people can make a choice.

Christians who believed in the right to communicate began the first newspaper in the United States. The masthead of that paper read, “To Cure The Spirit Of Lying.” The only thing needed to bring salt and light to a free nation with a free communication system is someone willing to tell the truth. If we want to secure the right to a free forum for our own message, we must defend others’ right to speak.

Words have power, but they are not the power of control; they are the power of influence. God does not seek to take control of us; He seeks to offer choices and, by seeing the worth of His truth, win us to Himself. He has made us sovereign over our own mind and soul, over our destiny. His desire is that we use our eyes to see the difference between deception and reality, our ears to hear the difference between lies and truth. God does not want to hide evil, He wants us to be able to see it for what it is and make a choice. We have embraced non-biblical thinking when we make the message more powerful than the person.

The Medium Is Not The Message
Christians were ecstatic when Gutenberg first invented movable type. Printing could now put inexpensive Bibles in the hands of believers. The use of this technological innovation by the church was such a revolution that Christian publishing still outnumbers all other uses in the industry. As newspapers evolved, Christians were in the forefront. The Salvation Army produced the first feature-length movie. Christian communicators have such passion for the use of radio that Christians today own more radio licenses worldwide than any other single group.

With the emergence of television, computers, and the Internet, however, the Christian thinking on media changed dramatically. Rather than seeing new technology as an opportunity for making the truth known in new ways, it was seen as a threat and, perhaps, evil in and of itself because of its potential to carry destructive messages. This shift in the view of communication has resulted in an absence of any significant contribution to these media. The early leaders in the film industry were self-governing, and religious leaders were automatically included in review boards. The Christian leaders pulled out of this “secular” arena, rather than being asked to leave by the film industry. As God gives us the greatest communication technologies in the history of man, there is little vision or passion for the use of these new media.

Of course, this view of technology is not biblical. All scientific discovery is morally neutral. Only the use of it could be classified as good or evil. If we do not repent of our wrong thinking in this area, the “age of communication” may be known in history as the darkest age of all.

The Importance Of Words
Throughout the Old Testament and into the New the importance of our words is dramatically emphasized. Whether in relationship to keeping promises and vows, testimony and bearing witness, treaties or agreements with other nations, or our accountability before God for every
word, the importance is weighty. The Jewish community still understands these communication principles and is committed to the communication industry, making their story known, and retaining respect for the verbal contract.

There could be no more dramatic difference between the Jews and their Arab cousins than this view of words. We are flabbergasted as we watch leaders from another region of the world on television swear that there is no invading army, even as tanks roll in behind him. At first glance, we think that is just arrogance or stupidity, but it is far more important than that. Their ability to say something completely unrelated to apparent facts is tied to two beliefs: one, there are no objective facts – truth is whatever God wants to be true; and, two, words mean nothing. In a world-view where God is the only reality, where there are no checks and balances to that reality, words mean little because no reality can be communicated. We mean nothing and our words mean nothing. This is very close to the post-modern idea of “reality is anything I believe it to be.”

It is impossible to overstate the Judaic/Christian influence of reality and truth of communication on the development of justice, science, economics, and general quality of life in the West. Our entire concept of contracts, testimony, agreements, and relationships are built on the importance and the reality of words. Much of our frustration in dealing with the East, the Middle East and beyond is that we fail to realize this view of communication has not been part of the building blocks of these cultures. Part of “teaching the nations” is laying a biblical foundation of communication.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring the subject of communication in scripture: the use of the book, poetry, historical, speeches, scribes, messengers, the tongue, words, scrolls, tablets, monuments, writing, signs, storytelling.
The domain of communication reveals: The Living Word
The primary attribute of God revealed in communication: Sovereignty
God governs this domain through: The laws of human nature
The color I used: Red

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
To provide truthful, objective information of importance to the community-at-large so that citizens can make informed decisions.

A NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
I always get quite an audience reaction with this teaching on communication. Parents argue that they don’t want their children exposed to everything that is out there; others ask if I am defending everything that is on T.V. and in movies. I get questions about record-burning and library standards for the community. Much of this is put forth with a great deal of emotion.

As parents or responsible adults caring for young children, we have to set a standard for what is good and what we approve of, and what is “premature” for a child to be exposed to. We have the right and the responsibility to do this. However, we must also prepare the child for young adulthood where he will no longer be protected by others and may be exposed, in a fallen world, to almost anything. If the result of our discipleship is confidence and discernment in the young adult then, like Daniel’s parents, we have done a good job. If the result in the young adult is fear and the need to live an insular life then we have produced a cripple and a Christian who must live in a cave. Rather than knowing how to be in the world and not of it, we have produced a religious hermit who cannot be in the world at all. We clearly cannot be salt and light in hiding.

What this means, then, is that we must teach our charges the standards to use in discerning the communication that will come across their path. We must teach them to interpret the message, discern the thinking behind it. What is biblical and what is not? There is danger in how truth is communicated as well. Would we be able to discern that it was demons who cried out, “This is the Christ… this is the One who is coming”? Jesus could. This is the discernment we want to multiply.

Our freedom as Christians to communicate our message is tied to our defense of others’ right to do the same. In our zeal to see a better web, movie, T.V. and general communication industry and environment, we must not deny so many rights that we lose our right to speak through the same media. I think it is at least fair to ask the question, “Would Jesus have been allowed to preach at all in a Jerusalem controlled by orthodox pharisaism?” Did the paganism of the Romans actually contribute to a freer environment for the preaching of the Gospel? We want to be very careful about supporting any movement that seeks to drastically limit a free forum of communication within a nation.

A NOTE TO COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS:
I led a public relations work in Washington D.C. in the 80’s and my media friends estimated at the time that of approximately 7,000 journalists working there, perhaps 20 or less were Christian. In some ways it was more popular among evangelicals to be a prostitute than a journalist. At least prostitutes were candidates for salvation; journalists were perceived as the “enemy.” Things have improved, but this is still a ripe field ready for salt and light.

I have worked with thousands of young people over the last three decades who want to become communication professionals. Because of the environment they have grown up in, they tend to define Christian media work as preaching on T.V. or radio. It is as though we are unable to think of a purpose in media beyond evangelization and church. This is the by-product of split thinking. I often ask people what a Christian wheel would look like. What would a Christian or biblical pilot do? Of course they have a hard time defining a “good” wheel or a “good” pilot because the very thing that makes a good pilot “good” is already a biblical view whether we realize it or not. If we take it a step further to news, entertainment, documentary, or any other area of communication…what does the “Christian” version look like? Are you part of a generation to find out?

1. Mark 3:12

Next

“However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you.”
Deuteronomy 15:4

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard.”
Matthew 20:1

“Money is the root of all evil!” “Filthy lucre!” Common enough ideas in the mind of many Christians today. “If you love God you will despise material gain” is a prevalent undercurrent in Christianity. “If I truly love God, I will probably be poor” is, perhaps, not taught, but it is surely thought. The split thinking that creates a false divide between the spiritual and material is as glaringly obvious in this domain as any other. God’s promises to Israel as they left slavery in Egypt were not confined to blessings of an unseen nature. He promised He would bless them in every area of life including their crops, livestock, and business. He encouraged that if they would obey His teachings, they would not have poverty in their land. God fulfilled His promise. In little more than 300 years, Israel moved from having abject poverty in the wilderness to being one of the wealthiest nations in its day.

For most of the first two millennia of church growth, economic change and development followed the spread of the gospel. In Norway, Hans Nielsen Hauge, an early evangelist, worked his way from one desperately poor village to another. As he planted churches he also taught biblical business practices and helped new converts start businesses. Not only were souls won in Scandinavia and the rest of western Europe, but the gospel fed an economic revolution. Moses taught that Israel was to have no poor and the early church began to deal with poverty in its earliest agendas. Moses taught that work was part of our service to God and Paul reaffirmed this in the New Testament by teaching that believers who did not work did not eat.¹

This is a far cry from the fruit the gospel has produced over the last two centuries. Africa probably provides us with our most stark reality. In his book, Hope For Africa – And What The Christian Can Do, Dr. George Kinoti, a university professor in Kenya, lays out the following crucial observations: One out of every three Africans does not get enough to eat. By 1987, 55 to 60 percent of rural Africans were living below the poverty line and the rate of impoverishment is accelerating. Two thirds of the poorest 40 nations in the world are African, as are eight of the poorest ten nations. “Experts tell us that Christianity is growing faster in Africa than on any other continent. At the same time, the people are rapidly becoming poorer and the moral and social fabric of society are disintegrating fast. Christianity is clearly not making a significant difference to African nations.”²

It is not uncommon today to find believers who think of money more in terms of magic than in terms of biblical principles. “If I give this amount, I will get this amount back! God will drop provision from the sky. I am believing for a miracle in my finances.”

Please! Understand me here. I am not against tithing. I believe God can and does perform financial miracles, and I believe God honors and blesses the generous heart. However, this thinking, when separated from scripture’s overarching principles of finance, is not “biblical” thinking, it is mysticism. Let’s look at a key economic passage from Moses’ teaching in Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 15:1-10
1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.
3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you.
4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,
5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.
6 For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your poor brother.
8 Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs.
9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will towards your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

God makes it clear throughout scripture that it is His desire to bless all nations.³ When we ask, “How does God want to bless them?”, we find the answer in how He blessed Israel. Economic blessing was a clear part of God’s design for Israel from the moment they left Egypt. In Deuteronomy 15 we see that while they are still in the wilderness, He is beginning to prepare them for economic development and their responsibility for both the individual and the nation.

Debt Is To Be Limited
15 :1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.
3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you.

When I speak in various countries I often ask how many in my audience have heard the teaching that Christians should never borrow. No matter what region of the world I am in, a few have been exposed to this message. The text that is often used for this teaching is, “Let no debt remain outstanding.”⁴ Basic rules of Bible study, however, tell us we must interpret scripture with scripture. We cannot make any single text mean something that makes nonsense out of other scriptural injunctions since there are many scriptures giving instructions for how to lend, how to borrow, and guidelines for repayment. Romans 13:8 does not literally mean “do not borrow.” It means do not default on your loan, make your payments on time, and keep your contracted agreement.

In verses one through three Moses is giving instruction for a system of debt repayment in Israel. It is unlikely that any nation is going to use the application of a seven-year national cycle again; but remember our task is to extract the principle from the purpose this application would accomplish. The principle here is that debt is to be limited. Israelites were not allowed to encumber people with debt in perpetuity. The system in Israel was universal. All of Israel’s private debt was forgiven in the same year. If you borrowed in the first year of the cycle you had seven years to repay. If you borrowed in the third year you had four years to repay and so forth. When the lender and the borrower entered into an agreement, they had to come up with a repayment plan that fit within the time.

My own country, the United States, has some of the best and worst examples of obeying this principle. Until this Century when it came to buying homes, America has a wonderful system. The interest rate is required by law to be one of the lowest rates for any loan, and the mortgage repayment plan must be for fifteen or thirty years. This system has made the United States one of the largest private home-owning populations in the world. On the other hand, America’s credit card system is more or less out of control. When you graduate from college, and often now even from high school, you get two, three or even more unsolicited credit cards in the mail. Each card gives you instant access to $1000 to $5000 dollars of credit. Many young people and many not so young people use these cards without ever looking at the fine print where it says the interest rate may be 19 to 26 percent or higher. I have seen interest rates as high as 36 percent. If you follow the seductive plan and pay only the “small minimum payment” required you will pay back the original amount thirty or forty times. You begin to pay interest upon interest. At one time this would have been called “loan-sharking” and would have been illegal. Today it is the norm for credit card payments in many countries. The problem of America’s personal credit card debt is of major concern and undermines the stability of the nation’s economy.

It would seem from the broad look at finances in the first five books of the Bible, that loaning was essential to enabling people to get out of their poverty. The lending focus was on small business loans. The purpose of these loans was to get people out of need and able to provide for themselves. The goal was economic enablement. For generations Jews have continued to practice many of these principles, the result being that no matter where you go in the world, no matter how poor the country, if Jews are there, they are making money. That does not mean that there are never poor Jews or that all Jews are wealthy, but they get established quickly and provide for themselves. Having an understanding of the purpose of lending, one Jewish family migrates and gets established. They send for the next family and loan them money to get started. That money is either repaid or is then loaned for the next family to come and get established. Lending, as Moses taught it, was about helping people get on their feet financially and becoming a productive part of the community. Lending was primarily a part of community responsibility and, secondly, a way of making money.

I have been told about a Christian banker who, studying these scriptures, was challenged that in America the banking system is loaning to the wrong people or perhaps it is better to say it is not loaning to the right people. U.S.A. banking institutions tend to loan to the wealthy or those who already have debt. But these same institutions will rarely accept a loan for the immigrant, women, the unemployed, or the poor who have a plan for starting a business but have no capital, but also no debt. This man began a private bank that only loaned to people who had a good idea for becoming a productive part of the community and only needed the money to get started. The bank has been enormously successful and has never had a defaulted loan. This is biblical economics.

Let’s take another look at verse three. “You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you.” At first glance one could think that God does not care about foreigners as much as He cares about Israel. This is not true. Again, the apparent meaning here cannot be the accurate meaning because it makes nonsense out of many other scriptures. It is clear from Genesis to Revelation that God wants to bless all nations. This theme is so overwhelming that it cannot be contested. Then why didn’t God require debt forgiveness for foreigners? The most probable interpretation of this variance is that the Jews were required to take the eighth year as a sabbatical year. They could not work nor could they work their animals or land. Therefore, they could not make payments. The non-Jews however were not required to obey this Jewish law. They could continue to work and they could make payments. In fact this was probably a “wind fall” year for the non-Jewish immigrants helping to enable them economically.

No Poor Among You
15:4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,
5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.

Verse four lays out a second principle we can glean from this passage. Israel was to have a national commitment to the elimination of poverty. Financial blessing came with financial responsibility within the nation. No teachings in scripture give a limit to personal or national wealth. There is teaching that wealth should not be your life obsession, that you should not put your trust in wealth, that wealth can draw your heart away from equally important things if you are not careful. However, scripture also applauds financial initiative and the role of wealth in the blessing of the community. The Bible emphasizes that the economic system of the community is to be one that is constantly addressing the elimination of poverty. For anyone to be poor and destitute in Israel was a shame on the whole community.

As I write this book (in 2005), America is experiencing one of the greatest financial booms in its history. Millionaires and billionaires are being created at a monumental rate. However the test of financial stability for a nation is not only the wealth being generated, but also activity at the bottom of the economic scale. Are the poor increasing or decreasing? The U.S.A. has more billionaires and, at the same time, an increasing number of people who live under the poverty line. The problem is not wealth, per se; the problem is irresponsible making of wealth. The economics of the Bible is not communist in promoting that all must be divided up equally. However, neither does it approve the flagrant disregard of the poor and the disenfranchised. Apparently, scripture promotes the idea that a growing and stable economic environment will be fostered, in part, by the enabling of those on the bottom of the economic ladder to move up, making their contribution to the quality of life in the nation.

It seems that scripture emphasizes the responsibility of the business community in relationship to the poor more than in any other domain. Farmers were to set aside the edges of their fields so that the poor could work the gleanings. Managers were encouraged to make work for the less fortunate in the community. Government is rarely mentioned in relationship to its responsibility to the poor. The church is given responsibility for the destitute. This very important distinction needs to be looked at here.

Aid Vs. Development
For centuries, Christians and humanitarians alike have promoted the obligation of nations that have to help nations that have not. Not a bad idea, in the main, and one that has a great deal of biblical support. Much of the application of this idea, at the local community level or the national level, takes the form of aid, vis-à-vis give-away programs, the idea being that if those who have will just give some of what they have to those who have not the poverty problem will be solved. On the surface this appears logical. In practice it is devastating and counter-productive. It actually produces poverty. The basic thinking is not biblical.

For the poor, the Bible emphasizes opportunity versus aid. Aid is reserved for those who have absolutely no way of providing for themselves and will die without assistance. Israel is certainly in this kind of circumstance in the wilderness – and God provides for the Israelites. However, it’s interesting that the day they stepped into the promised land the aid stopped. The day they had the feasibility to provide for themselves, God withdrew the manna. They had no more money the day the manna stopped than they did the day before, but now they had opportunity to provide for themselves. God did not want to create a dependent people, but a people who drew on the gifts, talents, and resources He had given to see them provide for themselves. Enablement is a major theme in biblical economics.

In everything that God does with Israel, He is working not only on their external circumstances, but also on their internal view of themselves and of God. He wants them to become self-reliant, not dependent. He wants them to see what they are able to do, to create, and to build. He is working to develop their economy, as well as their self-image and their character. The essence of discipleship is developing the inner man and, whether He is developing government or economics, God is working on the development of people, how they view themselves, and how they think.

This leads us to the next principle.

No National Debt
15:6 For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

Israel was told not to borrow. As a nation they were to have a policy of no national debt! In order to understand God’s reasoning here, we have to ask what a no-borrowing policy would produce in a community. First, they would have to learn to live within their means. Their wants would have to be balanced with their needs. Secondly, they would have to look into themselves as a people and learn what they were capable of doing, making, and discovering. In other words, they would be pushed towards self-reliance and away from dependence as a community.

In 20th Century India, Indira Gandhi fostered a national program called “Buy India.” The basic idea was to put a moratorium on imports forcing India as a nation to learn to produce the things that they wanted. If India wanted cars, washing machines, video cassette recorders, televisions, and the like, then India was going to have to learn to produce them. The first cars, VCRs, etc. did not work very well. But, they continued to improve. India slowly decreased the build up of trade imbalance, increased employment, and developed a great sense of national pride in their ability to produce and provide for themselves. They moved farther away from dependence towards self-reliance. God gifted all peoples and nations, and part of His objective in discipleship is to see those gifts shine.

Wicked Economics
15:7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tight-fisted towards your poor brother.
8 Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs.
9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will towards your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

Again we see that God remembers that man is fallen and will not necessarily do what is right, not even His beloved Israelites. Remember, when this was written they were still in the wilderness having just spent 400 years as slaves. God knows the human heart and He warned them that if He was going to bless them financially, they had to think about more than themselves. He wanted to bless them, but that blessing comes with a responsibility to the greater good of the community.

Notice in verse eight the operative word needs. Some Christians today think we have an obligation to give whatever anyone asks. This is not a biblical mind-set. In fact, it works against biblical principles because it can produce laziness and dependence. Notice also the important word lend. Lending is not the same as giving a handout. This is help to get started or offset a crisis. It implies a relationship of accountability, enough involvement in the lendee’s life to assess the need, and the ability to pay back.

A Few Practical Examples
A Swiss friend told me a wonderful story of community responsibility right from the pages of Calvin and Zeigler reformation, past and present. Her father was a vineyard keeper, as were most in their tiny village. The village had one collectively-owned vineyard. When a villager fell on bad times, he would be given this vineyard for one or two years until he could get back on his feet. The family in need worked the vineyard and kept the produce from that season. When they had reestablished themselves, the community would pass the vineyard on to the next needy family. Generosity and community responsibility – it is all there in biblical economics.

While I was teaching in a missions school in Denmark, a Danish worker told of what she and other Danish missionaries had done with the Tibetan tribe with which they work. This particular nomadic tribe had lost high numbers of yaks due to several extremely harsh winters. Because the yak is the centerpiece of their survival, the tribe was in danger of starvation. The Danish missionaries knew that they would be able to raise money in the West to help the tribe and did so. They bought yaks and gave them to the most desperate families. The eager worker’s question to me was, “How did we do in applying biblical economics?” My response was that they had half a revelation. And half a revelation is better than no revelation at all!

The team had seen that bringing the salvation message alone was not enough. They had to be involved in other areas of the Tibetan tribe’s desperate needs. They saw a financial need and sought to address it. The problem was with their solution. I asked the worker, “What would happen to the tribe if they had another series of harsh winters?” She responded that they would be in trouble again. Exactly! The solution had not solved the problem. In fact, the solution had made the tribe more dependent because, now, when they were in similar trouble they would go to Danish missionaries for help. She responded in class with an outburst of, “Help! What can we do?” Part of the problem is the we in the sentence. God, in His great heart to see a people developed, wants more emphasis on them. First of all, the tribe needed to be involved in the decision-making. The goal of biblical economics is to move towards independence and self-reliance. With blessing, God always gives responsibility and it must be one of the goals of the solution. The tribe might decide to take the yaks and after they have two calves, give one yak back – simple loan repayment allowing the missionaries to then loan the yak to another needy family. The tribe may have wanted to set up its own system whereby it took responsibility and agreed to pass a second yak calf on to the family in greatest need. This increases self-reliance and responsibility for the blessing. It also begins the multiplication process of the original gift. The tribe may decide to take the new yaks, sell every other newborn, and set up a “disaster relief fund” for future bad winters. Now self-reliance, responsibility, and long range planning are being built into the tribe’s thinking. This is biblical economic discipleship!

A Swedish friend told me another wonderful story. While on business in a major African city, this businessman was awakened in the middle of the night. He could not get back to sleep and felt that God was urging him to go for a walk. As soon as he stepped out onto the street, little boys selling candy surrounded him. They slept on the street in hope of a chance night sale. These children were destitute; every penny counted. The businessman struck up a conversation with the boys and with one in particular named David. He asked them how they lived and unraveled a tale of poverty, near starvation, homelessness, and slavery by any other name. The boys’ owner gave them candy and sent them out into the street to sell it. They received 15 percent of their sales. This income barely kept them from starving.

My friend found that the value of their box of candy was approximately fifteen American dollars. He told the boys that he was a Christian and a follower of Jesus and that Jesus cared about their condition and wanted to help them. He asked David whether he could live better if he sold his own candy and could keep the profits. The boy responded that he would have more than enough. My Swedish friend made a proposal to the boy: he would give him fifteen dollars to buy his own candy. When David started making extra money he agreed to save. When he had fifty dollars he would help the next boy buy his own candy and that boy would then do the same and so forth. The eager positive response was clear. He gave David the fifteen dollars and left.

Some months later a letter arrived in Sweden with the news from David that all the boys now owned their own candy. All the boys my Swedish friend had met that night had enough to eat and places to stay. All the boys were now Christians, going to church and were now helping other children get off the street. This is biblical economics: generosity, self-reliance, independence, responsibility, and multiplication all in one.

Summary
We are just skimming the surface of what the Bible has to say on these subjects. Remember, the purpose of this volume is to get us started thinking and studying the Bible in new ways. We will have to do a great deal of homework before we are ready to articulate a biblical view of economics from the whole of scripture.
The economic principles in Deuteronomy 15:1-10 we looked at:

1. Limit personal debt.
2. Eliminate poverty.
3. Avoid national debt.
4. Address legitimate needs of the poor.

The Hebrew mind could not grasp a concept of blessing without a tangible, as well as intangible, manifestation. The goodness of God was tied, in part, to having enough food, clothing, and shelter. The word “shalom” itself contained the concept of material blessing. Most of the earth’s population today is desperate for this gospel.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring economics in the bible: Ethics and principles of finance, loans, agriculture, the worker, labor, the manager, inheritance, wages.
The domain of economics reveals: Jehovah Jireh, God our Provider
The primary attribute of God revealed in economics: Goodness
God governs this domain through: The laws of agriculture
The color I used: Green

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSIONS STATEMENT:
To develop an economy where needed goods and services are provided for the community along with gainful employment at a fair market price and wage. Great issues include: honest gain, enablement of the poor, integrity of the work force, stewardship of resources and community conscience.

NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
We all deal with finances and material blessing, or the need of it. This is not a travesty; this is not a terrible diversion from more important things; this is God’s plan for revealing Himself as Jehovah Jireh, the Lord of Goodness. So many want God’s material blessing without understanding God’s financial principles. God does want to bless us, but He wants to bless us in every area of our lives, not just provide us with material things. He wants us to be a blessing not just to be blessed. He wants to bless us in ways that make us more like Himself.

Do you know and live by God’s financial principles? Can’t answer that question? Don’t beat yourself up; you have much company in the body of Christ globally. Do you want to know God’s thinking about finance? Why not begin by reading His word with this theme in mind? I guarantee that God is ready and willing to disciple you in this area. You have to give Him the opportunity by being in His Word. You are a part of God’s strategy for discipling your community and nation. Will you step up to the call?

A NOTE TO THE BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL:
If you are a banker, a business person, a laborer, a manager, a store owner, a stock broker or a ditch digger who provides goods and services for your community or nation in any way, you are part of God’s plan to reveal Jehovah Jireh, God our Provider. The Bible has as much to say about finance and its purpose in blessing a people as any other subject in scripture including salvation. Most view business today as a means to make money and nothing more. In scripture, business is a means to make money and a great deal more. In scripture, it is about provision, about quality of life, about demonstrations of goodness and blessing. The Bible speaks about the worship of work and the Creator of work, about skill and craftsmanship and the work being worthy of the maker. The creature reveals the Creator in the quality of his work just as the Creator has revealed Himself in the quality of His work. Community responsibility and creative solutions reveal the goodness of God to every level of our society. You have a call of God on your life. Like Joseph you are part of God’s revelation of His ability to provide all that is needed in abundance. You are part of His plan to reveal the quality of the workman. What would happen if every Christian in the world showed up for work on time? Performed at their absolute best? Set their sights on blessing the community and company rather than blessing themselves? What would happen if every Christian who owned a business asked, “What does our community really need and how can we provide that and make a profit?” rather than “Where can we make the most money?” Before we can begin to dream, we must know what God wants us to dream. In order to know that, we must understand what He has already taught us in His Word. Does something stir in your heart as you read this? Are you one called of God to begin saturating yourself with the mind of Christ and then to apply it in your life and work? You are part of God’s strategy for discipling your nation.

1. 2 Thessalonians 3:10
2. “Hope for Africa” Ibid. page 12
3. Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14
4. Romans 13:8

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I see: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Psalm 27:4

Everything that God has made is beautiful! Nothing in the universe is without color, form, and design. He turns ashes into beauty. He is the “Song of Songs,” the “Potter,” the Lord of beauty. He is beautiful. The arts reveal the creator through music, words, color, design, balance, movement, harmony, rhythm. David said that the stars sing the glory of the Lord and there are physicists today who think it is completely possible that the planets do vibrate in perfect harmonic chords. On the seventh day of creation, God rested. We should not think of this rest in terms of tiredness because God does not suffer fatigue. We should think of this rest as taking time to contemplate the beauty of creation, a savoring of the goodness of all that He has made. God’s attributes revealed in the arts are beauty, rest, and celebration. God’s purpose for this domain is to renew and restore us and give us joy from our labor.

Am I A Christian Artist Or An Artist Who Is Christian?
Christian artists today have a terrible conflict in understanding the purpose of their gift. If their work does not talk about Jesus directly, does it still have value? Can they work on productions with non-Christians? When some see a magnificent building, painting, play or hear a wonderful performance, they are tempted to ask, “Was it produced, created and performed by Christians?” as though that would validate the beauty. But beauty, in and of itself, is an attribute of God. Putting a Jesus sticker on it does not make it more beautiful. Preaching may be beautiful, but beauty does not necessarily preach an additional message. We may have art and beauty in the church, but art does not have to relate directly to ecclesiastical expression in order to reveal God.

Anything, including forms of music, notes, or instruments can be used for good or evil. There is no such thing as demonic notes, rhythms, or instruments. Satan does not own these any more than he owns the moon or mushrooms or color. All these things are an extension of God’s creation. Anything that God has made may be used to worship Satan, but it can also be used to reveal God. We tend to think of old music as godly music; anything really new is suspect, if not evil. Of course, this has more to do with personal taste than God. We happily listen to the beautiful Lutheran hymns, content that this music reveals spiritual virtue. What most of us don’t know is that Luther put Christian words to the beer garden favorites of the day. I wonder how the German Christians of his day responded to those popular songs being used in church?

Scripture Reveals Three Themes In Music
In the study of the arts and music in scripture, three kinds of musical themes are recorded. Worship, of course, national or political music, and love songs. One love song gets an entire book in the Song of Solomon. Today, worship, hymns, praise and psalms are all important, but we have lost the importance of celebrating human love and love of nation. If you look at the national anthems around the world you will find that the vast majority of them, written before 1970, mention God and His blessing. Until the last century, it was understood that God is involved in the political life of a nation. In the last century, some nations have sought to remove these references to God. Is that because of the secularization of the country or the church’s loss of the understanding of God in the political arena? Where are the love songs? Our airwaves are crammed with a message of love that is demeaning or lewd at best. But today, when a musician who is Christian writes and performs a beautiful celebration of human love, we accuse him of being “secular” or not loyal to his faith and not presenting Jesus. Scripture celebrates all these themes of music and uses them to reveal God.

If we define opera as a story put to music, then Moses gives us a very early, if not the first, opera in Deuteronomy 32. It is amazing to think that this national, political leader so understood the importance of music in the life of a nation that, at the end of his life, he would compose a work containing important principles for the people to remember. Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel.¹

The Disciplines Of The Arts
Like science, God rules the arts by laws that govern each discipline; laws of aesthetics, harmony, rhythm, dissonance, color, form, design, positive and negative space. Whether dance, sculpture, painting, writing, or composing, every artist and performer understands that there are principles upon which their discipline is built. Mastering those fundamentals is foundational to their skill. Genius, then, is making those same fundamentals disappear in artistic expression. Unredeemed people create beautiful things because they are created in the image of God. They just do not realize the source of their talent or discipline or their love of beauty. They do not know the gift-giver, but their gift still celebrates God. They are unaware of whom to be grateful to. Whether or not they know God does not make their creation more or less beautiful. Nor do Jew s lyrics make it more beautiful. Beauty has intrinsic value as an extension of God’s character and nature.

Lukewarm
So much of what is called Christian music and art today is mediocre at best. Perhaps this is because we think the only thing that matters is whether it talks about God. It is important to present the message of Christ. However, it is not only absurd, it is dangerous to think that the only thing important about a surgeon is his love of God, that his technical skill in surgery is unimportant. The heart of the individual and the discipline of a craft are two different things and Jesus is Lord of them both. As one who believes in the Creator God, you and I are to value skill as well as right standing with God. We are to celebrate beauty for beauty’s sake because He is the Lord of Beauty, the Creator of all skill, and we are to seek the artist’s right relationship to Christ, the creator of his gift.²

There are no tribes, nations, or cultures without art, music, and sport. Beauty, song, and celebration are all pre-human. They were expressed in God before we existed and they still reveal Him. We don’t have to justify the love of sport or art by turning it into an opportunity to talk to the person next to us in the stands about God. We may or may not find that appropriate. It’s okay to enjoy talent and God-given gifting for their innate value. It is worship of the Creator, the gift-giver and a celebration of who He is!

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring the subject of the arts and entertainment in scripture: music, design, sport, dance, culture, dress, poetry, literature, crafts, color, sculpture, and beauty.
The domain of arts and entertainment reveals: Song of Songs, the Potter
The primary attribute of God revealed in arts and entertainment: Beauty
God governs this domain through: The laws of aesthetics of each discipline
The color I used: Rose

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
To provide rest, relaxation and restoration of the soul through beauty and joy.

A NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
One of my students said that he saw how all the domains related to his personal life in one way or another. But not the arts. What did art and beauty have to do with him? He was not a musician or painter or anything like that. I found this a tragic confession. I responded, “The question you need to ask yourself is, ‘Where is the beauty in my life?’” Immediately he teared up. The question touched a deep chord. His life was full of service, duty, devotion, and work… but there was no celebration, beauty, and joy.

This is not uncommon in or out of Christian circles. The world is desperate for beauty. We are so often surrounded by the mundane, thoughtless, chaotic, and ugly. One of the things I love about living in Switzerland is the celebration of beauty in the form of flower boxes on the windows. No matter how humble the farmhouse, every spring color explodes in all the window boxes. This custom serves no practical purpose. These plants can’t be eaten. They are just pretty. There is such a need for this understanding of beauty in all of our lives and the life of our communities. Where is the beauty in your life?

My parents were poor and moved from their family homes during the depression to find work in the north of the United States. I was their first child born in a home with an indoor toilet. But from my earliest memory music filled our house. My mother listened to opera on the radio as she washed our hair in the kitchen sink on Saturdays. We never talked about it; there were no music lectures. But it was important to her to have beauty in her very modest home. This is one of the great treasures left to me… the celebration of God in music in my life. We need beauty.

A NOTE TO ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT PROFESSIONALS:
Whether you are gifted in body, ear or eye, your gift is a celebration of God and a part of the call of God on your life. We have been created by God to need and to celebrate beauty and joy. You are part of God’s answer to that world of need. Everything God has made, whether we look at it macroscopically or microscopically, is beautiful and it was all created with sound. So, whether you are celebrating the use of your gift in the work of the church to minister to Christians or to minister to the many who do not go to church, you are ministering Christ. Whether you work with other Christians or non-Christians you are His testimony through your life and skill. You don’t have to justify your gift by doing religious material or by kneeling in prayer when you do well, although you may do both. Your gift is justified because it is part of God’s nature and character in you. It is part of who He is and how He has made you and the gift itself reveals God. The world needs your gift and the celebration of beauty and joy it brings. Do not hold back! Let’s begin the new renaissance.

1. Deuteronomy 32:44

2. Exodus 31

Next

“The Lord had said to Moses: ‘You must not count the tribe of Levi or include them in the census of the other Israelites. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony…” Numbers 1:48-50

“The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.” Titus 1:5

“Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task.”
1 Timothy 3:1

All the Israelites were Jews, but not all Jews were priests. Under God’s direction, Moses chose Joshua to continue political leadership while Aaron and the Levitical tribe are given the priesthood. From the earliest days in the wilderness God made it clear that government and the priesthood were two different and distinct institutions, both with clear Kingdom purpose and function. This concept of an ecclesiastical structure with an independent function, apart from the overall function of the body of believers, has been hard for Protestants to grasp since Luther nailed his treatise to the Wittenberg door in 1517. But understanding the institution of the church is foundational to understanding the unique, God-given functions of all the domains in society.

Today we use the words priesthood, believer, body of Christ, and church rather interchangeably. All Christians are priests, believers, the church, and part of the body of Christ. For clarity in this study, we need to differentiate between the people, the building, and the individual believers who work full-time in a particular function such as pastors, missionaries, and evangelists.

When Luther highlighted that we are all part of the priesthood of believers, he did not mean that there was no structure or leadership to the Church. He meant that we do not need a “priest” to represent us to God. Because of the work of the cross and Christ in our lives, we are all now free to come before God ourselves. Under Luther’s leadership and those who followed him, a church structure was created with pastors, elders, and deacons. As believers, we all are encouraged to fellowship on Sundays. However, some of us go to work on Monday at the same building where we went to church. The rest of the believers go to work on Monday in some other important role within their community.

All of Israel was taught to be holy, but the Levitical tribe (the priests) were to model holiness to the rest of the nation. The book of Leviticus focuses, in the main, on their unique role as an ecclesiastical institution.

Appointment Of The Priests
In Numbers 1:47-50; the selection of the priesthood is a completely different process than that for choosing political leaders. In Deuteronomy 1:13, God instructs Moses to have the people choose their political representatives. In the development of the priesthood, God made the selection Himself. The anointing to minister in the ecclesiastical order comes directly from God.¹

The priests were not chosen on the basis of personal merit.² God made priests of the entire Levitical tribe. This is not to say that character and virtue did not matter; scripture is clear that God desired a holy priesthood. But God did not choose the virtuous elite; He chose an entire tribe filled with every level of character and virtue. We have to stop and ponder: What was God’s point in selecting this way? Was He emphasizing that no one is holy? That He was able to make anyone holy? That holiness only belongs to Him and no one is innately worthy of representing His holiness? We don’t know all the possible answers, but this fact is clear: God sovereignly selected ecclesiastical ministers.

The priests responsible for the most holy things were not given carts in the wilderness.³As Israel moved around the wilderness for 40 years, they began to acquire things. Carts were divided out to each of the tribes. The Levites were given very few carts and the Kohathites, who carried the holiest implements of the Tabernacle, were given none at all. They were required to carry the Tabernacle and all of the utensils of worship and sacrifice on their backs. Over and over again God encouraged them to be satisfied with their unique inheritance in the Lord. The result of not being given carts, and additionally being required to carry the Tabernacle, put a limitation on the priesthood’s ability to acquire wealth. That did not mean that they were to live in destitution. However, it did limit their potential for financial power among their people.

The priesthood was to receive its provision from offerings and was given small plots of land for farming in each of the tribal territories.⁴ These directions made the priesthood uniquely dependent on the people to whom they ministered. They had all authority to speak for God and to represent Him to the community, but they did not have all authority. God limited their financial and political power in the community.

The priesthood was not given territorial land.⁵ On leaving Egypt there were thirteen tribes in Israel. Both of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were given tribal status by their grandfather Jacob. As they formed government and began to prepare for their future in Canaan, God made it clear that only twelve tribes would have territorial or tribal land. The thirteenth tribe, the Levites, would have their inheritance in God. This meant that the priests would never need to form a government, as the other tribes must. This meant that the Levites did not need to develop an army as all the other tribes were commanded to do. The Levites were to be split among the other twelve tribes and territories and be God’s priestly representation to all of them.

The priests were the first primary health care givers.⁶ Until the scientific community developed, the priesthood took care of the primary health care needs of the people. If they had an infection, they were to go to the priest. He was to put them in quarantine and inspect them again some days later. The priests taught the dietary laws, which were about nutrition and health. The priests prayed and took the needs of the people to God. The priests offered sacrifices for their sins.

The result of this was that the priests had to constantly deal in the pragmatic, material world of God’s laws of nature and in the unseen world of God’s sovereign intervention. God did not allow the Levites to develop a mindset that the seen and the unseen world were secular and sacred, one under God and one under man. Every day, as His representatives, they had to minister to the practical, physical needs, as well as the needs of the inner man.

The prophets anointed Kings but they did not appoint them.⁷ This is most clear in the process of Israel first wanting a king. Israel goes to Samuel, the prophet of the day, to consult God. Samuel consults God and God says that this is not a good idea. But the priests and prophets do not control this decision. The people do and, finally, Israel decides that they will have a king in spite of the fact that this is not God’s desire. God then tells Samuel to go and anoint Saul and pray for him, because if Israel insists on having a king, Saul is the man God wants them to choose. But, still, Saul is not officially “appointed” King when he is anointed. Only the people can give Saul authority to rule. Saul wasn’t appointed king until “all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as King in the presence of the Lord.”⁸ Virtually this same process took place in the selection of David and Solomon. The Levitical tribe had political influence, but it did not have political control. The authority of the priesthood, like the authority in every other domain, was limited.

The confusion of political authority and priestly authority in scripture resulted in severe consequences. Two examples of this stand out. The first is the incident that we are so familiar with in 1 Samuel 13:1-13. Saul had been to war and won a victory. He and his troops were waiting on the battlefield for the prophet Samuel to come and offer the sacrifice to God before they could return home. Samuel was delayed and Saul grew impatient. Finally, Saul decided he would offer the sacrifice. When Samuel arrived, he asked Saul, “What have you done? Today your Kingdom is taken from you.” Saul was not satisfied to be given political leadership by God. He wanted more power. He wanted priestly authority over the people as well, and he lost his kingdom for confusing the two God-given domains. We find a similar confusion in the life of David.

David loved God and he loved worship. He used his political power to help build up the priesthood, the Tabernacle and also helped prepare the way so that his son could ultimately build the Temple. This support did not seem to be criticized in scripture. However, on one occasion David confused his role as king and the role of the priest. The consequences were very serious. David had been appointed king in Israel and had successfully conquered Jerusalem and defeated the Philistines. An invading army had taken the Ark of the Covenant. In 2 Samuel 6:1, David decided it was time to take back the stolen ark. “David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all.” David approached this task as a military endeavor. He used the might of the army and his political authority to bring the ark back and God could not bless it. “When they came to the threshing-floor of Nachon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.” When the man who tried to steady the ark dropped dead, David knew that God was not with this venture. He cried out, “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9) David stored the ark in the house of Obed-Edom and returned to Jerusalem in defeat. But the story did not end there. In the same chapter, David went again to retrieve the ark, but this time he went with the Levites who offered sacrifices every six steps.This time the ark was carried, as it would have been carried by the priest, as Moses commanded in Numbers 4:15 and Deuteronomy 10:8, and as Solomon understood in 1 Kings 8:3-4. David wore a linen ephod of worship, not battle clothes, and the people went in a procession of worship and praise, not military might. God had answered David’s question of how to move the ark in 1 Chronicles 15:2, and He made it clear that He gave that authority to the priests, not the king.

The prophets were advisors to the king, but they were not kings. God did not give all authority in His kingdom to any one domain or person. The priesthood had authority, but not all authority. The political authorities in Israel had authority as well, but it was different from the priests’. Under God, they had to work together in a system of checks and balances. All of Israel was to be holy, but the priests were to be models of holiness to the community. The book of Leviticus contains instructions primarily for the priesthood regarding how they are to live and how they are to conduct themselves. They had a unique role in the community, but they did not have the only God-given role.

Secular Vs. Sacred
Our split thinking between the secular and sacred is probably more revealed in our thinking about the ecclesiastical order than any other domain. Today it is common among Christians to think that if you are really “spiritual,” really “obedient” to God, you will be a pastor, missionary, or evangelist. Many Christians feel that all other vocations are less important. The end result is that the majority of Christians today are sitting in pews with no idea of what God has called them to do, expecting the pastor and church leadership to do everything. This was never God’s intent. In God’s design, every believer has a role to play in reaching and teaching the community. The “priestly” role was unique, specific, and just one of many roles.

Jesus understood the importance of keeping each domain in its proper place. When he saw that the moneychangers had moved their business inside the walls of the Temple, He threw them out. He did not say that money changing was wrong. He said that it had no place in His father’s Temple. He emphasized the role of this ecclesiastical meeting place as a “house of prayer.”⁹

If we are to see “every creature reached” and “every nation discipled,” we must learn again the specific role of the “ecclesiastical” institution and how it relates to the calling and authority of each of the other domains.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring the ecclesiastical order in scripture: religious rituals, prayer, offerings, sacrifices, priests, worship, tithes, feasts, idolatry, covenants, the Tabernacle, the Temple.
The domain of church reveals: The Great High Priest
The primary attributes of God revealed in the church: Holiness and Mercy
God governs this domain through: His sovereign choice and anointing
The color I used: Gold

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
The ecclesiastical order is called to represent God to the people, and the people to God, providing for the discipleship of all believers in the whole nature and character of God and His Word applied to the work and walk of faith, to facilitate the expression of that faith in the worship and sacraments of the church, and to be a moral model of God’s absolute standards of truth. Great issues include: Calling society to accountability to the Word of God.

A NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
Many Christians are sitting in the world’s churches today wishing they had a “real” calling to be a pastor or a missionary. They feel they would be more “spiritual” in these callings. Many feel that they are not called to be pastors or church workers because they are less worthy. All of this is the by-product of “split thinking.” It results from the idea that the “secular” is bad and the “sacred” is good. This is not biblical thinking. If you are called by God to give your working life to family, or government, or business, or science, or teaching, or arts, or communication, you are not called to a lesser vocation than ministry within the church structure. You are called to a different vocation than ministry. Your calling is equally from God, equally vital to that of those called to serve the church. Discipling the nations is a saturation strategy of getting the truth into the fiber of every layer of society through the lives of every believer.

For too long we have put all the weight of the work of God on the shoulders of the pastor or church worker. It is time for us to bear our own weight. What has God called you to do in society? It is time to get grateful for the doors God has opened for our life work and to be determined to carry out our job as a calling unto God Himself.

A NOTE TO THE MINISTRY PROFESSIONAL:
Some of you in the ministry today will be relieved by what I have said in this chapter, and some of you will be threatened. The pastor and missionary in the 20th Century have been expected by many to be all things to all men. For some, when we discuss “discipling the nations,” they think all the work will be their responsibility. Some are hoping it will be. Whatever your perspective, I encourage us all to pursue God for a clear revelation of a working job description for ourselves and for each of our followers. Only when the 80 percent of the body of Christ not called to the ministry of the church are released to do what God has called them to do, can those of us in full-time ministry in the church begin to focus on our call.

Some in the ministry have asked, “Why are we out there talking about discipling the nations instead of doing it?” I am not sure what they mean, however, this I do know: it is the responsibility of the “priesthood” to teach and clarify for the body of Christ its job. It is not our job to start businesses and banks; it is our job to teach and disciple business people and bankers in the full counsel of God as it relates to their calling. It is not our job to run the government and write the constitutions; it is our job to teach those who are called of God into those vocations how to carry out their responsibilities in accordance with the Word of God. It is not our job to be the father to the family, but to teach the father God’s way of fathering. This is so clear and simple that I am sometimes flabbergasted by all the confusion. The only explanation I have for the volume of confusion is that we have so bought into the secular/sacred split we are unable to conceive of the call of God on those outside the “ecclesiastical” institution. We are not to bring all the domains under the church structure; we are to send the body of Christ away on Sunday prepared to be Christ’s ambassadors of wisdom in their individual and specific domain callings. If we are to launch a generation prepared again to see qualitative differences in not only their lives, but in their communities, we must reintroduce an adequate theology of the laity, as well as of the “priesthood.” The institution of the church has a pivotal role in discipling the nations if we understand what our role is and is not.

1. Numbers 3:12
2. Numbers 3:12 ; 18:6-7
3. Numbers 7:9
4. Numbers 18:21,24; 35:2-3; Deuteronomy 18:1; Joshua 14:4
5. Numbers 18:20; Deuteronomy 12:12; Joshua 14:4
6. Leviticus 13 & 14
7. 1 Samuel 9:16; 10:1
8. 1 Samuel 11:14-15
9. Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46

Next

“If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
Exodus 15:26

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
Genesis 1:31

George Washington Carver was a black American slave who used his great mind to pull himself from bondage, becoming one of America’s greatest scientists. He held over 1,000 patents for the use of the peanut alone. Asked how he could think of 1,000 ways to use the peanut he replied that he held the peanut in his hand and said, “God, You made every seed bearing plant and You said they were good.¹ What did You make the peanut for?”

Virtually every astronaut who has ventured out into space, has returned to Earth talking about the Creator, awestruck by the magnificence of the cosmos. King David and King Solomon were not only great political leaders but loved science² and worshiped the Lord of Creation. For the Jews, creation was the first revelation of God. Paul said it is the material
world which so eloquently reveals the invisible attributes of God that no one has an excuse for not seeing Him.³ Paul argued with the mystics of his day that God is not only the God of the unseen world but also of the seen.⁴ It could be argued that modern science as we know it came from the biblical view that God created everything there is and He created it with laws by which it works. The discovery and understanding of those laws can lead us to a better quality of life.

Today, however, many Christians loathe the discipline of science, thinking it is the battleground for disproving the existence of God. Others feel it is the lesser plane of the material and not as important as the spiritual realm. Some actually believe that it shows a lack of faith to search for and use scientific discovery. These ideas are a far cry from the teaching of the Old Testament, the fruit of the early church, and the root of both Jesus and Paul’s messages. An understanding of the message of Christ not based in a clear biblical foundation of the material world is more Eastern and mystic than it is biblical.

As the gospel traveled the globe in the first 1800 years, it took the message of “cleanliness is next to godliness” with it. Improved sanitation and health accompanied the concept of salvation. The sanitation practices of the Jews in the black plagues of Europe were so superior that some thought they had “magic” arts, when, in fact, they were just continuing to practice what God had taught in the books of Moses. How does this compare with a “Christianized” southern Africa that is faced with near extinction because of disease? When some of the most important moral issues in the 21st Century are being asked in the realm of science, what does the near absence of a clear biblical view forewarn?

Let’s begin to get an idea of what Moses was teaching:

Deuteronomy 23:9-14
9 When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure.
10 If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there.
11 But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp.
12 Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself.
13 As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement.
14 For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

The scriptures are very down to earth and deal with life at its most basic. God deals with every dimension of His creation. Topics that make you and me uncomfortable are brought out for common sense understanding. This paragraph in Deuteronomy begins by dealing with nocturnal emissions. We will spare the men and skip that, and take up verses 12-14 which embarrasses everyone equally.

God has brought a great deliverance for more than two and a half million Isralites and alien slaves. They have experienced the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. They have been eating miracle manna dropped from the sky on a daily basis. But they still needed to use the bathroom. You could say that this scene in the wilderness is the juxtaposition of God’s teachings on the material world. He can invade our creation and do what none of us understands, but the daily norm is to work with the natural laws by which His creation was made to function. In these verses God is teaching basic hygiene.

The principles are fairly straightforward. The community is to take responsibility to make provision for the daily need of all its citizens to urinate and defecate. Secondly, the citizens were to take personal responsibility to follow those guidelines. Thirdly, the waste was to be buried, as opposed to put in the water or left on top of the ground. Fourthly, the highest motivation possible is used – God’s presence. God, through Moses, is teaching public health. He is teaching sanitation and preventive health measures. The same God who did the impossible for His people by parting the Red Sea wants to teach them about His material world and the laws by which it works and He wants them to take responsibility for what they have learned. He is discipling them.

The Unclean Scriptures
When I was growing up, the “unclean” scriptures were taught allegorically as parallels for sin. I was glad that I hadn’t lived in Old Testament days because walking through the streets shouting, “I am unclean,” and spending a day outside the camp seemed fairly heavy treatment for minor infractions. From this allegorical treatment one got the notion that perhaps women were more unclean than men. I think this was drawn from the teaching that the mother was unclean for more days after the birth of a female child than after the birth of a male child.⁵ This concept of women being more unclean became tied to the idea that Eve sinned first and, therefore, women are more prone to deception than men. Altogether, it was a grim scenario for women. However, the “unclean” scriptures are not allegories, they are historical and, more importantly, they were pragmatic guidelines given by God for community health.

This list of everything in the books of Moses, which would make you unclean, is quite revealing:

• Touching anything taken as spoils of war – Deut. 13:15-16
• Touching a human bone or grave – Num. 19:16
• Touching or being in the presence of a dead body – Num. 19:11
• Touching the discharge of a woman’s period – Lev. 15:19,25
• Touching the discharge of a man’s semen – Lev. 15:2,16
• Touching a man with a bodily discharge or his spit – Lev. 15:7-8
• Touching the bed or saddle touched by a man with a bodily discharge – Lev. 15:4,9
• Touching the nocturnal emission of a man – Deut. 23:10
• Touching human uncleanness, meaning urine or feces – Lev. 5:3
• Touching anything that touched any of these things – Lev. 7:21
• Touching the bed or chair that a woman with her period had touched – Lev. 15:20-21
• Touching or having a skin rash or outbreak on the skin – Lev. 13:2-3
• Touching or being exposed to mildew – Lev. 13:59
• Touching the blood of the sacrifices, if you were a priest – Lev. 16:14

This list teaches us many things. First, it would appear that men are more likely to be unclean than women. Secondly, it seems that the poor priest is going to be the most unclean of all. Thirdly, none of this is about matters of the heart. It is about hygiene. God is teaching community health and prevention. When He says, “If you obey my laws you will have none of the diseases of the nations that surround you,” He is not giving some formula for spiritual magic. He is teaching the prevention of transmittable diseases. And He is teaching this nearly 3,800 years before man will discover the germ. Not until the late 17th Century would we learn that there are invisible microbes and viruses that can be transmitted from one thing to another and cause disease. We would not understand clearly until the 1990’s that the most viral transmitters of these invisible enemies are bodily fluids. It has taken the AIDS epidemic to reveal the extent of God’s advanced understanding.

In 80 percent Christianized Africa, one out of four people, possibly even one out of three, are dying of AIDS. What would the statistic be if we added in all the other infectious diseases taking lives in that region? Where is the biblical influence that produced the healthiest, most scientifically advanced nations of the world? Remember, when the gospel came to Europe, Europeans were the “filthy pagans” that the advanced middle easterners weren’t sure they wanted to mingle with. Where did antiseptic Switzerland, Germany, and Scandinavia come from? The minds and then the cultures of these peoples were transformed by a gospel that not only dealt with the conversion of the soul; the gospel they received was a gospel that dealt with all of life. It was a gospel that brought physical health as well as communion with God.

George Kinoti says, “Africa is plagued by numerous diseases. The most important are infectious diseases, which are both curable and preventable. An obvious example is malaria, which causes untold suffering in Africa and claims something like a million African lives a year. Malaria was once a major disease in the warmer parts of Europe and the U.S.A., but improvements in the living conditions led to its disappearance.”⁶ Two-thirds of the world is crying out for this gospel. Who will go? How will they know if someone does not tell them?

Healing
A young mother of two children under four sat across from me in a New Zealand restaurant. She had just discovered that a dreaded lymphoma cancer had reappeared in her body just months after thinking she had been cured. The prognosis was not good. She looked at me and asked, “What do you think of healing?” Everything in me wanted to give popular charismatic or evangelical answers such as, “By His stripes you are healed; claim it and believe for it.”⁷ I wanted to give her the happy ending version, but I had been studying the Bible too long, and I knew that is not all that it teaches. Scripture does not teach that if we believe in Christ we will never get sick, that if we believe, we will be healed or that we will never die! You can find individual scriptures that would seem to mean that, but that is not what they mean because they make nonsense out of many other scriptures. Jesus died and Paul had a physical ailment that God did not heal even though Paul prayed three times.⁸ Lazarus was raised from the dead and then he died again.

With a heavy heart I said to my friend that the Bible makes it clear that miracles are possible, but they are exceptions, not the rule. Miracles are spectacular interventions of God for His own unique purposes but they will never be the norm. We may always pray and ask God for healing, but the gospel message is that in death the enemy of our souls is finally defeated, not that we will not die. We live in a fallen world and disease is a reality. Our mortal bodies are wasting away. We can learn to live more wisely and deal with disease with prevention and cure, but we will all die. Then what is our hope? Our hope is that, through His death, Christ has overcome the evil one. At the very moment that Satan feels he has conquered us, the point of death, we are given an immortal body not corrupted by sin. The cross has removed the sting of death, not death itself. Job reveals to us that the enemy of God can sorely try us with crisis and illness, but Job also reveals that Satan cannot take our life when we belong to God. The issue is more when will we die, not if we will die.

The thinking of many Christians today is that there should be no suffering, there should be no death, we should have heaven now. Quoting Dr. Kinoti again, “religion…enables many to evade reality. Christians…sometimes use their faith as a narcotic to evade the pain, the ugliness, the difficulties, the concrete reality of the world in which we find ourselves.”⁹ The author is speaking specifically about African believers. But this is not only an African problem. This is one of the great problems in evangelical, pentecostal, and charismatic thinking in the last century and a half. We have drifted towards a belief that salvation delivers us from living in the material world. And it does not.

As I left the restaurant with my suffering friend I longed to say something that would comfort, and that was true. I put my arm around her and said, “Here is what I do know. If you live, you will be pure gold through this trial. If you die you will go into His presence and be perfected into His likeness. Either way, you cannot lose!” The week I was preparing this chapter I attended her funeral… knowing I had given her the comfort of His Word.

Worship And The Material World
All through scripture, creation draws the hearts of God’s people to Him. David was stunned by the God who created the innumerable stars. Solomon tried to grasp understanding of the seasons and the God who created the rotation of the planets. Paul expected man to understand the existence and attributes of God simply by considering the creation around him. Creation captures God’s awesomeness. In the era of Cathedral building, Europeans were mystified by the nature of space. They could not yet define the molecular structure of all things, and so air was mysterious and awesome. They incorporated this into their worship by getting architects and engineers to invent new building technology to convey the awe and wonder of God’s creation in their cathedrals. They understood that science and worship could work hand in hand. Millions still visit these great monuments every year.

God is not at war with His material world. Science is, of all the domains, the most limited because the scientist cannot discover anything that God has not created. Certainly scientists can have theories that are not based in fact. But scientists cannot create new laws or new truths in the cosmos; they can only discover them. Today many Christians believe, or at least behave as if by virtue of our faith, we are alienated from all science. This can be a grave danger. In the 16th Century the church and science were at odds with each other. Galileo and others had begun to postulate that the world was not flat but round. The theology of the day was built around a flat earth concept, and it supported the idea that heaven was up, and hell was down, and that man and the earth were at the center of the universe. The first proponent of this concept of a round globe was executed for heresy, teaching against the doctrines of the church. The second, Galileo himself, was put under house arrest.

Of course, in this instance, science was right and the theological interpretation of the day was wrong. God knew the truth all along. He was not thrown by our discovery. Science’s discovery of some fact in His universe does not destroy the validity of scripture or challenge God’s truth. This discovery simply led to a clearer understanding of what God meant by man being the center of the universe. It created the possibility that man was central to God’s plan, but not necessarily central in cosmic geography. We did not yet know that up and down are relative terms relating to gravity. What these concepts mean outside our planet is quite another issue. God is not shaken by scientific discovery. He is not alienated from His material world; He uses it to reveal Himself and man is still discovering Him in it.

When I saw the Hubble telescope’s pictures of the birth and death of stars, I was awestruck! The color, the power, the majesty in the creation of just one tiny star! Explosive plumes millions of miles high. Who cannot worship the God of creation when they see and discover such things? I was humbled to think that I live in the first generation that God has graced with such a view of what He has made, the awe of His power, the beauty of His universe in every detail. King David was overwhelmed by the innumerable stars. He saw God revealed in the shear scope of what he could see. The Hubble telescope was aimed at a black spot at the end of the handle of the Big Dipper. This spot was ten times blacker than anything we can see with the naked eye. The telescope viewed this black spot for ten days, absorbing light from deep space. When astronomers looked at the picture that the telescope sent back, they counted ten galaxies, all larger than ours, in the one black spot. Who cannot worship at the thought of His grandeur? Who cannot marvel at the Creator God? And yet today, with split thinking being the norm amongst Christians, if you heard of the Hubble telescope’s discoveries at all, it was in the light of how the money could have been used for evangelism.

Summary
Are you beginning to get the picture of what we have lost in scripture? Are you seeing the tragedy of keeping God so boxed in? What else is God going to reveal to us in His universe? What other advanced understanding of the material world is He waiting to impart to us for the prevention of disease? God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God has not changed; we Christians have lost our understanding of God. He wants to restore us, to revive us through the revelation of Himself in the material world. Will we let Him?

We have looked at one small passage dealing with sanitation. There is so much more: teaching about ecology and our responsibility to steward His creation, about cures, about the priestly role in primary health care, about the pharmaceutical properties of plants. When you finish this study in the Bible you must conclude that God loves science.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring science in scripture: health, nature, hygiene, medicine, engineering, technology, ecology, animal kingdom.
The domain of science reveals: The Creator
The primary attributes of God revealed in science: Order and power
God governs this domain through: The laws of nature
The color I used: Blue

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSIONS STATEMENT:
To discover and use God’s laws for the blessing of all people, pursuing a higher standard of living, better health, and better stewardship of all God’s natural resources. Great issues include:Prevention of disease, discovery, and stewardship.

NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
God is not afraid of science or discovery. Neither should you and I be. For me, a balanced approach to biblical healing is:

• Confess all known sin.
• Bind the enemy.
• Do everything medically known that may be helpful.
• Pray for a miracle.
• Put yourself in the loving hands of the Father; He knows best.

I believe I can support all of this from the Word of God. I would ask God to reveal to His science professionals a cure, just as He revealed preventives of infectious disease to Israel. Which do you think is the greater lasting witness: a miracle for an individual or a cure for everyone? Perhaps we cannot fairly ask that question as both reveal God. Are you praying for both revelations – miracles and cures – for the nations?

Are you prepared to refuse skepticism about all science and let God speak to you through what He is allowing us to discover? Man is fallen and tends to corrupt anything that can be corrupted. Of course, cloning could lead to trying to duplicate humans. But cloning and DNA research could also lead to a cure for many common diseases. Can we not see this discovery as the hand of God extended to us in mercy? The story of the tower of Babel is often used to discuss the evils of technology. But the sin of Babel is really political imperialism; the tower was just the symbol. What we see in scripture is that when the technology got out of hand, God destroyed it by confusing the people.

What is the point for us then? Don’t fret about new discoveries and developments. If they threaten God’s plan, He will deal with them. If He is allowing the discovery, our question should be, “God, how do you want to use this to glorify Yourself?” Christians did this with the discovery of movable type and printing and, consequently, are still the largest publishers of printed matter. But, we tend to push aside the technology of the internet as demonic. What has changed? God? No, we Christians have. Alienation from discovery which God is allowing can only result in lessening the purposes of God. Let’s work again to receive the whole council of God’s Word in this wonderful arena of science and His material revelation.

A NOTE TO THE SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL:
When I spoke on this topic in Urbana, Illinois a sanitation engineer, whose brother was a missionary, came up to me in tears. All his life the work of his brother had been applauded as a spiritual calling. This brother had been made to feel less important because of his unspiritual profession. He said to me, “No one has ever told me that what I do is important to God, too.” I was in 40 percent¹⁰ Christian Togo some time ago and saw that people had taken to spray painting, “Ne pas uriner ici!” “Do not urinate here!” on the walls around their houses and businesses. I thought “Great! Half the gospel of sanitation.” But who will teach them the other half…where should they urinate? Several summers ago a large tribe of pentecostal Gypsies came to Switzerland to hold healing and evangelistic services. They pitched a giant tent very near my home and used the parking lot of our forest running and exercise course for their cars and trailers. The two small toilets of the exercise course and their trailer toilets were obviously not adequate for the needs of such a large group. As the week’s evangelistic services went on, the forest trails became increasingly littered with feces and toilet paper. At first, you may be irate and think this is just stupid, but we need to be more compassionate. You see, these dear people had been taught that Jesus saves and Jesus heals, but they had never been taught what the Bible teaches about sanitation.

As a professional in the science domain, you have a high calling. You are the discoverers and stewards of God’s material creation. You are called to know Him in a special way as He reveals Himself in the things He has made. You are called to use that knowledge to bless individuals, communities, and nations. No calling in God’s Kingdom is second rate. No domain of revelation is more or less important than another; they are all created by God to reveal Himself. The pastor has one job and you have another. The missionary prays to be shown worthy of his calling and so should you. God makes His “cause and effect” relationship with man most evident in this domain. He uses His natural laws to humble us and reveal His awesome power and wisdom. Are you one of God’s George Washington Carvers? Are you called to hold in your hand something of God’s creation and say, “God, you made this and you said it was good. Why did you make this peanut, atom, DNA cell, planet, bug, tree?” The sky is not the limit. God’s revelation of Himself stretches to the farthest reaches of the cosmos. How far is that? Perhaps He will use you to reveal that to us and strike us with awe again. You are part of God’s strategy for discipling all nations.

1. Genesis 1:11-12
2. 1 Kings 4:33
3. Romans 1:20
4. Colossians 1:16
5. Leviticus 12:1-5

6. Kinoti, Ibid., page 7
7. Isaiah 53:5
8. Corinthians 12:8
9. Kinoti, Ibid., page 3
10. Johnstone, Ibid

Next

“And the government will be on His shoulders.”
Isaiah 9:6

“This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.”
Romans 13:6

For more than a generation many, if not most, Christians have thought of the domain of government as the bastion of cigar-smoking egomaniacs. I have heard prominent men of God say that they see no way a Christian could be involved in politics without compromising their faith in Christ. This thinking is so extreme in parts of the body of Christ that some churches teach their members not to vote because it is a “secular” activity. This is a profound example of the split thinking of secular vs. sacred.

When the blacks in Namibia were first given the vote they elected a communist government, a heavy blow in a country where more than eighty-five percent of the population are professing Christians.¹ But there was a ray of hope when the newly seated government sent word to church leaders in the nation that they wished representatives of the church to come and teach them the biblical basis of government. What a privilege! However, no one responded! In South Africa the ruling party today (with sixty-five percent of the vote, reported to be around seventy percent Christian) struggles to stay in power, in part, they say, because the theology of some churches has produced a non-participatory culture among Christians when it comes to social, political and economic issues. I am told by American government officials that far less than fifty percent of American citizens vote. But more shocking, they say that less than twenty-five percent of American Christians vote.

All of this is a far cry from the respect Paul accorded those who sought to serve in the government arena.² Jesus understood that government had a role in His Father’s Kingdom. He was discipled by the Old Testament, and He discipled with the Old Testament. Jesus understood that He was the King of Kings and that His message was a message of salvation and a message of political justice.

The King Of Kings
When we study the domain of government in the Bible, we are looking at areas like the legislative, executive, judicial, and military functions of government. We are looking at law, national and local authority, relationships between nations, rules of war, and areas of community development related to government. We are looking at the roles and actions of judges and kings and those who worked for them in official capacities. Books like Joshua, Judges, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, and I & II Chronicles unfold events happening in and to Israel in the political arena. They document what the political leaders of Israel were doing, how they affected Israel, and what God thought about these events. Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel tell us the stories of people who sought to serve God faithfully in the political arena. Interestingly, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel each served pagan and idolatrous nations and kingdoms. Today, some Christians believe we can serve only the righteous in government. But scripture does not bear this out. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon were written primarily, and possibly in their entirety, by two kings, David and Solomon. Each of these books teaches us much besides the principles of government, but the position from which they were written was the realm of government, unlike Isaiah, or Jeremiah, and other books written from the perspective of prophets.

In my study of Deuteronomy, about twenty-five percent of the book is given to instructions and episodes revolving around government issues. The passage we will use for our sample study of the domain of government is Deuteronomy 1:9-18. Moses had been attempting to sit as judge by himself over the disputes of the entire Israelite population. His father-in-law had suggested to him that this was not going to work and that he needed to initiate the levels of government to carry the load of arbitrating the judicial needs of the nation. In Deuteronomy, Moses forms Israel’ first system of government. Here is the account:

Deuteronomy 1:9-18
9 At that time I said to you, “You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone.
10 The LORD your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky.
11 May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!
12 But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself?
13 Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.”
14 You answered me, “What you propose to do is good.”
15 So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, appointed them to have authority over you – as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens and as tribal officials.
16 And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien.
17 Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it.
18 And at that time I told you everything you were to do.

For our purpose here of learning to read and study the Bible in order to see God’s principles in each domain, we will take only the highlights of the passage. Remember that the truths of the Bible are told primarily in story form. We study the history and context, but we will never be in the same circumstances as Moses and Israel, so their application will not necessarily work for us. The principles, however, are God’s truth and are applicable in new and dynamic ways in any age, any set of circumstances in any nation. Let’s work with this passage as an example of extracting principles from the historical situation.

The Purpose Of Government

Deuteronomy 1:9-12
9 At that time I said to you, “You are too heavy a burden for me to carry alone.
10 The LORD your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as many as the stars in the sky.
11 May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!
12 But how can I bear your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself?

As Moses prepared to form Israel’s first formal government, he explained to the people the purpose of government and why Israel needed to move away from him as their sole leader. Moses had been carrying the load by himself until now. But this system no longer fulfilled the objective of government. What was that objective? Moses saw it as his responsibility to hear the burdens and disputes of the people in order to provide just resolution. Moses did not argue that the disputes were not important or that they ought not to be disputing in the first place. He did not see disputes as insignificant matters or a waste of his time. He established that they must be heard and dealt with, but Israel had grown so large in Egypt that the former
tribal system of governing themselves no longer worked. They needed a more effective system. Why? To meet the judicial needs of the people!

One of the foundational principles in this passage is that the primary purpose of government is to serve the population of a nation by providing an objective, trustworthy source of arbitration and justice. The system of government was organized in such a way that it could serve the needs of people both “small and great” alike . (vs.17 ) God looked at the judicial needs of the people and the fact that the current system was not meeting those needs. He inspired Moses in his role of creating a structure of government that would respond to the judicial needs of the nation at large and set out to put it in place.

The Authority Of Government
1:13 “Choose some wise, understanding and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will set them over you.”

From the perspective of government in the Bible, I think this is one of the most thrilling verses. Think about it. This nation of people had lived in exile for 430 years. For 400 of those years they had been slaves under the total authority of the Egyptian government. Their experience of leadership prior to their years in Egypt was more that of a large family, some seventy people, rather than that of ruling a nation. We can assume that many of the Jews, if not most, were uneducated people. They had lived in poverty and there was certainly no reason for the Egyptians to expend their national budget for educating their slaves. At this time they were still in the wilderness, exiles in a “no man’s land,” with no tangible assets except what they carried on their backs.

Moses was God’s man, a man who spoke with God face to face. God had been giving Moses detailed instructions for leading Israel to freedom. He had given Moses incredible authority by bringing to pass everything Moses had said would happen. If anyone ever had a direct line to God, it was Moses. When he formed government in Israel, how did God tell him to do it?

“Choose some wise, understanding and respected men…” Who chose the leadership? Moses? Aaron and Miriam? No, the people of Israel! The very first thing that God did through Moses when establishing government was to give the people the right and authority to choose.

What an amazing God! In all of His infinite knowledge and wisdom God did not impose His will. He could have said to Moses, “You choose some wise and understanding men and put them over Israel.” That would have been more like the model they had seen in Egypt. That would have been more like what was being modeled by the tribal nations surrounding them. But God did something so radical, so dangerous, so not of this world, that we are still trying to grapple with the principle in our modern age. He gave the people of Israel the right to choose their political leaders.

We could say, then, that a second principle of government is that God gives the authority of governance to the people. God delegated by law and decree to the people the right and responsibility of choosing who would rule over them. He made it a bottom up authority as opposed to the top down authority of the Egyptian pharaohs. He gave the people power. Many people today, in and out of Christian circles, believe the important thing is to tell the public what to do. We often assume that people do not have the experience, the education, the grasp of issues to make proper choices. Surely it would be better to start them off gradually and nurture them into the process of responsibility. But God began the process of discipling Israel in their new freedom by giving them the responsibility to choose who would lead them.

This principle is profoundly supported throughout the biblical history of Israel, a nation ruled by judges for some 470 years. The people observed and interacted with the nations surrounding them, and saw that these nations had kings. Israel liked this idea! Israel had some good judges, but they had some real losers topped off by the notorious Samson. They decided they needed a king, and told Samuel, the prophet to the nation.³ Samuel sought God and God responded very clearly. He did not want them to have a king, and He gave them a very sizable list of reasons why. But the people persisted. They wanted a king! God relented and told Samuel they could choose what they wanted. Think about this! God gave them the king that He did not want because that is what they chose. A king was not the best choice, but this is what they, as a nation, chose. God had given the people the authority to choose their political leaders, and, having made His preference known, He stuck to that principle. Israel decided to have a king, and God sought to help them choose a king. God went beyond sticking to His principles, He sought to bless the kings that Israel chose. Saul, David, and Solomon were all mightily used by God, but they were still the system of governance He did not want.

Perhaps you are thinking, “But didn’t the prophets actually choose the kings?” This is fascinating to track in scripture. God did use the prophets to point to the leader He thought would serve their best interests. At God’s direction they anointed these leaders with oil, prayed and prophesied over them.⁴ But we do not see a king in Israel actually crowned king until we hear words something like, “All Israel gathered and took so and so as their king.”⁵ After the people made their choice, the king realized his authority.

This principle of the authority of the people to choose their political leaders is tested in the life of David. When Saul died, the Kingdom of Israel was divided over who would lead them. The House of Judah had chosen Saul’s rival, David, who had already been anointed to be king over Israel by Samuel. But Saul had a son, Ish-Bosheth, and Israel chose him to be their king. Two leaders of Ish-Bosheth’s raiding bands decided David should be King of Israel as well as Judah. They murdered Ish-Bosheth and took his head to David. Rather than accept their offer to be king, David executed them for the murder.⁶ He remained in Hebron until all the tribes of Israel came to David and asked him to be King.⁷

David understood, having studied the books of Moses, that God had given the authority of choosing political leaders to the people.

We have to wonder why God would design government to have its authority in the people. Wouldn’t it be better for people to be told by a loving, benevolent God what is best for them? Evidently not. This subject is too broad to cover in this introductory volume. But it appears that the discipleship of a nation, as well as individuals, is tied to the cause-and-effect learning process of experiencing the blessing or cursing that comes automatically from making choices. In other words, it was more important for Israel to make their choice, even if it was not a perfect choice, and to learn from the consequences. Weighty implications, but they will have to wait for future study.

Character Does Matter
1:13 Choose some wise, understanding, and respected men….

God did not leave Israel floundering in a vacuum with their choices of political leaders. He gave them guidelines. Some of those guidelines focused on character, knowledge, and the leader’s reputation. A Nigerian friend once said to me that one of the big differences between a Westerner and an African is the standard we use to judge the importance of an individual. A Westerner, he felt, was more prone to assess a person by what he owned, what he did, or his position. An African, on the other hand, drew his assessment of an individual from what other people thought about that person. In other words, you had status in the tribe if the community gave you status, not because of some external, such as possessions or your work. The African approach is more relational and is tied to the character and observable actions of the individual within a community setting. When it comes to political leaders, God, it would appear, leans toward the African perspective. The people were made responsible to assess the character of the leaders they would grant political power over them, and then live with the consequences of their choices.

Moses gave Israel three things to look for in their leaders – wisdom, understanding, and respectability. Money and power, though not disquali- fied, are not mentioned as criteria. In order for these character attributes to be evaluated, the leaders had to be known by the people and the people had to determine what wise and understanding meant. What made an individual respectable? How was wisdom demonstrated? What did it mean to have understanding? As a community they not only had to search for an individual who embodied these qualities, they had to search for understanding about the nature of those qualities. They would enter a national debate on character, if you will. God was developing them as citizens, not just giving them government.

Representative
1:13 …from each of your tribes…

From the time Israel left Egypt, God began to emphasize the importance of inclusion in the political and legal process. He reminded Israel that they must remember what it was like to be slaves who had no rights. He reminded them repeatedly that they were not to have one standard of justice for the Israelite and another for the alien. They were not to leave any tribe without representation in their new land and government. Political representation is a biblical principle. If the purpose of government is to truly represent the people by arbitrating their disputes and issues of justice, if the authority of government truly comes from the people, then the people have to be truly represented.

The great error of the South African government of the 20th Century was that one white tribe declared the right to rule over all other tribes. The right to vote was extended only to the white tribes. The black tribes were left without representation. If we understand these scriptures and that God could not bless a system that left a people disenfranchised from the powers that ruled over them, then it would come as no surprise that the South African government of this era could achieve no lasting stability. In principle it was doomed to fail. But understanding here will also lead to great admiration for the leadership of Nelson Mandela and his commitment not to form a government unless every black tribe and every white tribe was represented. The upholding of this principle safeguarded the nation and held civil war at bay. When we think of the Aboriginal in Australia, the Laplander in Finland, and the Native American Indian, we are seeing situations fraught with potential conflict because the principle of representation has been diluted or ignored altogether.

Consensus
1:14 You answered me, “What you propose to do is good.”

The authority of the people is reinforced again. In this very short sentence Moses established that his plan had the backing of the nation. Israel agreed to be governed in this way.

Israel had not always agreed with Moses. In his first attempt to take them into the promised land, they said, in fear and unbelief, that they would not go. They staged what we would call today a military coup, and the men of fighting age refused to take on the challenge of the promised land in spite of Moses’, Joshua’s, and Caleb’s exhortations.⁸ God was ready for them to move into the promised land. Moses was ready for them to move. The people were not in agreement. The government lacked consensus and could not move ahead. Israel suffered the consequences of their choices by spending forty years in the wilderness. In the account of David’s appointment as king over Israel, the house of Judah and the house of Saul did not have consensus; David waited rather than contest the will of the people.⁹

This principle of consensus is so important that Jesus refers to it as a principle of God’s kingdom in the New Testament. “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined…”¹⁰ The principle is this: a nation with consensus has a more stable government. A nation without consensus is a weakened nation. Therefore a government that tries to impose its will on the people will be less stable in the long term than a government that rules with consensus. Certainly the specific issues are also important, but that is not our subject here. However, consensus itself is clearly an important principle of government in scripture and is one of the foundations of strong government. This gives us understanding when we look at nations in crisis or certain national issues. Ireland and South Africa have been on the front pages of world news for a very long time, with both nations being in great turmoil. In How The Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill reveals that the Irish have never been able to agree on who governed them. For the 8,000 plus years of Irish history, their kings and tribes have been at war. Failure of a few attempts to rule themselves with an Irish king led them to seek French, Scottish, and, finally, English monarchs to rule over them. The failure to find any semblance of consensus has led to millennia of Irish turmoil. Conversely, it makes the importance of the Irish accord signed in the 1990’s even more resounding. For perhaps the first time in their very long history, the Irish are beginning to see that agreement and consensus are essential if a nation is to rule itself. God is discipling Ireland.

When we look at situations today such as East Timor, former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union we are seeing, in part, the fruit of rule forced on a people with little or no involvement, let alone any level of consensus.

The Judicial Branch

Deuteronomy 1:16-18
16 And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien.
17 Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it.
18 And at that time I told you everything you were to do.

Now Moses turned his attention to the judicial purpose of government and began to give instructions to those who would hear the disputes of the people. These verses lay down such powerful principles of justice that every just court in the world uses them, and every court on earth today would be more just if the principles were thoroughly implemented. First, verse 16 exhorts Israel’s judges to judge fairly. Moses goes on to define fairly very specifically. Fairly means extending the same quality of justice to every individual whether they were Israelite or alien, national or foreigner. This is a major theme in God’s discipleship of Israel. Over and over again in their biblical history God reminds them of what it was like to be slaves under the authority of Egypt, what it was like to be a foreigner and unjustly treated, and what it was like to be disenfranchised from the justice system of the nation they were in. He used this tragic part of their history to call them to a higher level of justice in their own nation. Justice in Israel was to be blind to nationality, color, gender, creed, or politics. Justice was to have a level playing field and to treat all people equally.

In verse 17, Israel’s judicial system was exhorted to judge without partiality and a second class distinction is given: their court system was not to draw a distinction between “small and great.” Justice in Israel was not to be tilted toward the powerful and influential or the rich. All people were to be heard. The slave in Egypt had no voice and God told Israel that they were to demonstrate a higher level of justice in their nation.

Moses reminded them that justice belongs to God. As judges, they were not to be afraid of other people, powers, or influences. They were to remember that, as governmental agents of justice, they stood first and foremost before God. God understood that the human race was fallen and prone to sin and that the Jews, being human, would be just as prone to corruption as any other group of people or any nation. He was challenging them to rise above this in their system of government. Moses laid down the last principle of the judicial system in this passage.There is to be a process of appeal. For cases too hard for a finding, or when findings and evidence were inconclusive, the system allowed another hearing – this time before Moses.

Some years ago I was privileged to speak at a conference where a head of state sat directly before me in the front row. This man was a Christian political leader in a pagan nation. His desire was to use his office to influence his nation for righteousness. When I inquired about the judicial system in his country, I found that the president hires and fires at will all judges in this nation. It is good that the president is concerned for the souls of his people, and I mean that with all sincerity. But the president could move his nation toward God by changing the justice system as well. In this country, a judge faced with a less than obvious finding, knowing he could lose his livelihood, might favor the preference of the president who holds his job in his hand. This is human nature. And God never forgets that man is fallen. He lays down every principle and system with our fallen state in mind. One judge can be corrupted some of the time, but it is harder to corrupt two judges in an appeal, and so forth. God understands that without checks and balances in the system, fallen people will abuse power and corrupt justice.

Summary
We looked at five basic principles of government from nine verses in Deuteronomy.

1. Government is ordained by God and essential to the life of a nation.
2. Government gets its authority from the people.
3. The character of a political leader is important and to be weighed by the people in their choices.
4. Government is to be representative of all people.
5. One of government’s primary purposes is to provide a source of just resolution to disputes and conflicts of the people.

The primary purpose of this introductory volume is not to teach a complete biblical approach to government or any other domain. Our purpose is to reveal how our split Christian thinking has alienated us from God’s great wisdom and teaching in each domain and to demonstrate how God’s Word teaches us principles for all of life, as we have seen in these verses on government. In order to get the mind of Christ on government, we are going to have to study the subject from Genesis to Revelation and get the whole counsel of God on the subject. This will take time and patience. It took Moses forty years to lay down God’s teaching in the wilderness. We need a generation of faithful Bible students to help us re-inherit the truth. Are you one of them? Start now!

One great reformer said that peace is not just the absence of conflict: it is the presence of justice. When we pray for peace, let us remember God requires that we be involved in working for justice.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to look for in studying and coloring government in the scriptures are: law; government; the military; legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; national and local authority; and community development from the legislative or executive perspective.
The domain of government reveals: The King of Kings
The primary attribute of God revealed in government: Justice
God governs this domain through: Delegation of authority to the people
The color I used: Purple

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
To provide and ensure justice and equity for all citizens including executive, judicial, military, law enforcement and central community services. Great issues include: justice for the weak and voiceless in society including children, women, and immigrants.

NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
God is calling you to be a good citizen as part of the witness of your faith. Political action and interest are not “secular” in the sense that they are not important for the believer. God instituted government, and He gave you and me responsibility for it. God is just and wants all His people to work for justice. First of all, it is our responsibility under God to be informed and to be involved. Do you vote? If you live in a country where participation is allowed, it is your moral obligation as a Christian to be involved. If you live in a country where you are denied that right, you must pray and work to see your nation’s legal system changed. As believers we should be volunteering at the polls, helping people get registered, and making it possible to have a place to vote. We should explain to our children that God gave us this great right and responsibility to be involved in our political life, and we must cherish and safeguard this right. As believers we are to believe that our involvement makes a difference because it makes a difference to God. We are to teach our children that serving in government is a high calling, and if God has gifted our children in this area then He may call them and favor them as He did David, Daniel, Joseph, Nehemiah, and others. If this is the case, they will have a much higher purpose in their occupations than “just making money.” They must know that they serve God and must have the mind of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, and strategic prayer support if their work is to accomplish something of lasting value for the Kingdom.

You are God’s strategy for discipling your community and nation. Will you respond to the call?

A NOTE TO THE GOVERNMENT PROFESSIONAL:
If you are a lawyer, judge, police officer, civil servant, soldier, elected official, social worker, or serve your nation’s government in any capacity, you have a high calling from God. The pillars of God’s kingdom are justice and righteousness, and your calling is to support the pillar of justice. You are challenged by scripture to be God’s extension of His justice to the people whom you serve. It does not matter if you work in a system that is fair as Solomon did, or in one that is somewhat or thoroughly unjust as Joseph and Daniel did; you have a calling from God to give and work for the highest level of justice possible in the system. First, you must be just in your own dealings with people; then you must work to make the institutions, systems, and laws just. What would your nation look like if every Christian professional made this their passion and pursued it with a sense of call? God will start with one. Are you that one? Will you study to take on the mind of Christ in the political arena and apply what you are learning first to your own life and work, and then, where possible, to the institutions themselves? You are God’s strategy for discipling your nation.

1. Patrick Johnstone, “Operation World”, 1986

2. Romans 13:6

3. 1 Samuel 8

4. 1 Samuel 10:1, 1 Samuel 16:13, I Kings 1:34

5. 1 Samuel 10:24, 2 Samuel 2:4, 2 Samuel 5:1-3, 1 Kings 1:39-40

6. 2 Samuel 4

7. 2 Samuel 5:1-5

8. Numbers 14:6-9

9. 2 Samuel 5:1

10. Matthew 12:25

Next

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
Deuteronomy 5:16

“Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you – they are your life.”
Deuteronomy 32:46-47

Of all the domains in the Kingdom of God, family is probably the most discussed and studied by Christians. We base political platforms on “family values,” and yet the divorce rate continues to climb…50 percent, verging on 60 percent in some regions, with no significant difference between the Christian and non-Christian population. Why? Can the power of God save our souls but not restore our families?

Over this last decade of coloring the scriptures by domains in order to understand God’s thinking in every arena of life, nothing has more impacted my thinking than God’s view of family, its influence, and its role in community at large. I do not have one key scripture to study here, but thousands address marriage, children, in-laws, conflicts, sexual conduct, inheritance laws, family and finance, family and justice, education and much, much more.

We Learn 80 Percent Of What We Know In The Home
Like communication and education, the domain of family provides the warp to the government’s and church’s weave. Family’s influence touches everyone and everything. It is said that by the time we are four we will have learned/established 80 percent of our view of life. By the time we enter school we know whether we are good or bad, whether the world is safe or dangerous, whether we are bright or stupid and whether other people are to be feared or trusted. We have learned a life strategy of asking questions or building defenses. We already know whether challenges are exciting or dangerous. Uninterrupted, we will continue to evaluate all of life and the world we live in through that grid of reality. In our modern Christian terminology you could say that we have most of our worldview in place before we ever leave home for school. To say it another way, in our first four years of life, parents and the home environment will give us the definition of reality that we’ll use all our lives.

An impressive example of the power of that home influence is the cultural landscape of New Zealand. This small island nation’s population is divided between indigenous Maori peoples and immigrant Europeans. In many ways, New Zealand’s daily life is integrated in schools, shops, transportation, news and mass media and entertainment, dress, and sports. However, the worldview/culture of the Maori and European in New Zealand are as different as if they still lived nearly half a world apart. How can this be? Where are these values and views of reality learned? In the home! From the family! With almost no intentionality.

In an age when we focus on almost everything but the family – movies, T.V., music, school, friends – God puts His sights directly on the family as the most important influence in society. The biblical overview leaves you with an overwhelming sense that, for God, family is sacred and the most important building block of all He has created. The family is responsible for His most cherished of all attributes: Love! No wonder the distortion in this domain is so great.

Song Of Songs
Few topics get an entire book in scripture; love and the anticipation of marriage is one exception. When God highlights something with such attention we should do the same. Song of Songs celebrates the exhilarating highs and lows of emotional love and the anticipation of its physical expression in marriage. In a day when Christians are viewed as having a diminished view of sex, God clearly thinks it is a good idea. The Song of Songs is a celebration of the joy, comfort and pleasure of marriage. It is not only celebrated by the bride and groom, but by their friends and the community at large. The message could not be clearer on God’s side: Love is good. Marriage is good. Sex is good. And family is good.

Genesis chapters one and two set the stage for the importance of men and women working together. God says that it takes both the male and female to reveal the image of God and that He blessed “them” and family as His primary strategies for filling the earth with the revelation of Himself.

Genesis 1:27-28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

By chapter three we can see that the enemy of God has another plan which results, first of all, in a separation of God and man and, secondly, in hostility and distrust between man and woman. The devastating results can still be seen today as God’s sacred creation of family remains a primary battleground in every society in the world. Divorced men are eight times more likely to suffer mental illness. Broken homes produce greater numbers of sociopaths with little, if any, regard for community. Financial ruin and poverty follow divorce and the next generation is maimed before they ever have a chance at life. That’s the bad news about family. What’s the good news? What was God’s intent in creation?

As we move through Genesis, we see that God highlights the origins of the cosmos, the individual, family, tribes, and finally, the origins of nations. Our Western syncretism of the idol of individualism has nearly blinded our biblical scholarship to the importance of the family and community unit. Most of God’s attributes cannot be seen or taught in isolation. The idea that living completely alone would be paradise seems idyllic, but it is sterile. You cannot express love, justice, relationship, generosity, and wisdom alone on an island. God’s most wonderful ideas and characteristics are revealed in how we live together and we begin learning of all these attributes in our family.

Family: The Root Of All Culture
As we follow the development of man through the Genesis narrative we see that individual traits become multiplied and strengthened in families. Then, as families grow, those same traits become amplified into cultural, tribal, and finally, national traits. Take, for example, Abraham’s tendency to be manipulative, and sometimes actually dishonest, especially when it came to women in the family. In Genesis chapter 12, Abraham deceives the pharaoh about the nature of his relationship with Sarah in order to protect himself. In spite of God’s promises in chapter 15, Abraham allows himself to be talked into seeking an heir through a concubine and so begins the story of Ishmael and his descendants (Chapter 16). In chapter 20, Abraham is again faced with danger and lies to Abimelech about his wife. Isaac is born and marries Rebekah and carries on the family trait in chapter 26, again lying about the nature of his relationship with his wife in order to protect himself from danger. Jacob enters the picture and, with the help of his mother, deceives Isaac as to his identity in order to steal Esau’s blessing. Fleeing, Jacob goes to his family in Paddan Aram and meets his match in his uncle and future father-in-law, Laban. These two spend twenty-one years trying to get the better of each other over the issue of Rachel. Are you beginning to see the pattern and escalation? As Jacob flees Laban and resettles his small tribe in Shechem, personal character flaws, which have grown into destructive family patterns, explode into tribal disaster. In chapter 34 Jacob’s daughter is violated by the Prince of Shechem who is remorseful and actually loves and is loved by Dinah. Jacob’s sons, in the name of family honor and in order to obtain the wealth of the Schechemite tribe, deceived and then murdered every male in the Shechemite tribe.

A character trait has run its full course into cultural identity and ends in genocide. This trait of treachery turns in on the family and Joseph, taking Israel into Egypt and 400 years of exile and slavery. Joseph, on the other hand, is given opportunity to respond in deceit when he is unjustly abused by Potiphar and his wife, the cup bearer, the baker, and finally, with great temptation, his own brothers. But he refuses to deceive and is used of God to save his family, his tribe, and his host nation from great famine. Of course God is teaching us many things in Genesis, but certainly one of the major themes is the influence of individuals on families, families on communities, and finally, communities on tribes. Discipling nations begins in the home!

Family: First Line Of Defense – Values (Education)
One of the first things that struck me in the study of family was the emphasis given to time together with parents and children and how that time was to be used. Over and over again you will read phrases like: “when you walk, lie down, get up,”¹ “when you sit”,² “write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”³ These are instructions for parents in teaching their children God’s thoughts on all of life, and modeling how these principles are lived out in daily life. Not only is parental responsibility and authority reinforced in scripture, but government or church involvement in the primary discipleship of children is almost completely absent.

We hear great complaint about our schools, our churches, and our entertainment industry’s lack of responsibility to give children good values, but God puts the greatest weight of responsibility on the parents. I do not want to argue for immorality, violence, and drugs. However, when we blame the gun, the entertainment industry, the government, the schools, and the streets for children’s problems, we are not focusing on what God focuses on. In essence we are saying, “Make the world safe so that my child will be safe.” This is far from the biblical view of reality. God says, “In order for your children to be safe in an unsafe world, teach and model what they need to know and understand. Sin is real and we are surrounded by destruction. Teach your children to choose good over evil!”

Scripture assumes that this will take time and that parents and children are doing things together and using opportunities to discuss how God’s view of reality relates to our everyday living. Can we really expect children to take these values seriously if they do not see them modeled and revered in their parents’ lives? By the time they go to school, children know from the way their parents have lived whether honesty, justice, integrity, courage, and other character traits are important or not. Of course school, teachers, pastors, Sunday School, friends and culture can have a dramatic impact, but the home is still the formative influence and, in God’s eyes, clearly the most important. It is the grid of reality the child will use to interpret all other influences in life.

Family: First Line Of Defense – Morality
If we would just obey one of God’s ten commandments, “You shall not commit adultery”⁴ we would virtually eliminate:

• Incest: In some areas of South Africa incest accounts for 70 per cent of all sexual abuse cases.⁵
• Pedophilia: An estimated ten million are involved in exploitation for profit of children.⁶
• Abortion: 77 percent of abortions in England and Wales in 2004 of single women.⁷
• Sexually transmitted diseases: Syphilis is up 1500 percent in the UK and rising.⁸
• Rape: Over one quarter of all rapes in the UK are committed against children under 16 years of age.⁹

Overwhelming, isn’t it? Today we, Christians included, seem to be shocked by sexual immorality. In the Bible, God seems to take it for granted. Undeterred, scripture teaches that human beings will have sex with just about anyone and anything. How else do we explain the long lists in Deuteronomy and Leviticus on who (and what) not to have sex with? Somewhere we’ve picked up the idea that sexual morality is the norm and deviance is the exception. God seems to think otherwise in both the Old and New Testament.

Look at just this one chapter:

Leviticus 18:5-24
5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD.
6 “No-one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations.
I am the LORD.
7 “Do not dishonor your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; do not have relations with her.
8 “Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father.
9 “Do not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere.
10 “Do not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; that would dishonor you.
11 “Do not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister.
12 “Do not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.
13 “Do not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.
14 “Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.
15 “Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.
16 “Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.
17 “Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
18 “Do not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is living.
19 “Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period.
20 “Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.
21 “Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
23 “Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.
24 “Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.”

God could have saved an enormous amount of time by just shortening this to “don’t have sex with anyone but your spouse.” But God is defining what He means by the word adultery and He is emphasizing the destruction of immorality, especially in the family. We must not think this means sexuality outside the family is not a sin, but God is stressing that sexual immorality within the family has multiple victims – the two engaged in sexual conduct, and the families that surround them.

Today, we in the religious community, seem to highlight the destructiveness of prostitution and homosexuality while virtually ignoring marital adultery, sexual abuse, and incest, which are all rampant. I have never heard a sermon on incest or rape and its impact on family and society. I am not arguing that we should condone any destructive sexual behavior. I am simply saying that we have ceased to view the severity of these issues from God’s perspective. We take adultery and divorce fairly lightly, even in the church.

How can we raise children who will be able to withstand the sexual onslaughts of the world if they do not see morality modeled in the home? How can we have bold, confident children when so many family secrets send a message that is contrary to what God says? How can we be shocked by what God takes for granted? And if we don’t teach our own children to love and respect their bodies and to view sex as a Godly and sacred act in the faithful covenant of marriage at home, then who will teach them? Please don’t think they won’t figure sex out until “it is time.” As we attack government and school programs that teach sexual behavior, let us remember that God has given parents the responsibility to model and teach that value to their children. If they don’t… someone will. God knows who should.

Family: First Line Of Defense – Provision
In both the Old and New Testament, family is the first line of protection against poverty and economic ruin. The definition of destitute and who should feed the destitute was one of the early debates in the Church. Paul makes it clear in 1 Timothy 5 that if the poor have family, the family is to take care of them. Only if they have no other alternative, i.e. work or family, is the church to give assistance. The custom of the Pharisees was to tithe everything, even the herbs in their kitchen. Jesus rebuked them for tithing mint and leaving their parents without financial help.¹⁰

The book of Ruth recounts the story of the widow Naomi and her widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth. Refugees, childless, and without recourse in a foreign land, they return to Israel and the town of their family origin. Here they find aid by gleaning in the fields of their closest relative, Boaz, who takes his right as “kindred redeemer,” marries Ruth,¹¹ and brings her and Naomi into his home to care for them. What a wonderful concept,  “kindred redeemer!” God’s first line of responsibility for those in financial need was the family, not the church, community or government.

Jewish culture, in general, still functions this way. I have traveled to nearly half of the world’s nations and it is very rare to find a poverty-stricken Jew, even in very poor countries. When they immigrate, a few from the family go first, get established, and then bring the next ones over and help them get established and so on. They may not be rich, but they are not in need and rarely dependent on anyone outside of the family. This is not just savvy business; it’s God’s principles of family responsibility being lived out.

In today’s independent world we focus on self-reliance. That is not entirely bad, but in scripture God clearly balances independence with family and community responsibility. The view of family today is contributing to the new poor and to economic ruin for the community and the individual.

Family: First Line Of Defense – Justice
Deuteronomy 21:15-21 can be disturbing if we are reading it for application and not principle:
15 If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love,
16 when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love.
17 He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,
19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.
20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.”
21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

This passage is not a teaching for polygamy or capital punishment of teenagers. At the time Moses is writing these passages the tribes are polygamous and violent. The guideline “an eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth” is already an attempt to curtail their vengeful justice system in which they take “a life for a slap.”¹² God has never been oblivious to the realities of the peoples He is discipling and God is not unrealistic. Discipleship takes time and a step in the right direction is a good step. Monogamy is clearly God’s highest in an overview of scripture, but they are polygamous at this time in history and, within that less than desirable state of affairs, there must still be justice. The overwhelming importance of this passage and similar laws is that: “family members have rights, whether men, women or children” and that “family members have a responsibility to honor those rights and to carry out those responsibilities.”

No record in scripture tells of a rebellious teenager being stoned. And I don’t think that is surprising. The overwhelming message of this passage is parental responsibility. Parents must invest the time and be responsible to discipline. If that is not effective, they have to bring the child to the leaders. It is the community’s responsibility to weigh whether the parents have done all that is possible and if the child is truly incorrigible. Another passage tells us that the parents have to lead in applying the punishment. The principle is not that “rebellious teenagers are to be stoned;” the principle God is putting forward here is that “parents are responsible for the actions of their children.”

In the book of Esther, we see a wonderful example of family responsibilities being carried out. Esther is an orphan and a refugee. Her cousin, Mordecai, raises her as his daughter. He is instrumental in her becoming Queen of Persia. Mordecai modeled a passion for justice not only in his family but also in his community. When the pagan king, who holds the Jews in exile by force, is in danger of assassination, it is Mordecai who warns of the plot and saves the king’s life.¹³ Then Mordecai calls upon Esther to use her position as queen to save the Jewish people from a plot of genocide hatched by Haman, another political leader. Mordecai lived by the rule of “loving your neighbor as yourself” and modeled it in caring for his family, his host country, and, finally, for his own people. He understood that justice included “loving your neighbor.” His simple modeling of that to a family member, Esther, resulted in the saving of a nation.

Jesus says the whole of the law can be summed up by this sentence: “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” James calls this the royal law¹⁴ and goes on to say that showing favoritism in applying this law is sin. What happens when children observe discrimination in their own home? Parents speak of justice for strangers, but treat each other unjustly. A pastor preaches love on Sunday, but beats his wife. We talk of God loving the lost, but show intolerance for different ethnic groups or “types” of sinners. We constantly criticize our government, but don’t even vote. How can we raise children to believe and model justice if justice is not modeled in the home? How can we hope to influence our communities if we do not model community concern and action at home? The answer? We can’t. The family is God’s first line of defence for individual and community justice.

Family: First Line Of Defense – Love
God summarizes the whole of His thinking about life in one word: love. God’s definition of love means the presence of justice, provision, integrity, truth. The authority behind government as God created it to function is the people. The authority of science is the unchangeable, Godcreated laws of nature. The authority of the church is its right handling of the Word of God. Authority is expressed in the family domain through love – love that is defined by the way Christ loved the church.

The younger leaders I work with in ministry have a hard time with the fact that I still teach structure in the family. I am open and listening, but until I see their view in the Word I have to withhold changing my thinking. As I look at the whole of the Bible, I see structure in every institution God has created. It seems to me that He has designed us to live that way and the universe to function that way. I see family structure in scripture. The parents have authority over the children until they leave home, and the husband over the wife. I know some hate to see those words; we have a knee jerk reaction because the concept has been abused and made to mean things God could never condone. Many in history have abused scripture in order to make themselves more powerful. But, what does God mean by these texts?

Ephesians 5:22-6:4
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.
24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
word,
27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church –
30 for we are members of his body.
31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
32 is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church.
33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2 “Honor your father and mother” – which is the first commandment with a promise –
3 “that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”
4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

If we move this discussion of structure and authority in the family away from “who takes out the garbage” and “who does the laundry” and move it to who is responsible and when are they responsible, then I think God’s view becomes clearer. For instance, if a spouse is unconscious in the hospital and needs surgery, who should be able to give consent? If a family member borrows money and fails to pay, who should be responsible? If a parent dies in an accident, who should get the children? Who should take financial responsibility for children until they are old enough to take care of themselves? Governments have to make laws to guide decisions like those that communities make every day and our “world – view” of family will determine those decisions. The emphasis of God’s word is clear: A great deal of responsibility belongs in the family domain.

The Authority Of Family Is Love
So there is structure and authority in the family. Now, how is that authority to be carried out? When is the authority of family being abused and to be forfeited? When should a child be taken from a home? When must a spouse flee a marriage? When should the government take authority away from parents? How do we determine the difference between parental discipline and abuse of a child? Difficult questions! Really, the essence of these questions is, “When does family have authority and when does the community or the government step in?”

How do we define love? The Word says love is demonstrated in the way Jesus works with the church and the way a person takes care of his or her own body. Love says, “You are as important to me as me.” In fact, this kind of love says, “You are more important to me than me.” Because Christ gave up His life and his right to authority in order to serve the church. He gave up his body and life that we might have life.

Wow! This is radical stuff. Husbands, this means that, if you are to have authority with your wives, you must be “chief lover.” Your authority in your home is based on the quality of your love! Parents, in order to have authority over your children you will need to love them. The less faithful your love, the less authority you will have with them. In fact, if you act in a way that is actually destructive to your spouse or children, you have no authority and they can and should be taken from you.

Should a spouse or child endure life-threatening abuse because God gives authority to that family structure? Absolutely not. God never gives all authority over all things at all times to anyone! He is the only one He would trust with that kind of authority and He even limits Himself. In creating you and me in His image, He limited His control over our lives by giving us free will. That freedom has rights and responsibilities for each of us, but when anyone tries to remove that freedom entirely in the name of any authority it is called tyranny.

To understand what Paul means when he teaches us to submit to the authority of government, look at how he lived that submission out. When the Roman government ordered him to stop preaching he disobeyed their authority and willingly went to prison for it. There was a higher law over his faith and actions: God Himself. When the government exercised authority not given to it by the people or by God, Paul entered into civil disobedience. This subject is a book within itself, but my point here is that no one, including family, has all authority over anyone; to honor, submit, and obey in scripture does not always mean doing what you are told. This concept is probably most abused in the arena of family.

Destructive Myths Floating Around Christian Families Men are over women:
Sorry, no such principle in scripture. In fact, Barak lost his military honors for not following the orders of his Commandress in Chief, Deborah. There is no overall mandate in scripture of men in authority over women. There is a structure to family and the authority for that structure is love.

We will only want sex with one lifetime partner:
Sorry again! The Bible seems to assume that we will have sex with just about anyone or anything unless we are taught differently. In the Old Testament God teaches sexual conduct in great detail and in the New Testament Jesus teaches that all temptations are common and, furthermore, that He experienced them all!

Love means never having to say I’m sorry:
No! Love means the presence of justice, provision, protection, and harmony. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I need sex to be happy and fulfilled:
If that were true, surely we would be one of the happiest and most fulfilled generations in history. No, scripture does say we need intimacy in relationships to be happy and fulfilled, but we can have that with or without sex. There is nothing more lonely than sex without intimacy and nothing more fulfilling than intimacy with or without sex. We must marry for the right reasons or we will continue to have marriages that fail.

Staying together is the key:
Staying married is less financially damaging and often better for everyone, especially the children. But when we move the discussion to “why marry in the first place” and God’s purpose for marriage, we can work on staying together for the right reason. Until then, our cures are all bandages on a hemorrhage.

A good marriage will always feel good:
Wrong! In God’s design, a good marriage will rub against both spouses’ rough edges until you are smoothed more into the image of Christ. Part of the purpose of marriage is to help deliver us from ourselves by bringing us face to face with ourselves in a loving environment.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring the subject of family in scripture: wives, husbands, sons, daughters, children, widows, orphans, principles and ethics of relationships, sexual conduct.
The domain of family reveals: The Father
The primary attribute of God revealed in the family: Love/Nurture
God governs this domain through: The laws of love
The color I used: Orange

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
The purpose of family is to provide a safe, nurturing environment for growth, values, and development of the next generation. It is the smallest building block of human society. Great issues include: Love, discipline, modeling God’s thinking, preparation for vocation of the children and the husband’s love setting the tone of the home.

A NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
We all live in families and our first witness is how we live there. We can accomplish nothing greater in our community or in nations than what we accomplish in the microcosm of our own home and family. We will reproduce who we are, and who we are is most revealed in our home where we are known on a daily basis. This is not a trap; this is God’s design. Our close relationships give us a mirror in which to see how much we are reflecting His glory. In our family we see what God wants to work on in our lives to make us more loving, more like Himself. This is an ongoing lifelong process of growth. Each stage of life gives us opportunity to grow in new areas. He is there to help us. Marriage, children, adolescence, empty nest, death, middle age, grandchildren, old age, illness all give us opportunity to grow with each other in the family. This is called living and with Christ it is called abundant living, being made more like Him on a daily basis. Family is a sacred covenant meant to produce God-likeness in us all. When you grow here you will take more of Jesus into everything you do and you will reproduce His likeness.

A NOTE TO FAMILY PROFESSIONALS:
Whether you are a family counselor, family lawyer, social worker, or any other family-oriented professional, yours is one of the most important arenas in society. If the family is healthy, we will have healthy communities and, then, healthy nations. It is so important that you see your work and the role of family from God’s perspective. We must touch family structures very lightly and invade only in the direst of circumstances. However, we must not allow abusive injustice to rule in any family. When and how to step into a family unit to save the individual is a vital and delicate balance. Only God’s perspective and His wisdom can help us in individual cases and in making policies, guidelines and laws that bridle our profession’s authority so that it does not destroy the very institution it is there to protect. You have a wonderful and sacred call; fulfill it in the wisdom and power of His Spirit.

1. Deuteronomy 6:7
2. Deuteronomy 11:19
3. Deuteronomy 6:9
4. Exodus 20:14
5. “Jabu’s Long Walk to Comfort” by Neville Josie on http://www.unicef.org/southafrica/reallives2145.html; “Blammed For A Crime Committed Against Me” by James Hall http://www.UNICEF/southafrica/resources_1846.html
6. End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT – www.ecpat.org)
7. CARE, UK
8. http://news.bbc.CO.UK/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4339264.stm
9. End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT – www.ecpat.org)
10. 1 Timothy 5:8; Matthew 23:23
11. Ruth 4
12. Genesis 4:23-24
13. Esther 2:19
14. James 2:8

Next

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that our days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.”
Deuteronomy 11:18-21

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”
Luke 10:27

Education, like communication and the arts, is difficult to isolate and study apart from other areas in scripture. Everything in scripture is about learning. The Bible is a book inspired by God for our education and understanding of His ways. So, again, with this chapter we do not have one scripture that serves as an example, but will look at a scriptural overview of the subject. It is clear that God is a God of knowledge. He can be known. He wants to be known and He wants us to know Him in all that He has made. You could say that inquiring minds are godly minds and one of the primary marks of discipleship is expressed in questions – the desire to learn and know.

We Can Know
Epistemology is a big word meaning the “science of knowing.” All philosophies and religions ask, “Can we know?” and, if so, “How can we know?” God’s Word says, “Yes, we can know!” And we will know through a combined process of discovery and revelation. The basis of modern science – that the material world is real, measurable, and discoverable – is a biblical concept. The Islamic world can copy technology, but has a very hard time creating and maintaining it because they believe there are no fixed laws by which God governs the material world. There is only the will of Allah. Hinduism and Buddhism teach, basically, that the material world we live in is not real and not important. Many Christian doctrines get dangerously close to this split concept today. But the Bible teaches that truth is discoverable and knowable and that, when applied, consistently results in the same consequences. God knows all truth and all truth, in any and every domain of life, reveals God. Mystery in scripture is a result of the difference between what we know and what God knows, not what is knowable. In His Word, God originates and encourages wisdom, knowledge, and education.

Education Reveals The Attribute Of Wisdom
For the Hebrew mind discipled by the teaching of Moses the concept of knowing includedapplication. This is far from most worldviews today. Most educational systems are based on the concept that you can know by retaining information about a subject without needing to apply it. As a result, the working world acknowledges that university graduates can do nothing when they first come to work. They have to be taught how on the job. This greatly concerns educational professionals worldwide and has become a subject of debate and study. This same idea – that data is knowledge – has led to a generation of Christians who say they know God but still don’t know how to obey Him. Many have the concept that you can know the writer of scripture without applying any of His principles, that you can be saved but not demonstrate any fruit of that conversion in your daily life, or, as some say, “believe like God and act like the devil.” None of these are biblical assumptions.

From Genesis through the book of Revelation, God reinforces the concept that knowledge is demonstrated in action, faith in works, learning in growth, wisdom in love. There is no scriptural basis for a “blind leap of faith.” Existentialism says you cannot know, you can only experience. Jesus refused to leap off the temple at Satan’s temptation. Jesus understood that you could know the will of God without taking the leap. The “experience” of leaping was not the only way to know. For God, wisdom is not just choosing right, but understanding why it is right. God’s goal is not, finally, obedience but agreement. As parents we understand that in the beginning we must just say, “No,” to a child who is about to put his little hand on a hot burner. We try to convey that it is hot and he will be burned, but when he is small, we are satisfied if he just doesn’t touch it. As he matures we are looking for him to become aware of what we mean by hot and, hopefully without permanent damage, begin to agree that burning flesh is a bad and painful thing. Finally, we want him not to touch the burner because he agrees that it would not be a good thing to do.

If we are growing in God, we’ll need to ask about fewer and fewer things because we’ve learned God’s thinking on those subjects. This does not mean that we no longer are inquiring of God. It means we no longer ask God the same question because we come to know and agree with His answers and reasoning. We will learn and ask God about things that are new for us because we do not yet have God’s mindset on them.

The Old and New Testaments are full of admonitions to add to the experience of knowing God personally, to gain information about God revealed in creation, history, and the written word. Paul writes of “renewing our minds”¹ and “taking every thought captive and making it conform to themind of Christ.”² In 1 Corinthians 14:15 he encourages the church to pray with their minds, with understanding, as well as in tongues. In Acts the people of God were gathered in “one heart and one mind.”³ Paul warns of a “sinful mind” in Romans 8:6 and admonishes the Romans to have a “mind controlled by the Spirit.” The entirety of Proverbs celebrates the blessings of wisdom applied to our lives and encourages the life-long pursuit of her. Over and over again in the books of Moses the Israelites are admonished to study and learn the ways of God revealed in the Torah and to apply them to their lives. Jesus had mastered these principles by the time he was twelve and astounded the priests with His wisdom.⁴ One difference between Jesus and the Pharisees was that they quoted the Law, but He explained it. He understood it. He could apply it to daily life. Jesus calls His disciples to, “Ask, seek, knock…” to inquire and learn of Him and His Father. All of the prophets admonished Israel to turn back to the principles laid down by God through Moses and to see the blessing of God return.

Repentance Means Changed Thinking
The New Testament word repent is often taught to mean change direction. The actual translation of the word from the Greek would be change thinking. In other words, the key to changed behavior is changed thought, not the other way around. When we focus on actions, we become obsessed with the appearance rather than the substance of our lives. We look good but we are unchanged on the inside. God’s concern is not so much with the external, but who we are internally. God desires to win us to His view of reality and truth so that we are like Him because we see reality as He sees it.

In chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians Paul argues that our warfare is a warfare, in part, of the mind. “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”⁵ Our warfare with this world is a warfare between idea’s, and a warfare to get a grasp of what reality is. If we are to stand and be an influence, we must not only act as Jesus would act, we must think as Jesus thinks.

Education And The Family
In an “Economist” article in the late 90’s, researchers wrote of discovering that successful learning in the classroom had little to do with how much money or time was spent on the subject. They found that less learning could take place when more time and money had been spent and vice versa. One determining factor for success or failure was the method of teaching. Parental support was another factor that educators worldwide agree is important. If parents are involved in the child’s education the child will learn more. Scripture overwhelmingly agrees with this discovery; the authority and responsibility of parents in teaching their children is abundantly clear.

“In the future, when your son asks you, what is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” tell him:

Deuteronomy 6:20-25
We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders – great and terrible – upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.

Deuteronomy 11:19-21
Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when your walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

Children Absorb Their World View
As we discussed in the chapter on Family, in those formative years from birth to four, when children absorb the view of reality around them, the parents’ perspective is the critical factor. The child will take in the values and beliefs that are modeled in the home, whether they are intentionally taught by the parents or not. The child will believe the reality parents convey and will copy it. They have no choice at this stage of growth because they are exposed to no other reality. Parents will imprint their actual, not necessarily desired, value system on the child. For this reason God emphasizes, over and over again, the importance of parents teaching their children God’s view of life in the everyday activities of eating, walking and working together.

I am not proposing that scripture indicates all parents should home school. That is just one method of education and the Bible does not put forth a single model. However, the influence of parents in the child’s life is emphasized in the Word. Based on their parents’ view, children will go to school believing they are smart enough, or too stupid, to learn. They will enter school believing learning is important and exciting, or boring and a waste of time, based on their parents’ view. When they come home, the importance of homework will be reinforced, or devalued; home will be a place that promotes learning or a place that disrupts it. From home they will take the idea that something can be learned from everyone and that everyone’s ideas need to be evaluated or, perhaps, they will take the belief that there is nothing to learn from anyone. Before they ever go to school, children will believe in a God who reveals truth, or that there is no truth.

Have you ever wondered why God spends so much time on the early life of Daniel and his training in Babylon? Daniel and his three friends are captive aliens in Babylon, taken from their families as adolescents into the palace and service of the King. They attend Babylon University where they study witchcraft, divination, and other sordid subjects, and they are at the top of their class. They are surrounded by a pagan, idolatrous culture, yet none of them absorbs any of it. How do we explain this in a world where Christians and non-Christians alike are declaring television, movies, music, advertising, and schools to be the formative influences on young people’s minds? How did Daniel and the others stand in this Babylonian environment? The answer is simple and profoundly emphasized in scripture: they took their values with them. They continued to weigh the values around them in captivity with what they had been taught and, more importantly, modeled in their homes. Scripture indicates that if children are the victims of the world around them, there can only be one explanation. They are not being given the tools at home to evaluate the messages coming at them from the world, and they have not been given the confidence that they, with God’s help, can know and discern truth.

Education And Government
For several decades Christians in my country have been very vocal about the damage to our public school system caused by removal of prayer from schools. I do not want to argue for the absence of prayer, but I do want to discuss the thinking behind this argument. First of all, from God’s perspective you cannot outlaw prayer; you can only outlaw prayer meetings and praying out loud. God has given no authority to government to rule over our hearts and minds. We can think and believe what we like. The institution of government can only attempt to control our outward actions. For decades we have traced the decline of our schools and education in the U.S.A. to a law banning prayer when law cannot ban prayer unless we agree to it. The law is unjust, but is it catastrophic?

On the other hand, something else took place in the U.S. that perhaps had far greater implications. The authority of education began to move consistently from parent- and teacher-based local organizations towards a national association for education. This shift in authority from family to government was far more strategic and dangerous than outlawing prayer meetings. God gave no authority to governments over our children. God gave that authority to parents. Governments are created by God to deal with the masses. By design, that is their function. Education, by its nature, is an individual process. Like social issues of poverty and drugs, if you ask the government to deal with it, you will have the most expensive and least effective programs. The government will design a program that attempts to deal with everyone in the same way…much like a prison system. But social problems, drugs, and education are individual problems that can only be solved effectively by addressing the individual. God designed the family to deal with individuals. Parents can delegate their authority to a public school system, but if they abdicate their support or if their role is ignored or even denied by the institution, those schools have very little legitimate authority over the children.

The same is true when parents abdicate responsibility for their child’s education to a Christian school. God does not give the church the responsibility to train children. He gives that responsibility to parents.

Education And The Laws Of Human Nature
In education and in communication it is important to look at how God has created human nature to work. Today’s media culture emphasizes the power of persuasion to the point that we begin to think of ourselves more as recorders, taking every message in and conforming to it. When a crisis hits, we blame the impact of the media, or schools, or postmodernism, and the way youth think today. We talk about “secular” education as though it is a power in and of itself.

This is not the view of man conveyed in scripture. In the Bible, the human race is given great authority, the authority to accept or reject the influences around them. Nothing in God’s Word indicates that it is easy to make our fellowman do what we want. Far from it. Scripture emphasizes man’s ability to discern, and accept or reject, influences around him. In the next chapter on communication we will discuss brainwashing, subliminal communication and the “recordable man” theories. But for the sake of our discussion on education, let me summarize by saying that, once we move on from those very formative first years, we learn what we want to learn. We are far more like filters than sponges. This is so profoundly true that communists in the former Soviet Union can drum doctrine into school children for seven decades and yet no more than twenty percent of them believe in communism. Generations of black children in South Africa were taught that they are to have no role in the political life of their nation, yet almost none of them believe it. Maori and European children in New Zealand attend the same schools and come out with incredibly different world views.

Educators I’ve talked to all over the world agree that the two most important keys to learning are the parents’ attitude and involvement, and the motivation of the child. The biblical view is that every child is gifted, every child can learn, every child has value, and every child has the right to reach its full potential. But it also emphasizes that we are created by God to be free and we make choices whether to hear (learn) or not. The greatest influence on those choices will be the first few years in our home environment.

Why do I emphasize this? Because we have to recognize what an education system can and cannot do. We have to realize the importance of parenting. We have to give schools their proper place in God’s scheme of things, but not expect them to work miracles or work in isolation. And, we have to put our faith for the future in more than education.

STUDY HELP:
Themes to consider when studying and coloring the subject of education in scripture: teaching, learning, remembering, mind, thought, reason, nurture, wisdom and family.
The domain of education reveals: The Great Teacher-Rabbi
The primary attribute of God revealed in education: Wisdom
God governs this domain through: The laws of human nature
The color I used: Brown

WORKING VOCATIONAL MISSION STATEMENT:
To provide for the development of the God-given gifts in every child for the service of their fellow man and society, believing every child is gifted by God and has the right for those gifts to be developed to their highest potential. Great issues include: Value-based integrated process with family involvement and support.

A NOTE TO ALL BELIEVERS:
Do you love learning? God does! Are you interested in everything? God is! If we are to model Jesus to those around us, part of that modeling will be His passion to know His Father in every area of life. One of the most tragic effects of the split gospel is the loss of interest in most of life. Often it seems that the only thing a believer can talk about is church, prayer, heaven, and hell. Not that those are not important. They are! But, were Jesus here, He would be ecstatic to be in the first generation to actually see through the Hubble telescope a star being born, or dying. His Father created that and He would worship Him in all that the heavens are still teaching us. He would stand in awe at the way His Father created the DNA of the human species. He would ponder the fact that every cell can reproduce every other human cell and what that says about the nature and character of God. Jesus would love the idea of going to other planets and discovering more of what the Father has made. He would be reading, listening, eager about what is going on in His Father’s cosmos and He would be excited about what we are learning and how God wants to use that insight.

God has made us with the capacity to learn – or to refuse to learn, to know – or to refuse to know. From Genesis to Revelation God portrays Himself as the Lord of knowledge, revealed in all the truths of the universe. Choose to think like God! Choose to be interested. Model Jesus’ love of learning and you will make those around you hungry for more.

Children love learning unless they are taught to be afraid of it. All it takes to learn is willing- ness to admit you don’t know. That is the humility of a child. Children naturally ask questions. They have to be taught to feel foolish about the eagerness to know things. God loves questions and calls us to “ask, seek, knock”…and become like children again.

A NOTE TO EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALS:
Wherever I speak on this subject educational professionals ask me what they can do to influence their education system. The first thing I tell them is to study God’s word until they believe they see learning from God’s perspective. Zeal without wisdom is not good. Secondly, whatever their position, they can seek more parental involvement. As a teacher, they can communicate with and seek communication from their students’ parents. They can organize parental dialogue about the school system and their classroom. In many countries parents can be invited to volunteer and add to the curriculum and classroom management. How we do it is not as important as what we believe is essential. The critical thing is that we understand God’s principles. The applications will be dynamic to our community’s specific situation.

I love the story Bruce Olson conveys of his experiences with the Motilone Indians in South America.⁶ This tribe was Stone Age and almost entirely isolated from the outside world when Bruce went to live with them. An amazing move of God took place among these people and the entire tribe was converted to Christ. As they grew in God and began to understand more of the importance of scripture, they believed they needed to tackle the issue of education and learning to read. Rather than imposing a system on the Indians, Bruce Olson asked how they wanted to go about the process of education. The tribe decided that the elders needed to learn to read first so that they could then teach the children, otherwise the fiber of authority in the tribe would be destroyed. If the elders learned first, the importance of learning would be enhanced and they would be able to model for the children the value of learning to read. What a great application.

As administrator and school board members we should be seeking influence and policy that brings back parental involvement and authority in our school system. This is not to say that government does not have a role in organizing and overseeing an educational system. It is to say the system must be as parent- and local-based in its authority as possible. As a local principal you can create a voice for parents whether in a formal or informal way. You can create a communication strategy that helps them feel informed and involved and you can help your classroom teachers do the same. I do not mean to imply that getting parents involved is an easy task. Apathy abounds. However, the more the parents are involved, the healthier the school system will be.

1. Romans 12:2
2. 2 Corinthians 10:5
3. Acts 4:32
4. Luke 2:46-47
5. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
6. Olson, Bruce, “Bruchko”, YWAM Publishing, May 2005

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The next Reality Check - To be announced

Reality Check is a 7- 12 day seminar hosted by The Template Institute, which is a ministry affiliated with YWAM’s University of the Nations.  The Reality Check seminars are uniquely designed to help Christians rediscover God’s principles for every sphere of life.  The seminar aims to train you in Biblical values so that you will be better equipped to disciple your community more effectively on a daily basis.

The seminar will include teaching on Biblical worldview and, “The Old Testament Template”, (a comprehensive study by Landa Cope) which gives principles for nation discipleship.  You will also be given tools through Bible studies and specific breakout sessions of your choice in the areas of government, economics, family, education, science & technology, church, communications and arts & entertainment.

This seminar is designed for anyone who desires to grasp a deeper understanding of God’s intentions for all areas of life. Whether you are a missionary, a student going into business or politics, if you are training to be a church minister, an educator, or you are currently a professional working in the marketplace, this seminar is for you!

Speakers:

Reality Check Seminars will offer a variety of different TTI teachers at each seminar location.  Teaching Staff include:  Landa Cope, Erin Pennington, Richard Leakey, Leah Broomfield, Colleen Milstein, Becky Frith, Robi & Marnie Jane Agosta, Tove Poulsen, Tom Bloomer and others.

Location & Dates: TBA

TTI teachers for this seminar include: Tove Poulsen, and Leah Broomfield.  Cost for the week YWAM price: TBA.

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***These seminars are accredited with the University of the Nations.

We look forward to seeing you at one of our locations!  Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions and Register soon!