Tag: Donald Trump

Morning Musing: 1 Timothy 2:1-2

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“First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What do you do when you don’t have any power? Well, one approach is to try to get some power. That would seem to make sense. After all, power is a good thing. We all want to have some power. But what about when that’s not an option? What then? You could gripe and complain. You could punish those who do have power by making their exercise of it as complicated and uncomfortable as possible. Neither of those, though, seem like terribly positive options. Much to the contrary, they will likely make things vastly more difficult for us. There is another way, though. Paul outlines a third way here could make quite a difference indeed. Let’s talk about the best thing to do when you don’t have any power.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 13:1

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“Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are instituted by God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We don’t know what’s coming next. We can’t. Technically speaking, everything that happens is a surprise. Some of it is less surprising than others; some falls more in line with our predictions, but none of it we can say we knew with absolute certainty because, again, we don’t know what’s coming next. The result of this is that sometimes a moment occurs that changes everything. Sometimes a moment occurs that, rather than passing unremarkably by us like so many other moments do, will instantly become fixed in our minds such that we will always know where we were when it happened. The country experienced such a moment this past Saturday, and we were millimeters away from its being an even more transformative moment than it was. Somebody took a shot at former President, Donald Trump, and managed to graze his ear. In doing so, we experienced a moment that likely and perhaps permanently impacted the outcome of the presidential race, the next four years of history, and possibly much more than that. Let’s reflect on what we experienced, what some of the reactions have been, and what all of this might mean for followers of Jesus.

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Getting in Line

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What do we do when we are facing leaders we don’t want to follow issuing orders we don’t want to keep? The response by most people throughout history has been either passive acceptance or else violent rebellion. As followers of Jesus, though, there is another option. As we continue our series, Being Good Kingdom Citizens, this week, thinking together about how we need to respond to the current political climate as followers of Jesus, we are going to join the apostle Paul as he lays out what this third way is. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.

Getting in Line

Have you ever been faced with a rule you didn’t want to follow? I suspect so. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school, and we took the standardized science tests for the state at the end of the year. I remember thinking the whole test was a joke in terms of covering ideas and topics we hadn’t touched on at all in the previous nine months, but the question that took the cake for me was this: Draw a picture of the universe and mark the approximate location of the earth. By this time, I was beyond frustrated with the content. We had never even come close to talking about the shape of the universe. I was a science geek and didn’t know the shape of the universe. Modern astrophysicists only have guesses about it (incredibly educated guess, yes, but guesses all the same). The rule was, though, that you had to answer all the questions. So, I sat there and for five continuous minutes put dots all over the page with my pencil, added a random X, and then moved on to the next question. I’ll confess that it was not one of my finer moments in academia.

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The Leaders We Deserve

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As we continue in our journey through the book of Judges, things are getting ugly. God keeps raising up leaders to help the people when they are in trouble, but the stock of people from which He can draw is getting pretty poor. As a result, rather than leading the people, these men are merely reflecting them. There’s a lesson here for us: Our leaders are ultimately going to look like us. What kind of leaders are we meaningfully going to be able to produce? Let’s talk about it.

The Leaders We Deserve

Have you ever seen a movie in which a great leader calls a people to rise above themselves and do great things? That’s a pretty broad category of mostly good movies if you think about it. There is one, though, that stands atop the rest: Braveheart. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what scene I’m talking about. The Scottish clans are all lined up on the hill waiting to run into battle against their English oppressors. They are hopelessly outnumbered by the British regulars. And then William Wallace rides up and down their ranks and speaks courage and confidence into their very souls. The most famous passage of the speech ended like this: “And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”

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