Tag: Election

Getting in Line

Leave a comment

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.

Read the rest…

Which Side Are You On?

2 Comments

How should followers of Jesus think about politics and the election? This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series in which we are going to talk about that very thing. From now to the Sunday before the election, we are going to dig into the Scriptures to understand better just what it means to be not just good citizens, but good kingdom citizens. Let’s start by understanding what that even means.

Which Side Are You On?

In the year 2,000, just before I graduated from high school, a new show premiered on CBS that has since become a cultural phenomenon. It doesn’t still carry quite the weight that it used to, but with season 41 waiting for COVID restrictions to finish filming and hit the airwaves, I think it’s safe to say that it’s still holding its own. The show really marked the beginning of a new era of television whose critics tend to be just as passionate as its fans. The genre is reality TV and the show is Survivor. Any Survivor fans in the room?

Continue reading “Which Side Are You On?” →

Digging in Deeper: Malachi 1:2-3a

Leave a comment

“I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

This morning we ran into this incredibly hard statement on God’s part that He hated someone. Namely, He hated Esau, Jacob’s brother. But, the observation wasn’t specific to just Esau. It included the entire nation of his descendants as well. Fortunately, the way God was using the words “love” and “hate” in Malachi, wasn’t the same as the way we often use them today. He simply meant that He chose one over the other. There were no emotions involved. The thing is, even understanding that, this passage is still really hard to accept. Let’s talk about why.

Read the rest…