Matthew 17:25-26
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes--from their own sons or from others?"
"From others," Peter answered.
"Then the sons are exempt," Jesus said to him.
In this short section, Jesus is making an observation about earthly governments that still exists today: When government is involved, there will be special deals for select groups of people. It may be worse today than it has ever been, but it certainly is nothing new. Historically the most obvious special deals were for the family of the ruler, or the ruling class. Today, in the United Stated and elsewhere, it certainly extends beyond just the ruler's family.
Today the additions to the families of the ruling class that benefit from favoritism are Special Interest groups. These groups include, but are not limited to, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and the LGBTQ. (I'm sure you can think of a dozen others.) Notice just in these examples that these groups don't add any value to society, instead that are constantly working to undermine and destroy society. I will let you decide what their motivation for that would be, but the reality is that that is what Special Interest groups do. They lobby and fight for government favor to fund their personal, political, and social agendas.
In this section of Matthew we once again see Jesus honoring the ruling authority by paying taxes. When the Bible tells us to honor the governing authorities (Romans 13:1-7) it doesn't give conditions of when this applies. It always applies, even if your government is evil and oppressive. We are commanded to honor those in authority, because there is no authority on earth which God has not established (Romans 13:1).
The Bible doesn't say we have to like our political situation. It doesn't even say we have to like the current rulers. But it does say that we must honor them.
Jesus and St. Paul were very well acquainted with oppressive rulers and ruling classes. They were both tortured and killed by the ruling class of their time. If Jesus willingly submitted himself to an oppressive ruling class, then you have no excuse for not doing the same. It is not our responsibility to determine who should be ruling where. God already has a plan for that. It is our responsibility to submit to the governing authority and carry out our Great Commission calling no matter what the political environment may be. All we have to do is trust God's plan and his faithfulness. Nothing that we go through is a surprise to him. He already has it worked out how our trials and challenges are going to work out for our good.
God is faithful. He never forgets his children. He already has his plan all worked out. You can rest assured that the evil things in our society that make you angry, make him angrier. Lets let God be the judge, and we can focus on doing the work which he has called each of us to: the proclamation of the gospel to all nations (Mark 16:15-16).
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time--God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. -1 Timothy 6:11-16
God bless
Jason Fredrick
No comments:
Post a Comment