The following is an excerpt from the Kingdom Politics Bible Study.
Imagine one day you find yourself fleeing from a shipwreck and being washed up on a solitary island in the vast ocean. The local people welcome you and appoint you their leader. Since you have no hope of rescue (and you are hungry and need a job), you decide to accept this assignment. Now you are faced with the question of how you should organize your newly formed government. You skip the option of anarchy (the absence of government), after all you would be out of a job. You then consider other options such as: oligarchy (the rule by an elite few); monarchy (the rule by one supreme authority, perhaps a king or queen); ecclesiocracy (the rule by an institutional or state church); democracy (the rule of the citizenry); or perhaps, being originally from the United States, you might choose a constitutional republic (rule by the people through their chosen representatives who function under constitutional law). Of course you would want to choose to govern according to the principles you knew from God’s Word.
"When people, families, churches, or a society operate with God as the ultimate source of authority, they put themselves in a position to be used by Him and experience His blessing."
Tony Evans
If you do ever find yourself on a solitary island, it is helpful to know God operates through decentralized, plural institutions, under His centralized leadership in order to produce self-government under Him. In other words, God has given men the ability and the authority to govern under His supreme authority.
It is crucial for us to understand that when each of the spheres of authority (individual, family, church, and civil government) operates as God designed them, they will flourish. This principle follows the command Moses told Israel to “keep the words of this covenant and do them, in order that you may be successful in everything that you do” (Deuteronomy 29:9). When people, families, churches, or a society operate with God as the ultimate source of authority, they put themselves in a position to be used by Him and experience His blessing.
The problem for power-hungry humans is that regardless of what we think, say, or try to create, we still depend on a Creator. Everything and everyone ultimately depends on God. He is the Creator and Sustainer of all life. As the builders in Babel discovered, the most people can do apart from God is rearrange what He has already made. God operates as the sole Sovereign over His kingdom. All other authority is delegated and dispersed across multiple spheres of responsibility.
The issues we face should lead us to the conclusion that we can’t fix our problems alone. We can make all the mandates, take all the precautions, pass all the economic stimulus packages, and host international summits that we want, but if a spiritual root is erupting in rotten fruit, only God can solve the issues at hand. God will not allow any nation to solve its problems through political alliances alone. We desperately need to bring our faith into the civil and political arenas where God has placed us.
In this 6 session Kingdom Politics Bible study, Dr. Tony Evans takes a step back to find foundational Bible principles for integrating politics into our daily lives. He challenges readers to incorporate all of Scripture when addressing divisive issues, forcing us to look at political issues we may have neglected.
When we see government holistically from God’s point of view, we can learn to speak with grace when we disagree with family and friends. We can maintain our political affiliations without causing divisions in our church. And with those who don’t share our opinions, we can still share the compassion and love of Jesus Christ.