29 October 2024
We continue on the basis of the previous posts: It is policy, not edict.
We looked at the difference between western legalism and Hebrew conception of law as divine policy of a Person. I offered the example of divorce. We ended with an explanation of why the Bible is communitarian versus western individualism: adding other lives to the equation raises the stakes.
Something like divorce and remarriage has two levels of consideration if God calls you into a covenant community. What's best for you as an individual may not work for the community. The solution is one of two choices: Go with the community or go your own way. You cannot compel the community to live with you and your choices.
Jews were aware of this regarding the political relations between Judea and Rome. It was complicated and it takes books of writing to explore the details. What makes it so complicated is that the Jewish leadership sometimes got it right simply by instinct and sometimes very wrong by sin. The Judean government was not in full control of their own people largely because they had abandoned their shepherd duties. The Jewish leadership began to despise their own people.
And whether they liked it or not, Christians knew their choices affected the Jewish population in that Rome considered Christians a sect of Judaism and rightly under Judean jurisdiction (more or less). The Roman bureaucracy at large didn't want to bother with distinguishing between the Christian religion and Judaism. Some individual officials had discretion about such things, but the broader trend was clear.
I assert that this had a lot to do with Jesus' and His followers' preference for a rather pacifist posture regarding Rome. On the one hand, Paul made it clear that the first loyalty was to the Covenant of Christ. Most people stop reading Romans 13 at verse 7, but the rest of the chapter is on the same subject. His readers' duty to Rome ended with the Law of Christ: to love each other as Christ loved. Not necessarily to love the outsiders that way, but to love each other that way. Thus, when they obeyed the Law of Christ, their obligations to Rome were fulfilled.
That includes considering how one's actions might provoke Roman officials against other Christians. Further, they were to consider how it might affect Jews at large, as the Hebrew apostles still held out hope that more of them would be redeemed.
That situation has changed. We are not under those burdens today. We have our own problems. Those of us consciously embracing the Covenant today are very much like the early disciples in Jerusalem. Yes, we still have a big problem with Jews, but our biggest problem is with mainstream Zionist Christian religion. Zionist Christians are today doing the dirty work of the Judaizers that Paul faced in his day.
Mainstream Christian religion has been hijacked in our time, just as Judaism had been hijacked before Christ. It's not that we hate them, but they hate us, and that hatred is growing. Already, they are calling for our blood. Just as Jews provoked Rome against Christians, so the mainstream churches are provoking civil government against covenant people. It doesn't matter why; we are forced to deal with the situation at hand.
Despite those similarities, the situation now is not the same as with the First Century. It's still the hand of Satan against us, but the tactics and methods are all different. You could make the case for continuing the pacifism of the First Century believers, but my convictions demand something different.
Now maybe you see where this is going...
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