Updated: 1/2/20
So Samuel told all the words of Yahweh to the people who were asking for a king. He said, “This will be the practice of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots. He will appoint for himself captains of thousands and captains of fifties. He will make some plow his ground, some reap his harvest, and some make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots. He will also take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the very best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive orchards, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give to his officers and his servants. He will take your male servants and your female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys; he will put them all to work for him. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you will be his slaves. Then on that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves; but Yahweh will not answer you on that day” (I Samuel 8:10–18).
More than any other document that survives from the ancient world, the Old Testament is hostile toward centralized civil government. In no section of Bible is this opposition to centralized power more obvious than this passage.
In order to understand it, we must know something about the historical setting. There was no king in Israel until Samuel anointed Saul. For four centuries, Israel had been ruled by local civil magistrates and by judges who had been called by God to exercise judgment whenever local civil rulers refused to enforce biblical law. The most famous of these judges was Samson. The last of the judges was Samuel. Moses announced the rules to the generation of the conquest. He was the last survivor of the exodus generation. He was presenting a testament to the younger generation. This is why the Book of Deuteronomy is the book of the inheritance. “You must make judges and officers within all your city gates that Yahweh your God is giving you; they will be taken from each of your tribes, and they must judge the people with righteous judgment. You must not take justice away by force; you must not show partiality nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. You must follow after justice, after justice alone, so that you may live and inherit the land that Yahweh your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 16:18–20).
The Mosaic law did allow kingship, but it did not mandate the office. The law placed restrictions on the king.
When you have come to the land that Yahweh your God gives you, and when you take possession of it and begin to live in it, and then you say, ‘I will set a king over myself, like all the nations that are round about me,’ then you must surely set as king over yourself someone whom Yahweh your God will choose. You must set as king over yourself someone from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner, who is not your brother, over yourself. But he must not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt so that he may multiply horses, for Yahweh had said to you, ‘You will never return that way again.’ He must not take many wives for himself, so that his heart does not turn away. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he must write for himself in a scroll a copy of this law, from the law that is before the priests, who are Levites. The scroll must be with him, and he must read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to honor Yahweh his God, so as to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to observe them. He must do this so that his heart is not lifted up above his brothers, and so that he does not turn away from the commandments, to the right hand or to the left; for the purpose that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, among Israel (Deuteronomy 17:14–20).
In Samuel’s day, the people of Israel finally succumbed to the lure of kingship. They wanted a king because the nations around them had kings. God told Samuel to warn the people against this. “Yahweh said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people in everything they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. They are acting now the same as they did since the day I brought them out of Egypt, forsaking me, and serving other gods, and so they are also doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know the way the king will rule over them’” (I Samuel 8:7–9). God made it clear that this was an act of rebellion against Him and His sovereignty. This is the background of Samuel’s warning.
Samuel wanted to get their attention. So, he focused on increased taxation. He was well aware of the fact that most people understand money far better than they understand political philosophy. People want to keep their money. They understand private property. But, so committed were the Israelites to centralizing political power that they ignored Samuel’s warning. They decided that high taxation did not matter. They were determined to have a king over them. They preferred this to the negative sanction of a 10% income tax. They rejected decentralization. They never got it back. They saw that other nations had more powerful armies, and they wanted power for Israel. They could only get this by creating a centralized state. They preferred an expansion of national military power even at the cost of reduced per capita wealth.
I have made a detailed study of biblical laws relating to economics. I discovered that there is no passage in Scripture that lays down a requirement regarding the proper form of taxation. A few expositors have argued that the rare wartime payment by soldiers (Exodus 31:12) to the temple of half a shekel (v. 13) was an annual civil tax. It was not. The temple was not the civil government. There is a body of law regarding the tithe. It limits to 10% the moral claim of the institutional church on the income of church members. In this passage, we learn that there is a limitation on what the central government should collect: less than 10%. For a central government to take as much as 10% of the net income of citizens and residents is a mark of tyranny, as defined by the Bible. This was Samuel’s warning to the Israelites. It was a warning not to authorize the central government to take as great a percentage of the people’s income as they owed to God through the tithe.
Joseph in Egypt imposed a 20% tax on behalf the Pharaoh (Genesis 47:26). There was a theological reason for this. The Egyptians believed that the Pharaoh was the divine-human link between time and eternity. Joseph imposed a punishment on the people of Egypt that was consistent with their declaration of faith in the divinity of their king. In no sense does Joseph’s imposition of a negative sanction on the Egyptians legitimize a level of taxation twice that of what Samuel said constituted rebellion against God. A tax even half of that imposed by Joseph is tyrannical, according to God.
Modern Christians do not take seriously the warning given by Samuel to the people of Israel. In this respect, they are very much like the people of Israel in Samuel’s day. Actually, they are worse. They would regard a central government that taxed them at a flat rate of 10% as a tax haven, a place of political freedom.
The unified nation of Israel had four domestic kings: Saul, David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. Rehoboam took the advice of younger men and imposed high taxes. This led to a rebellion against his kingship by Jeroboam. Israel was split into two nations: the northern kingdom in the southern kingdom (I Kings 12). The southern kingdom only had two tribes: Judah and Benjamin. Never again did Israel have a Hebrew king for the entire nation. Israel was ruled by a series of empires: Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman.
During Jesus’ ministry, Jewish leaders attempted to lure Him into a trap. They wanted to persuade Him to make a statement regarding the legitimacy or illegitimacy of taxes imposed by the Roman Empire. If He said that He favored the taxes, He would lose standing with many rebellious Jews. On the other hand, if He said that the taxes were illegitimate, He would get into trouble with the Roman authorities. They thought they had Him trapped. They did not.
Then they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to him to trap him with words. When they came, they said to him, “Teacher, we know that you care for no one's opinion, and you do not show partiality between people. You truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or not?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy and said to them, “Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius so I can look at it.” They brought one to Jesus. He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said, “Caesar's.” Jesus said, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” They marveled at him (Mark 13:13–17).
The fact that Jesus asked to see a denarius was significant. First, the denarius was specifically a tribute coin. Residents of the Roman Empire used it to pay their taxes. Second, the fact that Jesus’ tempters had such a coin indicated that they used this coin, a coin specifically used for paying taxes, in commerce.
Jesus’ theoretical point on Roman taxation was clear. The state, as represented by Caesar, issued its own coinage. It was the property of the state. This currency was used for commerce. The wealth of individuals within the empire was dependent on the peace provided by Roman military forces. The coins had economic functions in trade as well as a taxation function. Jesus here affirmed the legitimacy of civil government in general and Rome’s government specifically. In practice, so did His critics. By using the coins in commerce, they were acknowledging that they were under the authority of Rome judicially, and also that they were beneficiaries of the enormous free-trade zone that Rome provided.
In A.D. 66, the Jewish rebellion began. For the next four years, it spread throughout the nation. In A.D. 70, the Roman army under Titus crushed the rebellion. The army took the city of Jerusalem and burned the temple. Many Jews were then scattered abroad by Rome’s government. Then in 132 through 135, the Jews revolted again. This was Bar Kochba’s revolt. The Jews were defeated, and far more of them were forcibly scattered throughout the Roman Empire. This is known as the diaspora or great dispersion. Only in 1948 did the nation of Israel reappear in history.
Taxation is the mark of civil government. There is no civil government apart from taxation. The greater the level of taxation by any unit of civil government, the more powerful that unit of civil government will become. This was why Samuel was told by God to warn the Israelites against the imposition of the king. Heavy taxation would follow.
1. Theology
God owns everything. God owns the creation because He created it. The creation established His original ownership. God has legal claims on the collective entity known as the state, but He also has legal claims on citizens of every state. God is the Creator. He has absolute sovereignty over His creation. God’s sovereignty is point one of the biblical covenant model.
God established the state to deal with sinful mankind after the fall. This is why civil government is an inescapable concept. It is never a question of state vs. no state. It is always a question of which kind of state. Let me give you an argument for why civil government is an inescapable concept. This argument is based on economics. There is a division of labor in life. People specialize in certain kinds of skills. They become more efficient than non-specialists. One of the skills that a few men specialize in is coercion. This begins with a bully. He terrorizes weaker people around him. He attracts other bullies. There will be competition among the bullies as to which one is senior bully. The next stage of the division of labor is the gang. The gang imposes coercion on nonmembers. It also imposes coercion on members who violate the rules of the gang. The gang terrorizes a large number of people. Then there is competition among gangs. Eventually, a warlord will emerge from this competition. This is a military regime. The warlord then becomes the equivalent of a king. In order to reduce the power of the warlord, common people begin to organize against him. But to do this takes power, money, and organization. It takes a new system of rules. These rules are more predictable than the army’s rules. They may be less coercive. They may be subject to a veto by citizens. But in either scenario, warlord or citizens’ resistence, a state is inescapable. If you should ever hear an anarchist declare that there can be a stateless society, ask him how his theory deals with the gang/warlord issue. Ask him to suggest a book on this. There is no such book.
God begins with purpose. The purpose of civil government is to bring negative sanctions against certain forms of public evil. “For rulers are not a terror to good deeds, but to evil deeds. Do you desire to be unafraid of the one in authority? Do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for he does not carry the sword for no reason. For he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath on the one who does evil” (Romans 13:3–4). The state is necessary in order to honor God and His law. It is also required to provide public safety. Crime makes people less safe. The threat of negative sanctions raises the cost of committing crime. The risk of being caught, prosecuted, convicted, and punished rises. A central economic law is this: when costs rise, less is demanded. This fact undergirds biblical civil law: “Then those who remain will hear and fear, and will from then on commit no longer any such evil among you” (Deuteronomy 19:20).
Another purpose of civil government is to protect the nation from invasion by a foreign state. This is a defensive purpose. It is legitimate. God has ordained civil rulers in specific jurisdictions. He has enabled previous rulers to create a system of law. Not only are citizens not allowed to overthrow the existing government by violence, foreign leaders are not allowed to overthrow the existing government. National borders are protected by God: boundaries. This is why the civil government has the right to act on behalf of God by defending the judicial integrity of the national borders. The defense of the realm against foreign invasion is probably the most widely accepted function of centralized civil government. Citizens of any nation cease arguing with each other about ideology when the nation is invaded. They join together in a common defense. The national government has little difficulty in mobilizing the public to defend the nation. God told the Israelites that He would see to it that no nation invaded Israel when the people of Israel journeyed to the city of the tabernacle and later the temple during the required national festivals. “Three times a year all your men must appear before Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and expand your borders. No one will desire to have your land as their own when you go up to appear before Yahweh your God three times in a year” (Exodus 4:23–24). Whenever God’s holy army could not defend the land because the men were obeying God by attending the mandatory festivals, the land would remain safe from invasion. In those cases, God would act on their behalf.
The Bible teaches that the state is legitimate (Romans 13:1–7). Biblical law places judicial restraints on the state (boundaries: point three), but it mandates the state. This means that politics is legitimate. There is no theologically valid reason for Christians to refrain from voting, or serving on juries, or in other ways participating in the political process. If they gain lawful authority as magistrates or judges, they should use it to restore the state to its Bible-specified limits. The traditional phrase, “politics is dirty,” is used to justify non-participation in politics. This is a misuse of the phrase. The phrase applies to every area of life in which sin operates. The solution is not withdrawal from politics. The solution is cleaning up politics.
As I shall explain in greater detail in section D, all men have a general calling to participate in politics. This is an implication of the dominion covenant. Politics reflects God’s sovereignty as Creator. Men are made in His image. Christians have a special calling. They are to exercise dominion in politics. They should have self-confidence in this participation. Why? Because civil government has a God-given purpose: the suppression of specified public sins.
2. Implementation
First, you must affirm the legitimacy of civil government in general. Second, you must deny the legitimacy of armed revolution. This is not the same as denying the right of local civil magistrates to resist by force of arms the abolition of local rights and traditional privileges by the central government. But you must deny as biblically illegitimate all calls for armed resistance by men who have not been elected to office, which means men without any political sanction (point four of the covenant) by the citizens.
This means that you must be willing to exercise great patience in a tyrannical society if you choose to remain there geographically. This patience must rest on a covenantal understanding of God’s sovereignty in history. A psalmist wrote this.
Do not be irritated because of evildoers; do not be envious of those who act unrighteously. For they will soon dry up as the grass and wither as the green plants. Trust in Yahweh and do what is good; settle in the land and graze in faithfulness. Then delight yourself in Yahweh, and he will give you the desires of your heart.This is difficult to believe. Nevertheless, you must believe it. Therefore, you must put up with civic leaders who are without good judgment or even tyrannical. This takes a vision of victory. You must adopt the covenantal strategy of dominion through service (point two).Give your ways to Yahweh; trust in him, and he will act on your behalf. He will display your justice like the daylight and your innocence like the day at noon. Be still before Yahweh and wait patiently for him. Do not be angry if someone succeeds in what he does, or when he makes evil plots. Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not worry. This only makes trouble.
Evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for Yahweh will inherit the land. In a little while the evil man will disappear; you will look at his place, but he will be gone. But the meek will inherit the land and will delight in great prosperity (Psalm 37:1–11).
1. Theology
God delegates ownership. In the context of the civil covenant, this means political office. God delegates authority to civil magistrates. They serve God by serving the state. Some men who want this authority. God grants them temporary authority. They serve at His pleasure and also the pleasure of the people. They possess the trappings of power, but these can be removed from them at any time. “As for you, profane and wicked ruler of Israel, whose day of punishment has come, and whose time of committing iniquity has ended, the Lord Yahweh says this to you: Remove the turban and take off the crown! Things will no longer be the same! Exalt the lowly and humble the exalted! A ruin! A ruin! I will make it a ruin! It will not be restored until the one comes who is assigned to execute judgment” (Ezekiel 21:25–27).
In the days of the Hebrew kings, a priest or a prophet anointed the king. God through a priest or a prophet chose the king. The king was to be a servant of God. He was also to be a servant of the people. Speaking of God, the psalmist said: “He chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds. He took him from following the ewes with their young, and he brought him to be shepherd of Jacob, his people, and of Israel, his heritage. David shepherded them with the integrity of his heart, and he guided them with the skill of his hands” (Psalm 78:70–72).
God shares authority with magistrates. This is ownership in the broadest sense. It involves such things as legal tradition, the concept of civil justice, and above all in civil matters, covenantal legitimacy. Without legitimacy, which is imputed originally by God but is also imputed by those living under the jurisdiction of a specific civil government, there will be little self-government. This lack of self-government undermines the operations of the government. It becomes increasingly difficult, meaning increasingly expensive, for rulers to gain compliance with their laws.
Civil government is an institution established by God. It possesses economic assets. Therefore, it is obligated to act on behalf of God. Far more important, its assigned task is to provide justice in its courts. It therefore is obligated to act in God’s name.
Most civil governments have not publicly acted in God’s name. But whether or not there is a formal acknowledgment of the civil covenant as a covenant under the God of the Bible, that is what it really is. God holds magistrates and judges accountable in eternity for the authority they exercise as agents of the state. This is why John the Baptist did not send away the agents of the state who came to him asking advice as to what they should do in their official capacities.
Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what must we do?” He said to them, “Do not collect more money than you have been ordered to collect.” Some soldiers also asked him, saying, “What about us? What must we do?” He said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, and do not accuse anyone falsely. Be content with your wages” (Luke 3:12–14).
The prophet Isaiah was adamant in his accusations against civil rulers. “Wash, cleanse yourselves; remove the evil of your deeds from my sight; stop being evil; learn to do good; seek justice, make straight the oppression, give justice to the fatherless, defend the widow” (Isaiah 1:16–17). He became specific.
Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes and runs after payoffs. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the widow's legal plea come before them. Therefore this is the declaration of the Lord Yahweh of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: “Woe to them! I will take vengeance against my adversaries, and avenge myself against my enemies; I will turn my hand against you, refine away your dross as with lye, and take away all your dross. I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; after that you will be called the city of righteousness, a faithful town.” Zion will be redeemed by justice, and her repentant ones by righteousness (Isaiah 1:23–17).
This was a matter of judicial representation: point two of the covenant. The judges were to speak in God’s name. They were required by God to use biblical standards in deciding guilt or innocence. They were misusing their positions of authority. They sought after bribes. This was a violation of biblical law. “Never take a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see, and perverts honest people's words” (Exodus 23:8). Isaiah was bringing a covenant lawsuit against the civil rulers of Judah. We know it was a covenantal lawsuit because there were sanctions attached to it. These sanctions were both negative and positive. They were both individualistic and corporate. God would bring vengeance against the rulers and the nation. Then He would restore them. Point four of the covenant, sanctions, is always associated with point two: representation. This applies to civil government.
Under the Mosaic law, when the lifeless body of a presumed victim of violence was found in an open field, there were liturgical requirements associated with civil government. If the rulers and judges could not determine who had killed this individual, they had to offer a sacrifice to placate the wrath of God.
All the elders of the city that is the nearest to the killed man must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley; and they must answer to the case and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Forgive, Yahweh, your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not put guilt for innocent bloodshed in the midst of your people Israel.’ Then the bloodshed will be forgiven them. In this way you will put away the innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 21:6–9).
Civil rulers in Israel were responsible for making certain that a formal sacrifice was carried out by the priests. They represented God judicially, and under the Old Covenant, this representation mandated blood sacrifices in certain cases.
2. Implementation
You have an obligation to accept God’s calling as a citizen. You hold this office by His decree and also by the political traditions associated with democracy. Democracy is acknowledged as ethically binding by societies all over the world, even when it is undermined by political manipulation at the top. It is the basis of modern political legitimacy. Without widespread legitimacy, all civil government reverts to tyranny. This is because without self-government, self-government does not function to support the civil government. The central government must then spend too much money to exert authority. It must find ways to control people’s actions by fear rather than voluntary cooperation. The less that self-government works to produce obedience, the more that the state must substitute power for authority. Two comments are in order. First, this political calling from God does not mean that you should become a professional politician. But it does mean that you must do your part in restoring biblical limits to the state. You must have self-confidence regarding your efforts this task. That is because citizenship is a God-assigned task. You should not regard all politics as peripheral to the Christian life in general or your life in particular.
Second, this calling does not mean that you should focus your concern on national politics. On the contrary, you should focus your concern on local politics. You should work to gain skills in local politics. The payoff here is higher than in regional or national politics. One reason for this higher payoff is that most people pay little attention to local politics. Therefore, the time, money, and effort that you put into local politics will have greater effects than in regional or national politics. You have more influence locally than regionally or nationally. You therefore have greater responsibility locally. With influence comes responsibility (Luke 12:47–48).
Do you have self-confidence regarding your knowledge of local politics? If not, begin to remedy this lack of information and lack of understanding (judgment). Start learning the names of local politicians. What do they believe? Find out about council meetings. Attend a few of these meetings. Find out how things work. This is where you should gain political experience. This does not mean that you should remain ignorant of national politics, but it does mean that you are far more likely to have long-run influence locally than nationally. You opinions will count for more.
1. Theology
God prohibits theft. Theft is a major violation of God’s law. It also has a series of negative consequences. This is why every civil government is required by God to protect private property. The commandment against theft lays down the law: “You must not steal from anyone” (Exodus 20:15). The state is to establish a system of restitution to the victim. A convicted criminal is required to pay restitution to his victims. “A thief must make restitution. If he has nothing, then he must be sold for his theft. If the stolen animal is found alive in his possession, whether it is an ox, a donkey, or a sheep, he must pay back double” (Exodus 22:3b–4). A person who bought the thief to be a slave had to pay the purchase price to the victim on behalf of the thief. He settled the debt of the thief to the victim. The thief now owed him service.
The victim of the theft received back his stolen animal, and he also received a penalty payment comparable to the value of the stolen animal. This general principle of double restitution applies to all forms of theft. If there were not a penalty payment, a thief might take a calculated risk. If he was successful in the theft, he would benefit from the value of the stolen goods. On the other hand, if he was caught and convicted by the civil government, he would lose no more than the value of the stolen goods. He would be no worse off economically than he was before the theft. This would subsidize theft by cutting the biblical penalty in half. Biblical law does not sanction laws by which sinners get subsidized by the state.
Biblical law places limitations on the power of the state to extract wealth from a convicted criminal. The penalty payment is directly related to the value of the stolen goods. He pays double restitution to the victim, but he pays no fine to the state. He does not owe money to the state on this false slogan: “He must pay his debt to society.” He does not owe society anything. He owes his victim. Without a system of fines, the state’s officials are not tempted to extract wealth from the criminal. A fine would defraud the victim. This is a biblical principle: victim’s rights. This principle of law governs all biblical jurisprudence. The ultimate victim of any crime is God. But because property owners act on God’s behalf economically as His stewards, biblical law protects them from theft. Such a legal system is conventionally described as defending property rights, but it is in fact a system that defends victim’s rights.
The system goes beyond the protection of property against theft. It also protects property against losses inflicted accidentally by non-owners. “If a man grazes his livestock in a field or vineyard and lets his animal loose, and it grazes in another man's field, he must make restitution from the best of his own field and from the best of his own vineyard. If a fire breaks out and spreads in thorns so that stacked grain, or standing grain, or a field is consumed, the one who started the fire must surely make restitution” (Exodus 22:5–6). In this case, because the damage was not inflicted deliberately, the penalty is the restoration of the value of the damaged goods. There is no additional penalty payment involved. By implication, though not by an explicit biblical law, someone who inflicts damage deliberately on somebody else’s property would be required to make a penalty payment equal to the value of the restored goods. The same logic applies here that applies to the thief. A person seeking revenge by damaging someone by destroying his property is not subsidized by biblical law. This person would not be tempted to imagine that, if he was tried and convicted, his victim would receive back only the value of the destroyed or damaged goods. The victim should be better off. Why? Because he suffered the original sense of loss, and there was also some risk that the perpetrator would not be discovered and convicted. He deserves compensation.
An individual who takes property without authorization by the owner is called a thief. He may threaten violence in order to extract this wealth, as in the case of a robber. He may use stealth, as in the case of a burglar. It does not matter which technique he uses to enrich himself; he is still a thief.
This biblical principle of jurisprudence applies also to a group of thieves who band together and gain the support of officials in civil government. They are not allowed to use the power of the state to enrich themselves by transferring ownership of property owned by others to themselves without authorization of the property owners. Nevertheless, throughout history, we find that politically powerful groups gain the support of government officials who use the power of the state to redistribute wealth from property owners to nonowners. Sometimes these people are civil magistrates. More often, they are individuals or members of groups that gain influence with civil magistrates through direct bribery or indirect bribery in the form of votes. These groups are more politically influential than rival groups, and therefore they are able to use the power of the state to enrich their members. In modern politics, this form of civil government is called a welfare state. It offers increases in wealth to specific groups of people at the expense of other groups whose members experience a decrease in wealth. In such societies, property owners remain fearful that they will lose ownership of their property because of the political success of special-interest groups that gain the support of the civil government. This threat encourages property owners to organize politically to thwart the political programs of rivals. Competition for wealth moves steadily from service in a competitive free market to political skills associated with organized voting blocs. The auction process of the free market is steadily replaced by the auction process associated with gaining the support of state officials. The free market’s principle of success is this: high bid wins. The welfare state’s principle of success is this: “to the victor belong the spoils.”
2. Implementation
The first step in replacing the welfare state is to accept the legitimacy and continuing authority of biblical law. This involves studying economic cause and effect. It requires you to have some understanding of how economic theory describes the results of the intervention of the state into voluntary transactions, meaning the free market social order. Once you understand the biblical basis of the private property social order, and once you understand the negative effects of state intervention into this order, you will be prepared to begin to educate other people about these issues. The biblical educational process begins with self-education. The second step is to adopt a fundamental moral principle: you must not actively seek to gain state intervention into the voluntary affairs of the market that harm no third parties or that are not immoral, as defined by the Bible. This is especially true in cases where you know that you personally or members of your social or economic class will gain benefits at the expense of others. In other words, you must dedicate yourself to avoiding any promotion of any program based on theft through politics. Self-education extends to self-government.
Third, you must take steps to educate others in what you know about biblical economic ethics and economic cause-and-effect. You must become a teacher. Self-education is necessary to developing the kingdom of God in history in the area of economics, but it is not sufficient. You must carry this message to others. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no reason to be ashamed, who accurately teaches the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15).
Fourth, you must become active in some local service organization. Biblical success begins with service. You must demonstrate your commitment to others by means of active participation. In doing this, you will gain respect over time in whatever organization you choose to join. You will make personal contacts. People will pay attention to what you say because they respect what they have seen you do. If you are an employee with the company, then you must perform at an above-average level. You must gain respect of fellow employees, and also gain respect of those in authority over you and those over whom you exercise authority. This respect based on performance is crucial to gaining long-term influence over those around you. I discuss this strategy in Chapter 8.
Fifth, you must begin to study the principles of civil government in your country. This begins with local government. If you decide that it is your calling before God to become politically active, then you must understand the principles of civic participation in your community. You must understand something about your rights and responsibilities in your community. You must also become active at some low level in your local community political organization. You would be wise at some point to begin to attend meetings of at least one local government body. Find out who these leaders are, what they say, and how they vote. Observe, take notes, type them up, and review them. Take home handouts of any materials that are made available to members of the audience. Become a familiar face to the members of the organization. Almost nobody does this. This takes hours of work, and it is all volunteer labor. In doing this, you will gain a unique understanding of how this branch of government operates. It could be the city council. It could be the school board. After perhaps three years of this thankless hard work, you will become one of the best-informed non-elected citizens in your community. If you can recruit someone else to participate in this information gathering activity, so much the better.
You may want to develop a website devoted to reporting on this organization. Probably no one else in your community does this. Initially, you should limit the site to reporting on what goes on. You should upload copies of all materials that have been handed out by the organization. Your website can become a clearinghouse of information on what the local branch of government is doing. Your site can be used by people in the media to monitor what is going on. You will gain the reputation of being a well-informed citizen. It would be wise not to take political stances on these issues early in the process. You are involved in a long-term program of self-education. But, at some point, you can use this information to mobilize support by a special-interest group that is committed to rolling back laws, policies, and programs that are inconsistent with fundamental biblical principles of civil government.
This is a process of gaining political maturity. It is a long-term process. It is mostly volunteer work. Not many people will do it, which means that those people who do will gain unique influence in the community. They will become experts.
Local politics is mostly dull work. There is no immediate political or personal payoff. This is why almost nobody does it. In the United States, such work is known as “paying your dues.” In whatever field you wish to gain influence, you must pay your dues. You must go out of your way to master the principles of the field, the facts of the field, and the ways in which they are related. This is the basis of our understanding cause and effect. Without this understanding, we are flying blind.
1. Theology
God evaluates performance. Magistrates must look into the future in order to assess the likely outcomes of any new law or any court decision. This is the entrepreneurial function: forecasting, making plans, and implementing these plans. Long chains of reasoning are difficult to follow. Sometimes, people’s logic is faulty. Unanticipated facts can disrupt the best-laid plans. Causes do not always produce their expected effects. This phenomenon is sometimes called the law of unintended consequences.
Performance is always evaluated in terms of a set of standards, which is point three of the biblical covenant. With respect to civil government, this means law. With respect to explicitly biblical civil government, this means biblical law. This means all of the Mosaic laws that have not been annulled by the New Testament. God evaluates the performance of civil rulers, both individually and corporately. He does not exonerate citizens in general and church leaders specifically from the grievous sins of civil rulers. To the extent that those under the authority of civil rulers have authority over them through active covenantal renewal, such as voting, they become responsible for the sins of omission and commission of the rulers (Leviticus 4). This is why voting is an obligation before God to develop an understanding of biblical law and also how to apply these laws to specific circumstances, especially legislative and judicial. The biblical archetype of this was a requirement that the laws of God read before the assembled people every seventh year (Deuteronomy 31:9–13). The people were supposed to know the limits of the state. This is why Mosaic civil laws, which we find in Exodus 20–23, had to be read publicly. Even though most people could not read, they were still responsible for implementing the law whenever and wherever they had lawful jurisdiction.
The primary function of civil government is to identify and then enforce justice. God has assigned to civil government the task of enforcing His Bible-revealed civil laws. The courts are to honor this fundamental biblical principle of justice: equality before the law. This principle is best articulated in this law in Leviticus: “Do not cause judgment to be false. You must not show favoritism to someone because he is poor, and you must not show favoritism to someone because he is important. Instead, judge your neighbor righteously” (19:15).
This law is violated by all forms of wealth redistribution, other than the laws of restitution. Restitution restores the lost wealth of the victim of theft, plus an equal penalty payment. In contrast, the welfare state uses the power of civil government to redistribute wealth from economically successful people to less successful people, with government agencies as intermediaries. This is the politics of plunder. It makes thieves out of citizens who vote for politicians who pass laws that empower government agencies to redistribute wealth. This outlook rests on an assumption: God’s distribution of wealth by means of the free market’s auction process, as well as inheritance, has failed. The state must therefore intervene in order to counteract the effects of the free market’s competitive auction process. The law and the courts supposedly must favor the poorer man in his quest to gain legal control over part of the wealth of others. The law and the courts supposedly must treat the rich man and the poor man differently. This is exactly what Leviticus 19:15 prohibits.
In a democratic civil government, voting is the way that citizens bring covenantal sanctions against elected rulers. They vote for incumbents or for their opponents. This is covenant renewal in the civil covenant. Because biblical civil government does not authorize the use of the ballot box to elect politicians who promise to use the state’s power to redistribute wealth, covenantally faithful Christian voters must limit their use of their voting rights to restrict the misuse of civil government. Politics should be limited to vetoing evil policies and passing laws consistent with biblical law and biblical ethics. Politics should not attempt to capture the government to benefit a special-interest group that wants to use the same laws to redistribute wealth in a different way. The biblical goal is the elimination of such government agencies, not their capture and subsequent reform by Christians or anybody else.
Non-Christian politics favors the expansion of the state. Laws are seldom repealed. They accumulate. In addition, government agencies add layers of rules and regulations to existing statutes. As these laws accumulate, economic productivity slows. These laws and regulations disrupt the market order. They lead to periodic economic crises. Then, in order to cure the crises caused by previous laws, politicians and bureaucrats add even more laws and regulations. This can be described as a vicious circle. Only rarely in history have governments rolled back laws and regulations. This took place in Great Britain from about 1845 to 1875. But then the expansion began again. Similar reversals took place in China after the reforms of Premier Deng in 1979, and also in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991.
2. Implementation
When most voters favor the existing political order, there is almost nothing that an individual citizen can do to change this in any significant way. It can be changed in the aftermath of violent revolutions, but these usually centralize power even further. Therefore, most political change that is meaningful comes from a change in ideas. This can speed up during economic crises, but usually economic crises, like revolutions, lead to an increase in the power of the state.
This is why politics is generally futile as a means of transforming society. The change must come as a result of a widespread change in people’s thinking. Therefore, if you can change people’s opinions regarding the illegitimacy of the welfare state, this is an important political strategy. To teach people who favor state intervention into the economy that such intervention is opposed by the Bible, you must have considerable skills as a teacher. You cannot change the minds of many people. Christians usually regard political reformers with suspicion. They also usually oppose cutting back any existing welfare state programs. They especially resist when these programs benefit them individually.
The best strategy is to limit the expansion of the existing state. Limit taxation. Limit government debt. If the free market economy continues to grow, but the state and its apparatus do not grow at a comparable rate, the effect is to make the intervention of the state less oppressive. More and more people benefit from the expansion of liberty then benefit from the expansion of the state. This strategy makes politics mostly defensive. Occasionally, a bad law can be repealed, but this is exceedingly rare. Whatever you can do to persuade people to resist any further expansion of the state is positive.
At some point, modern welfare states will go bankrupt. They cannot continue to expand. They have promised too many benefits to too many voters. They have not set aside productive capital to support these long-run wealth-redistribution programs, especially in the area of free or subsidized medical services and government-funded retirement programs. An important task of Christian economics is to show in advance why these programs will go bankrupt. The primary reason they will go bankrupt is because they are inherently immoral. They involve theft through political power. When they do go bankrupt, Christians who understand Christian economics will be in a position to explain why the political cause of the bankruptcy was a violation of the principle of equality before the law. At that point, some citizens may listen to a call to fight any further expansion of the state.
1. Theology
God mandates growth. In the realm of civil government, this does not mean the growth of civil power, or the expansion of property owned by the state, or the expansion of geographical jurisdiction. It means rather the growth in knowledge of God’s civil law, as well as growth of wisdom in applying this law to specific cases. Nothing in the Bible favors the creation of a messianic state. It mandates the opposite. The modern messianic state is constantly seeking to expand its power and jurisdiction, including geographical jurisdiction. This is the basis of wars and rumors of wars.
In the realm of civil government, peace is achieved by long-term judicial continuity. There is peaceful judicial succession. The primary means of this continuity in the modern world is through voting. A democratic society more easily and more predictably avoids revolution. Voting is an affirmation of the importance of continuity. It allows succession. Every generation dies off. It must be replaced. Peaceful continuity is the great inheritance provided by civil government. There is continuity of politics. There is continuity of the court system. There is continuity of the military establishment. Each generation is supposed to leave a legacy of greater understanding and greater justice to the next generation. This process is sometimes called progressive sanctification with respect to individual ethics. But the same process applies to every institution. Progress in civil government is above all progress in justice. There is supposed to be progress as covenant-keepers learn more about the application of biblical law and biblical ethics in their lives and also their institutions. “Yahweh gives strength to his people; Yahweh blesses his people with peace” (Psalm 29:11). The goal of foreign policy should be peace. The goal of domestic policy should be peace.
People need legal predictability. In order to make long-run plans, they need to know that their property and their lives will predictably be defended by civil authorities. Biblical law provides God’s framework for this predictability. So do institutions built in terms of biblical law. Biblical law is grounded in the unchanging moral character of God. People want predictability, but if the legal order is constantly changing, they cannot achieve this goal. Civil rulers must be predictable in terms the enforcement of God’s Bible-revealed law.
Ethical continuity in individual lives is supposed to produce ethical continuity in institutions. This includes civil government. Over time, the positive sanctions that God brings to those who are faithful covenant-keepers increases their inheritance. Unlike individuals, families, and churches, this process of inheritance is not supposed to lead to an ever-expanding state. It is not to build up the military. Speaking of the king, Moses said that “he must not multiply horses for himself” (Deuteronomy 17:16a). The same was true of silver and gold (v. 17).
2. Implementation
You should become more familiar with the political structure in your community. You should also become familiar with the more important bureaucratic agencies that carry out policies of local government. This is extremely difficult work. It is best suited for somebody trained in civil law: a lawyer. But lawyers have very valuable time. They tend to prefer to be elected to local office rather than remaining in the background. This is why lawyers dominate politics in the West.
The average citizen does not have the legal training or the time to master the details of local government. You probably do not have this time. Therefore, you must concentrate on doing what you can to teach people about biblical principles of civil government. If you have the opportunity to get involved in perhaps one specialized area of local civil government where your input can make a difference, then you should do so. You should work with others in such an effort. This involves getting involved with the activities of a special-interest group. But the group’s primary political goal should be to roll back laws that violate biblical principles. The goal should not be to extend anti-biblical laws just for the sake of continuity. The goal is continuity of biblical law, not continuity of civil law in general.
If you move from city to city, you will never be able to develop these skills or these personal contacts. Instead of constantly moving, you may choose to commit yourself to a lifetime of patient effort in reforming certain aspects of your local government. There must be continuity in your life geographically. It takes years of study and effort to begin to transform local government. If you can work with elected politicians, this is good. If you can get better politicians elected, this is good. The goal is constant reformation coupled with stability. The goal is not armed revolution. Armed revolutions always centralize political power.
It is far more difficult to have influence in civil government than it is in the other covenantal institutions. Only a handful of people want to specialize in civil government. Very few people are content to concentrate their lifetime efforts to master local government. Local politicians may be willing to do this, but successful ones usually want to move up to regional politics. They are not content to stay in the local community for a lifetime, slowly and painstakingly working to bring local politics into conformity with biblical principles.
Only highly dedicated individuals are capable of making fundamental changes for the better in civil government. It takes a specialized calling from God for someone to do this. Most people do not have such a calling. Therefore, in terms of extending the kingdom of God, the payoff from concentrating your efforts on individual self-government, family government, and church government will be much higher personally. You will be able to see the results more easily. You will be able to benefit from the changes you make. Politics is a specialized calling for a handful of people. This is why my slogan is “politics fourth.” I am speaking of fourth in terms of the average person’s commitment to covenantal reform and improvement. For almost all people, it is wiser to invest time and money in a family-owned business, their career opportunities, personal education, local volunteer activities, and personal self-improvement than it is to concentrate on politics, government, and bureaucratic reform.
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