Preach the Word or Politics?

In 2 Timothy 4:2, the Bible commands: “Preach the Word,” referring to the “all Scripture” of 3:16 with the Greek anaphoric article on the “the” of 2 Timothy 4:2.  God commands His Word to be preached, and nothing else, in the church of Jesus Christ. Does this exclude preaching on political topics?

Sometimes preaching the Word means preaching what the Word says about politics.  For example, the Bible condemns abortion and sodomy, teaches free market economics and a limited government instead of socialism or communism and an intrusive government, and favors republican government over monarchy or dictatorship.  It is entirely appropriate to preach what Scripture teaches on these and related issues and to make appropriate contemporary application, whether through following what 2 Timothy 3:15-4:2 implies–expositional preaching through entire books of the Bible–or through topical messages on Biblical issues.

Do we see preaching on contemporary politics taking place in the New Testament?  Matthew 14:1-4 reads:

1 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, 2 And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. 3 For Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife. 4 For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her.

The first Baptist preacher made the clearly true, unquestionably verifiable statement that Herod should not have taken his brother’s wife. We have no other political statements at all from him, and it does not even appear that the Baptist declared the unlawful incest of Herod in a sermon–rather, John “said unto [Herod]” directly what the ruler had unlawfully done, also reproving Herod for all the evils he had done (Luke 3:19). So John made a clear Biblical application of a political matter in a personal way to the ruler in question.

What about the Lord Jesus?  Christ called Herod a “fox” (Luke 13:32). This also was not in a sermon but in response to a question the Lord was asked.  In every recorded sermon the Lord preached, and in all His teaching in the NT, there was nothing about the terrible political things going on in His day—which He could have used His omniscience to describe and warn about with perfect accuracy—but Christ did warn a great deal about false religion, the worst thing that was taking place in first century Palestine (and the worst thing happening in our day).

The sermons in Acts contain nothing about the dirty power plays in the Roman empire or other political events.  The closest one gets is Paul proving that he was not a lawbreaker in court settings.  Paul also used his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37; Acts 22), so Christians should use the voting rights they have in free nations.

So we have one statement from John the Baptist, made directly to Herod and not in a sermon, one word, “fox,” from Christ on politics, here again not in a sermon, and nothing in the apostolic preaching in Acts.  Paul used the political right he had to protect his life and advance the gospel (Acts 22), and also used his citizenship to protect the Philippian jailer and his household from their heroic, selfless, and extremely dangerous act of taking Paul out of prison into the jailer’s home (Acts 16:37).

What about the New Testament epistles? In the epistles, there are no warnings about current politics at all.

So is it lawful to make application to current political events in sermons? Based on what Christ and the first Baptist practiced, it is certainly lawful.  However, it is also certainly not the emphasis of the New Testament.  The balance found in the NT epistles is to spend 99% of the time on giving people God’s unsearchable truth; when naming evil men and evil deeds to focus on religious corruption; and occasionally as a legitimate application of Scripture to point out the evil in the secular political world.  Indeed, God’s infallible truth, powerfully preached, will do far more long-term good, even politically, than changing God’s pulpit into a place of political commentary.

A congregation where people did not know that the Democrat party overwhelmingly opposes religious liberty and promotes abortion and sodomy would be poorly informed.  Application of the Sixth Commandment would properly inform people of the indisputable facts right in the Democrat party platform.  However, a congregation that does not know what the books of Zechariah or Ephesians are about (for example), but hears all sorts of things about contemporary politics from the pulpit, is also not following the New Testament balance.  They should hear far more in the Lord’s house about the Joseph of Genesis than about Joe Biden.

It is true that the Old Testament prophets spoke more about the misdeeds of their rulers and of other nations than one finds in the New Testament.  This fact should encourage us to be gracious rather than judging harshly that contemporary politics are alluded to too often by other pastors or other preachers.  However, we should also keep in mind that Israel was a theocratic nation-state–a political nation among other political nations. The king was not just a ruler, but one with a religious position over God’s people. The surrounding nations were not just people groups, but idolatrous enemies trying to destroy the kingdom of God on earth and stop the coming of the Messiah and the consummation of God’s redemptive program by wiping out Israel.  It may therefore be a better comparison if we consider Jeremiah warning the king to submit to Babylon as comparable to the harsh and specific NT warnings against false religion rather than the equivalent of someone preaching about the misdeeds of secular political rulers.

Furthermore, speech about political rulers must follow Romans 13:

Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. (Romans 13:7)

John the Baptist said nothing disrespectful to Herod.  Even Michael the Archangel did not rail harshly against Satan, who indubitably deserved it (Jude 9).  Even if a secular political ruler is very evil–as most of them are–and very hostile to Christianity–as many of them are–we must show them fear and honor in the same way that we must give them tribute or pay taxes–God requires it.

So preaching legitimate applications of Scripture on politics is right, but making politics central to the church is not, nor should the church follow politically conservative heathen in their reviling of those with liberal political views.  Respect is required for all men, and especially for all rulers, even if they personally do not deserve it in the least.  Remember that you don’t deserve respect in and of yourself, either.  You deserve hell fire, but God gave you grace despite your unworthiness.  He calls you to show respect in the same way to unworthy political leaders who He has ordained (Romans 13) for His own ultimate glory and wise purposes.

Preach the Word or Conspiratorial Politics?

What about political conspiracy theories?  I have already addressed this to an extent in my posts “Satanic Conspiracy, COVID-19, and the Church’s Response.” (My thoughts on the COVID vaccine specifically are here, with some broader comments on medicine here.)

Notice that what John the Baptist said about Herod was 100% true, credible, and unquestionably verifiable. Herod had taken his brother’s wife and was openly living with her.  The same holds true for the Old Testament prophets. The Moabites had certainly burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime (Amos 2:1).  (Since the New Testament epistles do not deal with any political controversies, they contain no examples here at all, but their silence does still teach us something about proportion, as already noted.)

Contrast that with, say, the dangerous semi-religious cult, the QAnon conspiracy, which believes various political leaders in the USA are engaged in pedophilia and Trump was going to expose them and send them to Guantanamo Bay, and made many other false predictions coupled with unfalsifiable affirmations.  Is there a deep state cabal of pedophiles, or whatever other conspiratorial affirmation?  Before someone believes something of this sort on a personal level, he needs to make sure that he has carefully weighed the evidence, not just for such a conspiracy, but against it (Proverbs 18:17) lest he answer a matter before hearing the evidence properly, which is folly and shame (Proverbs 18:13).  If, for example, QAnon is really a movement of Satanic slander, as many born-again Christians affirm, then affirming its truth would be displeasing to the Lord.  Consider the principles in the post “Shame, Folly, and Conspiracy Theories.”  Do my affirmations in favor of the conspiracy meet Biblical standards of evidence?  Certainly conspiracies should not be promoted in the pulpit in Christ’s churches unless they really have extraordinary evidence for their extraordinary assertions.  It was easy to verify that Herod had an unlawful spouse.  He did not deny who his consort was.  It is much harder to prove that a particular person engaged in abominable acts with minors when nobody allegedly involved says it happened, there is no forensic evidence, etc., and nobody seems to care about it except some extremely fringe social media people who have very dubious evidence to back up their expansive claims.

Let us imagine that someone at one’s workplace told a lie one time out of every twenty statements that he made.  We would consider such a person to have a severe lying problem.  While conspiracy theories actually have a truth value that is far closer to 0% than to 95%, let’s imagine that a preacher starts preaching political conspiracy theories and is actually correct 95% of the time.  He would still be breaking the Ten Commandments 5% of the time—a grave lying problem.  “Thou shalt not bear false witness” does not have any exception for discussions of politics.  It does not have a 5% exception.  Slander is a grave sin, even if one is slandering a political leader with a terribly anti-Biblical worldview. Slander is still a grave sin, even if one is slandering someone as verifiably crooked as Hillary Clinton.  If she is crooked in one way you are not lying to say it, but if you accuse her of something she did not do it is slander.  Yep, it is still a sin to slander even her.

Preacher, let’s be much harsher on ourselves than on others as we evaluate these things, and make sure our own sermons are 100% accurate, respectful, and non-slanderous.  Nevertheless, whoever makes an inaccurate statement, even if he is convinced it is true by slick-sounding misinformation and is sincerely beguiled by enticing words (Colossians 2:4), is still breaking the Ninth Commandment.  We are not to engage in such behavior ourselves, because the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44). We are not to tolerate it in our houses, because “he that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight” (Psalm 101:7).  We must not bring it into Christ’s church, because that is the place to preach the infallible truth of the Word (2 Timothy 4:2) as the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), not the place to preach what is either verifiably false, or even only possibly true but uncertain, or even what is true but is not exposition and application of the Bible.

So preach the Word—not politics.  Follow the pattern of the New Testament in how much politics is talked about in church.  It is not 0%, but not that far away.  It is very far from the emphasis.  Following the New Testament pattern both honors Christ, the One who told the church what to preach, and also promotes liberty in the long-term in a far more effective way than an unbiblical lack of balance that turns the Lord’s church into a Super PAC.

So preach the Word—not conspiratorial politics, because preaching a conspiracy, unless it is absolute truth, risks committing the grave sin of slander in the place where only what has an infallible “thus saith the Lord” should be proclaimed, for that alone gives glory to Jesus Christ, the great Head of His church.

–TDR