Heart Change

God, Government: Church and State: the role of government inside and out the church

The Existence of Various Governments

When we talk of government one may think quickly about the state, but the reality is that government extends far beyond the state. It extends to the church

The Family: Patriarchs

The Family Unit: Parents

The Marriage Unit: Husbands

The Cosmos: Laws of Nature

The Tribe: Gang leaders, rules, Entrance.

What Governments Do

So what does government do?

It establishes Leadership (King, Officers, Rule, Citizens)

Church: Christ, Offices, Bible, Believers

America: President, Governors, Constitution, Citizens

Gang: Leader, Lieutenants, Code, Members

What is interesting is that in the church the King and Rule are synonomous, they will never contradict one another, they will always correspond to each other. In some governments the King is over the rule and in others the rule is over the king. But in the church the rule and the king coincide.

The problem is that there is no kingdom that can carry this out, except the kingdom of Christ. Therefore a king may overrule rule or a rule may overrule king; and while there is cohesion they do not coincide. (Cohesion means stick together, coincide means to fill the same space)

It brings Order to the Chaos or it Unifies

It brings Law (morals, not necessarily virtue)

It Limits to bring freedom, it does not limit to restrict freedom, giving a code by which to live among people.

It brings Justice to a people group

Giving every man their due

There are rights of citizens

Privileges afforded to citizens

There is entrance into citizenship

It has the ability to sustain sovereignty (freedom from external control, military)

It taxes

It goes to supporting the whole.

Government in Genesis 1-3 & Eph. 4-5

One of the things you see is the possibility of Ephesians 4-5 to be seen through the lens of law and government.

My point in going through this is to give a bigger picture of government, which you can trace through the Old and New Testament. Yet at the same time to show that our goal as believers is not conservative capitalism, from which has come a rigid individualism that actually takes root in several of the vices, especially avarice (greed), envy, and gluttony.