“A Piece of My Mind”

October 2024 Newsletter

Advancing Christian Faith and Values,
Defending Religious Liberty for All,
Supporting Civility and the Common Good
through Preaching, Teaching, Writing, Activism and Reasoned Conversations

www.donaldshoemakerministries.com

Should Biblical Values Impact Secular Rulers?

Answers range from “Not at all” to “Only Christians are qualified to rule.” Neither extreme is acceptable in my view. But is there a middle position that is reasonable and good for a country and its leaders?

Here’s a thought: The Prophet Daniel informed Babylon’s king that God would afflict him with insanity because of his pride, misrule, and failure to see that God rules over the kingdoms of man. Read the Book of Daniel, chapter 4.

Daniel then told King Nebuchadnezzar how to avoid the coming punishment—words of wisdom for all rulers:

“Break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.” – Daniel 4:27

“I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
– Joel 2:30-31

I thought of this scripture as the apocalyptic scenes of incredible fires appeared recently west and north of where we live in S. California.

In the Old Testament’s “Book of Joel” God used terrible happenings to shake complacency and turn hearts to him (Joel 2:32 – “Everyone who calls on the name of the rd will be saved.”).

Politics and God’s Kingdom

Be involved in both, but don’t forget which has priority!
Temper your political activism with Kingdom values.

By Donald Shoemaker

We’re hearing a lot today about “Christian Nationalism” and most of what we hear is negative. I intend to study this topic more, though right now I think the concern is overblown and being used by critics to raise money.

Christian activism in the realm of politics is both necessary and fraught with dangers. Before we embark on it, and to give ourselves a periodic “tune-up”, we must ponder how the world of politics interfaces with the rule of God. The Apostle Paul’s words on the nature of God’s Kingdom are instructive as we do this.

“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 14:17 NIV

What the Apostle Paul is teaching us here is, God’s kingdom rises above temporal issues like what we eat and what we drink. Our choices on foods and beverages are choices that belong to this passing age (not that we won’t eat and drink in the Kingdom—we will, I’m happy to report!). Decisions we make on things like these are not to become issues of spirituality or judging others (religious rules we create to the contrary). Jesus taught the same truth (Matthew 15:17) and Paul did elsewhere as well (1 Corinthians 6:13).

If issues of eating and drinking don’t matter for the kingdom, what about issues of politics? What about labels like “conservative” or “liberal”? What about economic systems like Capitalism and Socialism? What about political issues that, in spite of a careful search, don’t seem to be highly laden with moral concerns (like term limits)? What about when people of good will differ on various ways to address common concerns (such as health care or immigration or gun control or homelessness)?

Christians seem prone to confuse the limited issues of the political sphere with the sweeping issues of the Kingdom sphere. We confuse the time-bound and temporary realm of politics with the timeless and eternal realm of God’s rule. We confuse political Band-Aids with God’s decisive moral victories.

We regard some candidates for high office as messianic. We divide the Body of Christ improperly over temporal issues and solutions. When religious leaders go on the stump for political causes and do so in the name of the Gospel, they cheapen and dilute our high calling and our glorious announcement—the good news of the Kingdom.

Does this mean we withdraw and isolate ourselves and let everything “go to the dogs”? No, not at all. Christians are dual citizens. We do “polish the brass on a sinking ship.” Biblical imperatives and citizenship rights both drive us into the public and political spheres so we can speak out and influence the course of our society. The Kingdom message we profess is, after all, a comprehensive moral and social vision, not just a “personal relationship with Jesus” and an ethereal, other-worldly “heaven to come.”

Yes, we pray and work for the welfare of our community (Jeremiah 29:7). But we must look for incremental gains and not much transformation. We choose our battles wisely and graciously. We must save a lot of our idealism for the Kingdom and be “as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves” here and now. Thankfully, God may grant us a profound victory now and then, like the abolition of slavery. But William Wilberforce fought slavery a step at a time with no sure hope of beholding sweeping victory with his own eyes.

Politics is the art of compromise. It blends the ideal with realism and pragmatism. If we insist on the whole righteous pie, we are likely to get no pie at all. Political leaders are prone to sin like the rest of us and are out to serve self-interest. Sin is in all of us, not just in “them” on the other side. And God’s grace is working through “them” as well as us. No politician wears a white hat or a black hat like in the old “westerns.”

In light of the majesty of God’s Kingdom and the limits (yet God-ordained validity) of Caesar’s kingdom, we must lift up our eyes to the former and lower our present expectations with the latter. We must embrace and long for God’s kingdom while engaging and appreciating man’s.

That’s our calling and struggle, and I struggle with it all the time.

“Good Government Starts Here”

A Useful Guide in an Election Season

By Donald Shoemaker

Thomas Jefferson spoke in his first inaugural address (1801) of our need for a “wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

In this spirit, I’ve thought about certain non-partisan values that should characterize good government and the officials who are elected and appointed to its many positions. Here are seven qualities I wish to see as I evaluate those seeking office this election season:

• Frugality – viewing public funds as a limited resource to be prudently handled with great care and not as a constant spring where there is always more to be tapped. It must always be remembered that every tax dollar, regardless of its source and our political good intentions, takes money from people and not from impersonal things.
• Accountability – recognizing that managing public funds and exercising power are solemn trusts. Those who do these things must see themselves as stewards answerable to the people. Most of us believe accountability is due “in the sight of both God and man.” But even if a politician doesn’t think God exists, he knows the citizen does. Accountability also measures actions by their impact on the future long after a term of office has ended.
• Integrity – being people of truthfulness and fairness and good character in light of reasoned principles acknowledged by almost everybody.
• Efficiency – getting the most “bang for the buck” by avoiding wasted time, squandered resources, incompetence and bloated bureaucracy. Jefferson’s call for “suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses” needs to be heeded as never before.
• Productivity – ensuring that resources of funding, time and talent are used for intended and effective purposes and not, as examples, for self-aggrandizement or for programs likely or proven to fail. A good leader regards no program as sacrosanct and regularly evaluates them for both effectiveness and efficiency.
• Accessibility – demonstrating openness to the people they are selected to serve, whether these people are supporters, detractors or indifferent.
• Temperance – realizing that the state’s power to compel behavior is a great and potentially dangerous power and therefore exercising great reserve and wisdom in its use in our free society.

We may then move beyond these qualities to the issues we cherish and the inevitable partisanship of any election. But without these qualities even our most favored office seekers will be compromised in their missions, to everyone’s damage and cynicism.

“The Apostles’ Creed” (Part 9)
[I believe in]
“the forgiveness of sins”

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—
Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion.
He does not treat us as our sins deserve
Or repay us according to our iniquities”

– Psalm 103:2-4, 10

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins.”

– Psalm 51:1-2

“Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.”

– Psalm 32:1

“…we have sinned in thought, word, and deed,
and…we cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition.
Together as His people let us take refuge in the infinite mercy of God,
our heavenly Father, seeking His grace for the sake of Christ,
and saying: ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”

– Lutheran Service Book, “Divine Service, Setting Four”

9A – The Holy Spirit leads us to conviction of our sins.

The third and final segment of The Apostles’ Creed begins with “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” We have tied these words to the next phrase, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” Now we tie them to the phrase, “The forgiveness of sins.” God’s Spirit moves our hearts to conviction of our sins (genuine remorse leading to repentance and resolve to abandon the wrongs we have done).

9B – Forgiveness assumes that a standard of right and wrong exists.

Without a standard we would need no forgiveness. We’d only have mistakes needing attention: “I’ll drive more carefully and pay less for insurance.”

Our search for standards should start with The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) and The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). It should then consider scriptures that focus on human wrongdoings (e.g., Romans 1:18-32; Romans chapters 12 & 13; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Galatians 5:19-26; Ephesians 4:17-5:14). And nothing can replace our overall reading of the Bible to see how it confronts human evil then and now, by others and ourselves.

9C – God’s forgiveness is not for those who think they are good, but for those who know they are bad.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:8-9

Jesus told a story of two men who illustrate the verses above.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I have.”

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

9D – Forgiveness of sins is necessary for true reconciliation to occur.

Can we name one single word that summarizes the Christian faith as we understand it? I think that word may be “RECONCILIATION.” Reconciliation is when two sides at odds with one another are brought together by removal of the issue or issues that have divided them.

The ultimate reconciliation is, as we sing at Christmas season, “God and sinners reconciled.” How can this be? “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against him” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Reconciliation isn’t only vertical (God and sinners); it’s horizontal too—between people who wrong others and are wronged by others. Jesus taught the one who has wronged another: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

Likewise Jesus had a word to the one who had been wronged: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over” (Matthew 20:15). Jesus also set forth additional steps that should be taken (vv. 16-17—see next point).

9E – Jesus commissioned his church and its God-ordained leaders to play a vital role in the process of forgiveness.

Continuing Jesus’ teaching on reconciliation (or the lack thereof) found in Matthew 18:15-20, if a wrongdoer “refuses to listen even to the church [as it calls him to reconciliation], treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector [exclude him from the church for his unrepentant heart]” (Matthew 18:17).

Perhaps anticipating negative reaction to this, Jesus declared strongly,. “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (v. 18). When the church acts in accord with Jesus’ teaching and by his (delegated) authority, heaven will back the church when it retains or remits a person’s sin.

In our day of weak attitudes toward church authority, this strong word by Jesus (“I tell you the truth” or if you will, “truly, truly”) needs to be heard.

But there’s more! The Risen Lord gave to his disciples, as leaders of the church-that-is-to-come, a similar authorization (John 20:22-23)—one that causes many an evangelical Christian to have a severe allergic reaction:
“He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’”

NOTE: the future perfect passive verbs in Matthew 18:18 and here in John, rendered “they will be bound/loosed” and “they are forgiven/not forgiven,” are difficult to translate and no version does it more awkwardly than The New American Standard Bible: “shall have been bound/loosed in heaven” and “have been forgiven/retained.” Of these renderings the New Testament scholar F. F. Bruce said, “Whatever this is, it’s not English.”

The NASB would render the verdicts of heaven as prior to the verdicts by the church. It’s doubtful this is Jesus’ point. Regardless, the two texts are saying the verdicts of the church and its leaders are in tandem with the verdicts of heaven regarding retaining or remitting sin. This issue is bigger than my space here, and I leave it at that.

Many a church has “retained sin” willy-nilly when a member violates legalistic rules. This is not what Jesus authorized nor what the Holy Spirit would empower. But when a church disciplines its own by forgiving or retaining sin (positively or negatively), in Jesus’ name and by his authority, it is not an action to be taken lightly. Let’s liken this to a pastor’s refusal to unite a couple in marriage for some serious reason, versus his positive word in a different instance: “By the authority of the Lord Jesus, I now pronounce you husband and wife in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!”

9F – Thus, we are reminded that both forgiveness and the subsequent reconciliation are conditional.

Forgiveness isn’t unconditional, either vertically or horizontally. God forgives our sins based on the sacrificial death of Christ who bore our sins, and conditioned also upon our own genuine repentance. Forget the words of the old song: “Though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he’ll always say, ‘I forgive.’” No, he won’t.

So also it is with horizontal forgiveness. The notion “when someone wrongs you, immediately forgive that person in your heart” turns interpersonal forgiveness into self-therapy and trivializes the evil that people do against others. To the contrary, Jesus taught, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him” (Luke 17:3).

9G – What does “The Nicene Creed” (AD 381) say on this point?

It throws water on “the forgiveness of sin”:
“I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.”

The Nicene Creed generally follows the points of The Apostles’ Creed but definitely enlarges most of them. This statement, which actually confesses Christian Baptism, certainly does that.

What can we say? We start with Scripture:
• John the Baptist preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3).
• When convicted listeners to his sermon on the Day of Pentecost asked Peter, “What shall we do?” he said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:37-38).
• Saul, who would soon be an apostle of Christ, was told by Ananias what his apostolic mission would be. Then Ananias said, “Now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). Baptism and calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:9) were kept together.
• “Baptism…now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God” (1 Peter 4:21).

The sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion have outer and inner realities, sealed together by the Holy Spirit in the Words of Institution.

That is to say, the outward signs of water or bread and wine are united with the inner reality of remission of sin by the words “I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” or “Take and eat; this is my body given for you” and “This is my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.” (The accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and 1 Corinthians all teach the same truths though their specific words vary.)

Because of this union, it is just as valid to say “my sins were washed away in baptism” as to say “my sins were forgiven when I confessed Jesus as Lord.” (A married couple might speak of “the day we exchanged our rings” or “when we said our vows.” Same reality, two ways of expressing it.)

In our evangelism this union of outer and inner realities should not be broken. One way it’s broken, leading to confusion, is by having an unnecessarily long gap between one’s confession “Jesus is Lord” and one’s Christian baptism.

The Apostle Peter was caught off-guard when the Holy Spirit fell on uncircumcised gentiles as they heard the word of salvation (Acts 10:44-46). He rightly responded to this fait accompli by ordering the baptism of the converts. Peter kept the outward sign and the inner reality together.

Much modern Christian evangelism doesn’t even mention baptism, unlike the examples we find in the New Testament. (Acts 2:37-41; 8:12, 37-39; 9:17-19; 10:47-48; 16:14-15, 29-33; 18:8; 19:3-5; 22:16)

Many evangelical churches have separated baptism from the saving confession in practice through the introduction of another “sacrament” – the “walking forward invitation” to receive Christ, followed sooner or later by baptism (hopefully) when one gets around to it.

Better that we invite one who wishes to receive Christ to enter the waters of baptism as soon as it is feasible (see Acts 8:34-38 for the baptism of the Ethiopian by Philip the Evangelist after he heard the Gospel).

www.donaldshoemakerministries.com

Don has been a member of the clergy in the Long Beach, California area since 1970. He has served as Pastor Emeritus of Grace Community Church of Seal Beach (where he was senior pastor 1984-2012) and as Senior Chaplain of the Seal Beach Police Department (2001-2024). He previously was an assistant professor of Biblical Studies at Biola University (1976-84) and chaired the Social Concerns Committee in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches from 1985 to 2019.

His graduate work includes a Master of Divinity magna cum laude from Grace Theological Seminary, a Master of Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary with a concentration in Christian ethics, and a Doctor of Ministry from American Baptist Seminary of the West (now Berkeley School of Theology) with a concentration on the Charismatic Movement. His law school studies included a course on the First Amendment.

Don and his wife Mary have been married for 58 years. They have two children and six grandchildren, plus now a grandson-in-law. They recently moved to Temecula, California