45 their deeds. By obeying God, and by willingly accepting government’s punishments, we respect government’s authority while also clinging to God’s commandments. This is how we render to God and Caesar, even when God and Caesar conflict. Lastly, we have an obligation to honor those in authority. Perhaps more than any other admonition, this strikes at the heart of the American partisan. Resistance and rebellion shape our character. We pride ourselves on an unwillingness to kneel in respect to those God has empowered. This command cuts across our culture, which is more receptive to mockery and ridicule than respect. Surely many of our political leaders deserve a dose of mockery, but our default response to leaders, as believers, must be to honor and respect them instead. In 1 Timothy 2:1–2, Paul tells us to offer “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings” for “kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” Honor is about more than simply paying lip service, it is also about humbly praying for the blessing, and interceding on behalf, of our leaders. This notion, in some ways, is most challenging in a democratic context. We can influence our government in a way that was foreign to Paul and Peter. We advocate and persuade in the public square, and sometimes while doing so we must draw distinctions between ourselves and other parties, policies, and politicians, even those who are in authority over us. The rub, of course, is how do we accomplish this while maintaining respect and honor for our opponents? Our tendency, in the hurly-burly of politics, is to attack, even to the point of treating rival parties and figures as enemies more deserving of scorn and condemnation than honor. Remember, even if we conceive of political opponents as enemies, we are told, in Proverbs 25:21, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” In Matthew 5:44, Christ tells us to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The painful reality, for too many of us, is that we treat those who disagree with us politically — be they presidents or pundits — worse than we are commanded to treat our enemies in Scripture. Far from honoring or respecting our leaders, we seek to tear them down and destroy them. Perhaps this raises the most difficult question for the politically minded evangelical in 21st-century America. Is it possible to be politically effective and to still hold tightly to this command? If there is tension between political success and fidelity to Scripture, the human temptation is to
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