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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman
Politicizing
The Jesus Movement Crowds of people
consistently followed Jesus from place to place, and why?
They benefited from His ministry, as is recorded in John 6:26. "Jesus answered,
'Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the
signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your
fill.'" Seeing that Jesus could
miraculously feed thousands of people at one time, the move was on to
make Him king, thus the attempt to hijack the Jesus Movement and
turn it into a political movement. It's
easy to figure out. Why work
for a living when King Jesus' socialistic state can, without any effort,
magically put food on your table.
Note Jesus' response to
this new political movement. John 6:15 says:
"Jesus, knowing
that they intended to come and make him king
by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself." John 2:24 reads: "But Jesus would
not entrust himself to them [the crowds], for he knew all people."
Jesus had no thought of
being king of a newly created Christian state.
He had already refused Satan's offer to politicize Himself and
become ruler of the nations (Matthew 4:1 - 10).
No, Jesus knew the corrupt hearts of people and He would not
involve Himself in their political plans.
Besides, He would rule all nations at an appropriate date, as
determined by His Father.
Turning the Jesus
Movement into a political movement seems to be an ever-present tendency.
The Roman Emperor Constantine and his successors did that in the
fourth century, and others have tried the same over the centuries.
Christianizing a nation through political means is a distracting
side-show that has never worked. More
importantly, it has no Biblical support, but it's what many North
American Evangelical Christians aspire to do today.
It's evident that
Evangelical Christianity is now seen more as a political movement
instead of the Jesus Movement it was meant to be, and that's a problem.
In our attempt to Christianize our nations through political
means, we are forsaking our Biblical mandate to make
disciples of Jesus from within our nations (Matthew 28:18).
We are to Christianize people, not nations, and that's through
the preaching of the gospel as we allow the Holy Spirit to speak into
the hearts and lives of those to whom we preach.
If you live in a
democracy, as I do, you have the rights of citizenship to vote and
participate in the political process, but you do so as a citizen of your
nation. As a citizen of the Kingdom
of I ask this question.
If Jesus did not politicize Himself, should you?
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