In other words, how people of faith do politics!
To many believers, politics is a dirty word. Take the phrase “church politics” for example. It usually makes believers think of scheming behind the scenes, flattery, deceit and exploiting God’s people for power, money or some other selfish benefit.
So it was quite an eye-opener for me to actually see the political side of what the characters in the Bible have done. There are a few lessons that we need to consider in order to politick biblically.
1) Remember the Big Picture.
Proverbs 29:26 (ESV) - Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the LORD that a man gets justice.
Power, money and revenge are selfish motivations for participating in politics, whether in the church, secular government or any other human society. Seeking justice, whether for ourselves or for the oppressed, is the right motivation.
But before we begin, we need to face the big picture. Ultimately, justice comes from the LORD. Therefore we are to conduct our political activities in this light, knowing that what we do has to meet with his approval and be conducted in faith in his justice prevailing.
2) Work with Other People
Oftentimes, we are unable to get what we want by directly approaching the people of influence and authority. Take Joseph, for example. He was stuck in prison and earnestly wanted to go home to see his father. But he was unable to, because of Potiphar’s charges against him that left him languishing in an Egyptian prison.
So he approached the cupbearer of Pharaoh and asked him to intercede with Pharaoh on Joseph’s behalf (Genesis 40:14). It did not yield results immediately, but in the end it was through the cupbearer that Pharaoh came to know of Joseph. And this eventually led to Joseph’s promotion.
I remember the early days...
... when I decided to return to worship ministry/training. Being out of the scene for so long meant that I had to network and promote myself. And that was not an easy thing to do! I had people criticise me for trying to promote myself, saying that I ought to just, pray, wait upon God for who to approach, and only approach that person. Since I did not do it that way (or even better, stay at home praying until people call me) to them I was obviously moving in flesh, operating carnally and depending on human efforts rather than trusting in God…
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t hear God as often and as specifically as I would like. That was then, and I haven’t improved much ever since. There are people who are guided THAT specifically by God, and I rejoice for them. For me, however, I have to follow the principles embodied by this Scripture:
Ecclesiastes 11:6 (ESV) - In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.
This passage takes an idea from farming, that you cannot predict the success of a specific endeavour. But you can expect that if you persevere some of your efforts will be successful. And so if you want to be assured of some results, you have to sow a lot of effort and probably make it more widespread. And this is what I did in my marketing efforts. If you are not guided by God as specifically as you would like, this principle will stand you in good stead in the meantime!
Besides, I grew a lot from going out and putting myself in a position to be rejected over and over again. It was humbling, and I sometimes wonder if some of those stay-home-and-pray people do so because they are that spiritually astute, or if they are just deathly fearful of rejection and using spiritual-sounding words to avoid facing it!
Sometimes we need people whom we would rather not depend on. Consider the case of Mordecai in the book of Esther. When Haman the Agagite wanted to destroy the Jewish remnant (Esther 3:6), Mordecai asked Esther to intercede for the Jews on their behalf. At that moment, there was no better person for the task. Haman already outranked everyone else (Esther 3:1), only Esther, as the queen, had a chance to persuade the king to relent.
But Mordecai was no longer the primary influence in her life, as he was in the days when he raised her. There was always the possibility that Esther had let her new-found wealth and power get to her head. And since marriage usually leads to a woman changing her loyalty, there was always a chance that Esther no longer felt for her people. Finally, even if she chose to intercede with the king for her people, what assurance did Mordecai have that Esther was shrewd enough to do so wisely?
We all know how that story turned out. Things were so near to going wrong for Mordecai and the rest of the Jewish people. But because God intervened and subtly nudged things his way, everything all worked out in the end. The fact remained, however, that Esther was an unlikely candidate for rescuing the Jews. Mordecai had to really commit the matter to God’s hands and trust God to the utmost if he wanted peace of mind that God would work everything out!
That is also how it may be with us. A chance meeting with an unlikely person, someone who may not even be interested in our cause or in helping us, may be exactly what God planned for working out his purposes in our lives. Sometimes, our only hope is someone we would rather not depend on. And that is how we see if our ultimate trust is in God or in man.
Psalm 118:8 (ESV) - It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.
3) Grab opportunities to do good
One more thing that Joseph and Mordecai had in common, they did good first, and their reward came a lot later.
For Joseph, it was interpreting the dream of the cupbearer. For Mordecai, it was exposing a plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus. Both these men had the reason to feel that their good acts went unrewarded. For Joseph, he was forgotten, ignored and left to languish in jail. For Mordecai, it was even worse. The king whose life he saved had just authorised the extermination of his race. If I was in Mordecai’s place, I would have been wondering if I ought to have let the assassination proceed in the first place!
Romans 8:28 (ESV) - And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
When you are struggling with the good you do being forgotten, ignored or misunderstood, you have to trust that God would work everything out in his time. For Joseph, if he was released earlier he would not have been around to interpret Pharaoh’s dream. For Mordecai, if he was rewarded earlier it would not have the effect of finally sealing Haman’s fate when Esther finally told the king what Haman was up to.
Please don’t let yourself end up offended or bitter. Honestly, a political or church leader has loads of stuff on his/her plate. They usually count on assistants/secretaries/scribes to help them remember things, and sometimes things just slip through the cracks. Hey, I’m just trying to manage two sons, and sometimes I forget very important matters that I was supposed to settle. How much worse a leader with heavier responsibilities?
The verse from Ecclesiastes 11:6 about always sowing also applies here as well. In the earlier days of my ministry, I was often called upon to do favours for other people. Not all those favours were appreciated, in fact, some were taken for granted. But some did help move me along. And, like the marketing efforts I spoke about earlier, I grew from doing more, not doing less!
Conclusion:
There are still other topics we can look at when it comes to this area, such as timing, how to manage expectations and making sure we communicate clearly. But this post is already getting long enough! And besides, if we 1) always trust God as our ultimate judge, 2) work humbly with other people, and 3) always seek to do good, I suspect we are going to manage well politically anyway, right?
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