What Does The Bible Say About The Christian’s Relationship With The Government?

b. Daniel working within a pagan Babylonian government.

- Daniel 1:1-16.

- Daniel and his three friends are carried off into captivity from Judah to Babylon (v. 1). Once in that foreign land, they are chosen for service in the Babylonian government (vv. 3-7).

- Daniel has a problem, though. The royal food allotment from the Babylonian king includes items that would cause him to violate Jewish law (v. 8). His first step is to go to the official over him and ask for an exemption (v. 8). The official is reluctant (vv. 9-10), but Daniel offers a reasonable solution (vv. 11-14). This revised diet of vegetables and water produces a good result (vv. 15-16) and the crisis is averted.

- What is worth noting for our purposes is that Daniel stood up for what he believed, was willing to make sacrifices for these matters of conscience, but did not pursue violent means.

c. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace.

- Daniel 3:1-30.

- Let’s look at a more dramatic example: the fiery furnace.

- The Babylonian king wants everyone to bow down in worship to a giant statue (vv. 1-5). If you don’t bow down, you will be killed in a fiery furnace (v. 6).

- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow down because worship is to be reserved for God alone (v. 12). They get ratted out (vv. 8-12) and the king gives them an angry ultimatum (vv. 13-15).

- In response, the three say they will not bow down (v. 18). They do not know if God will save them, although they know that He can (vv. 16-17). But no matter the outcome they will not violate their conscience and bow down to anyone other than God.

- We all know the miraculous ending to the story, but for our purposes this morning the ending is inconsequential. The main takeaway for us is that when faced with the edict that violated their obligations to God, they engaged in civil disobedience. That is, they refused to obey the immoral law even though they knew the consequences that might come to them. Again, though, there was no thought of violence as a response.

d. Jesus faces Pilate.

- John 18:33-38.

- Jesus says something during His interview with Pilate that is essential for us to consider here. Pilate asks Jesus if He is a king and about the charges against Him (vv. 33-35). Jesus’ reply is powerful: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is from another place” (v. 36).

- There are couple things we need to address:

- First, Jesus says that His Kingdom is not of this world. What does that mean? Does it mean that it has nothing to do with life on this planet? Of course not, because Jesus says in v. 37 that what He’s about to do (die on the cross and be resurrected) is the very reason He came into this world. We know that He came on a rescue mission for us.

- No, what He means is that His Kingdom is not from here. It is from nowhere less than the throne room of heaven itself. That closing statement that the Kingdom is “from another place” (v. 36) highlights what He’s trying to say.