The Fire of the Tongue, the Rhetoric of Politics and Religion
In our previous look at public controversy in the media we began with the clash of politics, mentioning the trial of Socrates in 399 B.C. Today we begin coverage of the clashes of religion and the church with everyday culture.
For, “THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS,
First Letter of Peter to the Church 3:10 NASB
MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.
Without digging a hole into some serious divisions of the church in our brief look at this opening quote of the Apostle Peter to the church, let me just remind us:
Political parties and the church are all gatherings of disagreeable people more or less united in one thing.
Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com
Can you think of an application for followers of Christ in current election rhetoric for the (U.S.) election year to come?
The church (saints or people) of this day and the past are all like you, like me and just like every candidate of every party in every country on earth. We are ALL SINNERS.
Therefore, regardless of our politics of the moment or religion of the past, we all speak and do evil.
The Tongue of the ‘Christian’
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
Caution of Christ – Matthew 5:22 NASB
Jesus Christ asks the crowds to examine our own hearts. So before we get to the controversy of Christ, let’s work back from Peter’s last point in this one verse [1 Peter 3:10] instructing “Christians.”
Peter asks or suggests to followers of Jesus:
- If you desire LIFE, what is life?
- Do you desire LOVE, what kind of love?
- So you want to SEE GOOD DAYS, what path do you seek?
- Do you KEEP YOUR TONGUE FROM EVIL?
- Would others find you guilty of SPEAKING DECEIT because you have fooled yourself?
Do you speak foolishness in angry answers to others – your loved ones, those you work or worship with, a politician inciting opposition?
How can you judge their speech when you do not even judge your own?
The root meaning of deceit here is to decoy. In other words, deceive another by your words. Of course no politician would do that!
But Jesus speaks to those who want to speak truth. When we do not, like the politicians and leaders of cultural religion we also become hypocrites, as are our accusers.
Hypocrites
Their audience is US.
ὑποκριτής, ὑποκριτου, ὁ (ὑποκρίνομαι, which see);
- one who answers, an interpreter (Plato, Lucian).
- an actor, stage-player (Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, Aelian, Herodian).
- in Biblical Greek, a dissembler, pretender, hypocrite:
Followers of Christ must look in the mirror first.
If you catch yourself speaking deceit you had best shut your mouth and seal your lips. (Nevermind the hypocrisy of your opponent, just find the beam in your own eye and fire of your own tongue.)
The tongue of Evil
The tongue of evil could be our own!
Paul writes to church of the Romans:
as it is written,
Romans 3:13
“THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
He continues in speaking of Jews and Hellenistic culturists (Greeks):
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.
“THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE,
WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,”
“THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS”;
“WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS”…
“THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.”
Could this be a political treatise against Christians, Jews, Muslims, and ANY claiming God without love on their lips even in this day?
Like Peter, Paul also shows why politics and religion mix in a murky cloud of hypocrisy.
How do you seek GOOD DAYS?
What is the platform of your faith? Your religion? Traditions? Good deeds?
Your works of goodness certainly can not sway the politics of a fallen world or misled nation.
Do you seek an honest path to righteousness? It would be a religion of works and false morality, a religion of philanthropic leading in your own ideals.
… and I’m NOT going to take it anymore!
Do any recall our ‘must elect my candidate’ arguments of religion for the 2016 election?
How will you, being evil, do good for anyone?
My fellow Christians, is your witness for the Gospel of Christ?
Or is your shout to the crowds that you’re mad as hell as if Christ would be swayed by the fire of your tongue?
Perhaps your opponents think that you feign madness before the media.
What good is your shouting into the whirlwind? For the fire of your words fails to witness the compassion of our Lord Christ Jesus.
Mere religion and righteousness never equate.
Love of words or love of the Word?
Here’s a question for so-called ‘christians’ embroiled in the politics of the day: Do you have a love of words or love of the Word?
Surely the politician loves the stage of the world. Certainly the media twists words meant to incite supporters into indictments of political opponents.
Satan works no differently than the internet in spreading false accusation of the believer; for Christ is the only Word of love who can save the sinner.
The Apostle John instructs the church:
Do not love G25 the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves G25 the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15 NASB – Strong’s G25 ἀγαπάω agapaō
Life – ζωή – zōē
Life’s meaning described by Peter is:
- life
- the state of one who is possessed of vitality or is animate
- every living soul
- life
- of the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic “logos” and to Christ in whom the “logos” put on human nature
- life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.
Peter points not only forward to Christ, but by scripture back to David, a man after God’s own heart.
Religion questions God.
May I add that the politics of the world deny God’s saving grace. By our knowledge of good and evil we lost the fruit of the tree of life in Eden. Mankind spoiled God’s paradise by disobedient sin.
Psalm 34: A Psalm of David
when he feigned madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.
David looks back at these dark days and praises the LORD.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
Psalm 34:1
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
9 O fear the LORD, you His saints;
For to those who fear Him there is no want.
13 Keep your tongue from evil
And your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.
From advice for the saints of the Lord, David proceeds to the justice and redemption of the faithful.
21 Evil shall slay the wicked,
And those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the soul of His servants,
And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
The Fire of the Tongue, the Politics of Jesus
Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.
John 18:14 NKJV
Jesus against religion
John 2:
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
John 8:
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!
54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him.
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
a Word of witness to followers of false religion
Jesus answered him,
“I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret.
John 18:20 NASB
Jesus continues:
“Why do you question Me? Question those who have heard what I spoke to them; they know what I said.”
Truth has witnesses; yet how do unrighteous leaders of religion react?
When He had said this, one of the officers standing nearby struck Jesus, saying, “Is that the way You answer the high priest?”
Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?”
So Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
Political reaction to Righteousness
Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in Him.
Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?”
The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”
John 18:38; 19:15b NASB
Righteous reaction to the Political
Mark 12:
Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? 15 Shall we pay or shall we not pay?”
But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them,
“Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”
17 And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Is Politics your Religion OR Religion your Politics?
Psalm 2:
The Messiah’s Triumph and Kingdom
Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”
Christ Jesus, the Messiah of the Lord God, warned of our anger against God.
7 אֲסַפְּרָ֗ה אֶֽ֫ל חֹ֥ק יְֽהוָ֗ה אָמַ֘ר אֵלַ֥י בְּנִ֥י אַ֑תָּה אֲ֝נִ֗י הַיּ֥וֹם יְלִדְתִּֽיךָ׃
8 שְׁאַ֤ל מִמֶּ֗נִּי וְאֶתְּנָ֣ה ג֭וֹיִם נַחֲלָתֶ֑ךָ וַ֝אֲחֻזָּתְךָ֗ אַפְסֵי־אָֽרֶץ׃
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
To be continued...
Interestingly enough, Luke uses the same word in describing the certainty of the security of a prison in Acts 5:23
The church endured suffering at the hands of those rejecting the truth of the Gospel. Rome was world power of the day. Christian witness in the mid first century AD takes place just a generation after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Witnesses still lived and preached the Good News of Christ as they had personally encountered the risen Lord.