June 24, 2025 • 34 mins
What drives someone who identifies as Christian to commit acts of political violence? In the wake of the tragic shooting of Minnesota state legislators, we examine the disturbing intersection of faith, extremism, and vigilante justice.
We explore the psychological and spiritual factors that lead people to believe they must take extreme measures to correct what they perceive as societal wrongs. From abortion clinic bombings to political assassinations, history shows these aren't new phenomena—though media coverage often suggests otherwise. The common thread? A dangerous impatience with God's timing and a fundamental misunderstanding of Christian vocation.
The biblical perspective offers striking clarity. Romans 13, written during Nero's brutal persecution of Christians, maintains that governing authorities exist by God's design specifically to reward good and punish evil—not individual vigilantes. Jesus himself demonstrated remarkable restraint, rebuking disciples who wanted immediate vengeance against those who rejected them. His command to "love your enemies" leaves no room for exceptions or qualifications.
We consider how some strains of Christian nationalism have fostered the belief that establishing moral conformity through political power should be Christians' primary goal—rather than spreading the gospel through relationship and witness. As one pastor notes, "We become so ideologically perfect, we become theologically worthless." When Christians become known more for political grievances than grace, our testimony is compromised.
For believers troubled by genuine societal issues, we outline a biblical approach: pray for those in authority, engage democratically through voting and civic participation, build relationships that demonstrate Christ's love, and—hardest of all—genuinely love those with whom we deeply disagree. The challenge is to examine our motivations and ensure our actions truly reflect Christ to a watching world.
SHOW NOTES:
Find strength and courage in your faith at this year’s FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life’s storms, understanding God’s peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don’t miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/
Find strength and courage in your faith at this year’s FEARLESS FAITH Conference. Inspired by Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and courageous,” join us Saturday, September 13, at Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson, Wisconsin, for presentations on navigating life’s storms, understanding God’s peace, and engaging in crucial conversations about euthanasia, anorexia, abortion, prenatal genetic testing, and more. Hear powerful journeys of faith through loss and hope. Don’t miss this empowering event! $50 in person or $40 virtual. Register now: https://christianliferesources.com/resources/events/2025-conference/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christa Potratz (00:01):
on today's episode.
Bob Fleischmann (00:03):
Remember this First of all, when Paul wrote
Romans, he hardly had aGod-fearing government that he
was working under At that time.
It was Nero, I believe it wasNero, and Nero very much did not
like Christians, tortured them,burned them at the stake, all
that kind of stuff.
But it was in that climate thathe said they are still God's
(00:26):
authority.
Why?
Because governing is governingthis world.
God is governing all ofcreation.
Your mind should never be offthe focus of eternity, even when
bad people get into goodpositions.
Paul Snamiska (01:01):
Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from
Christian Life Resources peopleget into good positions and more
.
Christa Potratz (01:08):
Join us now for Life Challenges.
Hi and welcome back.
I'm Krista Potratz and I'm heretoday with Pastors Bob
Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson,and today we're going to talk
about our extreme measures tocorrect extreme wrongs warranted
.
And this topic really stemsfrom the recent events in
(01:32):
Minnesota where I believe it wasa state representative and her
husband were shot and killed anda state senator and his wife
were shot and hospitalized.
And as more information kind ofcame out in the story and with
the shooter and everything too,I mean we learned that he was,
(01:56):
or at least claimed to be,christian.
And so, just with all these too, we just wanted to talk about
the topic.
But before we get into some ofthese questions and everything,
does somebody want to talk abouta little bit about what
happened?
Jeff Samelson (02:16):
Well, you described it pretty well.
I mean we could get into allthe ins and outs details of it,
but I don't think that's so muchrelevant and I imagine most of
our listeners have heard atleast the outlines of the story.
This is a guy who apparentlygrew up Lutheran hometown of
Sleepy Eye, minnesota.
If I remember correctly.
There's some recordings thatbecame very serious.
(02:38):
I don't know if born again isthe term you would use, but very
serious conservative Christiangot into a charismatic church
Pentecostal and claimed to be ina or to be starting a mission
that was aiming to reach out toMuslim fundamentalists and such
and try to convert them toChrist, and traveled the world
(03:00):
to do that.
What was reported?
It's kind of a mixed up guy whonever seemed to be able to
settle on much of anything.
He's always trying one thinghere, one thing there, which I
think is probably indicative ofthe fact that what motivated him
or what was leading him intohis decisions was not so much.
I have a strong religiousconviction, but I don't know
(03:21):
from one day to the next whatI'm about and oh okay, I think
this is the thing I'm abouttoday and I suspect we will find
that that's a lot of what wasgoing on with him, but we have
not been given.
At this point today is the 20thof June when we're recording
this I'm not aware that anythinghas been released by the police
about anything.
(03:41):
They've found any kind ofmanifesto or something
explaining this, and he has notgone public with any kind of
statements either, and sothere's still just a lot of
speculation as to what exactlywas motivating him.
But what we do know is that hepublicly identified as a
Christian and that he did allsorts of things that were out of
the ordinary as a Christian,and it's natural that people in
(04:06):
the media and elsewhere areconnecting.
Bob Fleischmann (04:09):
Well, and just remember that the media is very
much attracted to what's out ofthe ordinary news, and so when
you've got somebody showing upat the door dressed as a
policeman, knocking on the doorof a state legislator and then
killing them, that's obviouslyout of the ordinary.
So it makes a big deal.
These stories get high profile.
It's not anything new tohistory.
(04:32):
This has been going on,certainly in American history,
for many, many, many years.
I just finished a documentaryseries on Ulysses Grant and was
just tracking what happened withReconstruction after the Civil
War and then when Reconstructionkind of fell flat in the South,
(04:53):
then you had the Jim Crow lawsand everything and then people
were just taking dramaticmeasures to try to keep other
people in their place and soforth.
We've known it in the pro-lifemovement.
There have been people who'vegone and shot up abortion
clinics.
We've had people who've shotabortion practitioners.
We've had people on the otherside come and vandalize one of
(05:18):
our centers, severely vandalizeone of our centers.
We've had assassinationattempts on President Trump two
of them.
In other words, this keepscoming out and of course, the
media keeps saying well, we needto tone down the rhetoric.
We need to.
I think you know.
Only people who don't knowhistory talk that way.
I think when you understandhistory, you find that there's
(05:42):
always a vein in society thatseems to be focused on bringing
about change in the mostdramatic and fantastic way they
can, and in this instance,assassinating, killing the
opposition, because that's oneway to affect change.
Christa Potratz (06:01):
I mean I think too, yeah, like we just kind of
view those people like well,they're just unhinged and just a
little crazy and mental.
But I mean, is there more to itthan just that, like that these
people are just disturbed, oris there something else?
Jeff Samelson (06:22):
I mean, ultimately we can't really know
Maybe if one of the people whodoes something like this comes
out and very publicly, openlyexplains their motivations.
But even then we wouldn'tnecessarily know whether we
could trust him or not.
I mean, personally I have astrong suspicion that some of
the worst school shooters andpeople like that have been
(06:42):
directly influenced by Satan,that he's been basically
whispering in their ears, youknow, to get them to do some of
these things.
It's just, I have no proof ofthat.
It's just.
You know what I think makes awhole lot of sense, and so we
have to admit that there's, youknow, a lot we don't know, but
we do know that there's alwaysgoing to be a spiritual aspect
(07:03):
to these things.
Whether somebody's choosing todo evil or choosing to do good,
there is a spiritual componentto that.
And particularly when peopleare choosing evil, well, we know
that's not coming from God.
Whether it's just their owntwisted sinful nature that's at
work, whether it's influence ofthe sinful world, or whether
it's Satan and his minionsworking on them, we don't know.
(07:23):
But that's not something wetalk about in public, that's not
something we can say.
Well, there needs to be agovernment policy against
satanic influence.
We can't do that kind of thing,but it helps us as Christians
to understand that evil isactually evil, that to a certain
extent you can't well, I meanyou cannot eliminate evil.
(07:44):
It's a reality that we dealwith until Christ comes back.
Bob Fleischmann (07:49):
But we can manage a lot of things around it
and that's what we havegovernment for, for instance, to
try to protect from that verycareful of simple answers to it,
because there is in everyfabric of society, there's going
to be these threads of peoplewho will take the most extreme
(08:16):
point of view.
You know, when theassassination attempts were made
on President Trump, theDemocratic Party was working
hard to distance themselves fromit, and understandably so and
rightfully so.
For all of my differences thatI might have with the Democratic
Party, I don't think that theyare arguing to go out and
(08:36):
assassinate their opponents.
I don't think they're doingthat.
And the same is true with theRepublican Party.
There's nobody advocating that.
There's nobody in theRepublican Party that I know of
that would say that this was agood thing that happened, or
anything like that.
And the same thing is true forreligious groups.
Now this fellow appears to be,from what I've read, attached
(08:59):
himself to a thread ofChristianity that is very big
into kind of Christiannationalism, which seems to very
much support the idea that oneof the first criteria we need is
Christian leaders In order torestore Christianity.
You know we need Christianleaders.
Now, there's a logic to that,but the problem is that it kind
(09:22):
of lacks the biblical mandate.
We're called upon to spread thegospel, we're called upon to
share the message of salvationthrough Christ.
The problem is that some peopleare just not happy with that.
There needs to be a moralconformity, and sometimes they
want the moral conformity first.
So we need to abolish abortion,we need to abolish gender
(09:44):
confusion, we need to abolishabortion, we need to abolish
gender confusion, we need toabolish euthanasia, and so we're
going to take drastic measuresto make that happen.
And it sounds great, and theBible even talks about the
zealots who tried to enforcekind of a Christian,
God-centered form of rebellionwithin the societies.
Gamaliel talked about it in thebook of Acts and so forth.
(10:07):
But the reality is that is notwhat God is.
I mean, first thing I did whenI heard of this fellow, you know
, assassinating these people.
All I can think of is Jesustelling Peter you do know, I can
call down legions of angels andchange all this.
You do know, I can call downlegions of angels and change all
(10:27):
this.
And a lot of times these arelike niche groups of people who
think that God somehow can't doit unless I do it, and that's
the beginning of bad reasoningand then it just goes south from
there.
Christa Potratz (10:42):
When we think about.
You know some of these topicstoo.
You know what are, I mean, someof these extreme wrongs, so to
speak, and I know, bob, you knowyou identified some of them too
differences whether you'repro-life or pro-choice or things
like that.
You know what are some of thesetopics and what makes these
topics so polarizing, and youknow, and kind of the ones that
(11:08):
we hear about when we do hearabout these extreme cases.
Jeff Samelson (11:12):
I mean everyone, maybe not everyone, but lots of
people have this one thing thatjust really bugs them.
There are people who are justfine with, say, rampant divorce
and you know, unmarried couplescohabiting and things like that.
But boy, that neighbor acrossthe street who married his
(11:32):
boyfriend and they're a gaycouple living as husband and
husband, and that just driveshim nuts.
Lots of people have thosethings.
It's like just that one issue,whereas somebody else is really
dead set against abortion andwants to limit in every way, but
that homosexuality stuff, thatyou know other stuff, that that
just that's not an issue, and sowe tend to focus on that.
(11:54):
And, of course, you couldreally get down deep into the
psychology as to why this personcares about that and what that
person cares about the otherthing or whatever, as to why
this person cares about that andthat person cares about the
other thing or whatever.
But we just need to realizethat there are different issues
out there.
They can all be disturbing, butsome people are going to be
more disturbed by them thanothers.
(12:15):
And there's the abortion issue.
There was that incident wherethe lady smashed up the IVF lab
or whatever there are thingsabout marriage, so that one's a
little harder to get a targetfor any kind of extreme action.
The gender issues, all sorts ofother moral things and, of
(12:36):
course, on the other side,issues that people that we'd say
maybe on the left are going tobe very attuned to, anything
that they see as racialinjustice or things that are
economic injustice and all sortsof things like that as well.
Bob Fleischmann (12:50):
My first exposure to this I was a student
in college and I rememberreading a story that was done on
Harry Blackmun.
Harry Blackmun was the primaryauthor, although according to
some sources, justice Brennandid most of the writing.
But Blackmun was alwaysconsidered the author of Roe v
Wade, a 1973 abortion decision,and in the story he talked about
(13:16):
the horrendous hate mail andthe threats that were made and
so forth, and it just seemedlike a peculiar way to try to
convince somebody that they'rewrong.
It's kind of more of the bullyapproach.
Now, you know, we had a bullywhen I was growing up.
We had a bully living in ourneighborhood and his idea was,
you know, being a bully is well,you can't walk by where he's
(13:39):
standing on the street corner,you have to walk on the other
side of the street and so forth.
None of that made me like him.
I mean it just.
You know, and I think that whathas happened to Christians is
that you don't forge arelationship to talk about the
truth, to share the gospel, bybeing so contrary.
(13:59):
And we see this happening timeand time again and the way I've
often spoken or written on it isI usually say we become so
ideologically perfect, we becometheologically worthless.
Nobody wants to talk to us.
I mean, who is this guy goingto convert, having shot two
state legislators?
Who is he going to convert?
He's going to have his ownthumbs-up group, his own fan
(14:23):
club.
That's going to like what hedid, but he didn't win them over
.
They were already on his side.
The problem is that we losesight.
We are not creating heaven onearth, and I could say that
until Judgment Day.
We are not creating heaven onearth, and I could say that
until Judgment Day we are notcreating heaven on earth.
And yet people still act likewe got to do it.
We got to do it now.
Christa Potratz (14:43):
I think too when I hear this story, I mean I
even think like it doesn't evensound American to do that, you
know.
I mean because I feel too likewe kind of our premise for being
American is that we're going tohave differences and we're
coming together and you know,and even just like political
(15:11):
parties, like OK, you haveDemocrats, you have Republicans
I mean your neighbor across thestreet is going to be different
than you, probably have adifferent religion.
I mean we're just, we're just amelting pot of these
differences, and so to just bethat extreme just doesn't even
seem like it fits with Americanvalues as well.
Bob Fleischmann (15:30):
And I used to believe that until about 10
years ago, diane and I I waspreaching down on Louisville,
kentucky, and on the way down Idecided to stop in Springfield,
illinois, and visit the AbrahamLincoln Presidential Library and
highly, highly, highlyrecommend it.
It was one of the mostenjoyable times we spent and we
(15:53):
came back.
I mean, we went there and cameback.
But one of the shockingrealizations is they got a room
that they built.
There were all the doors andwindow frames are all crooked to
suggest slanting a story andthey had all the editorials.
And then they had a speakergoing on where people were
(16:14):
actors, were doing the speechesgiven at that time.
They were horrendous.
I mean they went after Lincoln,they went after his family,
they went after his wife and theRepublicans were no better.
I mean they were suggestingthings of other people.
Part of it is when you live in asociety that has venerated free
speech and venerated, you knowyou have these rights to life,
(16:38):
liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness.
I don't know, it's kind of liketelling a child you can go in
the candy store and do whateveryou want.
I think they just kind of gocrazy, even though they had a
bad experience at the dentist,even though they got sick from
the last time.
They ate all the candy.
They just keep getting backinto it and I think people just
(16:59):
kind of jump on these bandwagonsand they just kind of can't
control it.
It's kind of like what Jeff wassaying it happened to be their
one thing and they just couldn'tcontrol it.
And we've all got it.
It's funny because not too longago I started this practice of
writing down the things that Ifeel I need to work on more, and
(17:21):
I'm already on the third page,by the way, and the… Just
started last week.
Just started, last week too,yeah it's rough, it's a sobering
thing, but it's amazing how,even when you think you've
gotten on top of your problem,when it comes up in an
unexpected way, it's amazing howit comes back to still agitate
(17:42):
you the same way.
And I think that that's what'shappening.
And I've heard, you know, Iwatched endless television
programming.
We watch, I think, fivedifferent news networks to try
to get a balance on the news,five different news networks to
try to get a balance on the news.
And it's very common for thenews to keep talking about how
did we get to be so bad, how didwe get to this point?
(18:04):
And I think, first of all,there's too many young people in
the news who think that we justgot here.
You know, when you read thehistory, when you read what was
going on we've been there allthe time and it's interesting
when Scripture talks about ityou constantly get the message
yeah, you know they're bad, yeah, yeah, they're bad, but you
(18:25):
worry about you and I've oftentold everybody the one thing you
can control is you, andsometimes we're not so good at
that.
Jeff Samelson (18:34):
I wanted to go back in something inspired by
the premise of your earlierquestion, the idea that you know
there are wrongs that requirecorrection.
Yeah, and there's an assumptionoften that well, I'm 100%
correct in identifying that thisthing is wrong and I'm 100%
(18:55):
correct in identifying that thisis is wrong and I'm 100%
correct in identifying that thisis a wrong that needs
correction by me.
Probably there are people, notjust in the past but definitely
still today, that link, forinstance, being a good Christian
and following God's will withthings like white supremacy or
(19:17):
racism, anti-Semitism orwhatever, and they say, well,
I'm a good Christian.
Those things are wrong, youknow, and they're connecting
these things.
So they are going to be wrongwhen they identify as wrong
something like advocacy forracial equality or things that
they see as giving favors to thepeople that they hate, and I
(19:38):
will say there's nothingChristian about any of that, of
course.
And then there are also thingsthat we might objectively and
correctly identify as wrong, butthey're not necessarily things
that we or anybody needs to takeaction against in order to
correct.
Sometimes trying to fix asituation just makes it worse.
Sometimes it's best to justleave it alone and let it kind
(20:02):
of die on its own or maybe evenfester until it's at a point
where something can be doneabout it.
And there are some things thatare just not our government's
and not our own individualresponsibility to take care of.
Imagine that you're outshopping and you witness a
seven-year-old child reallymisbehaving, talking
(20:22):
disrespectfully to his mom orhis dad.
It's wrong, objectively so, butit's not your place to step in
and offer correction, nor is itthe government's place to step
in and suddenly say, oh, I don'tknow, you need to correct this.
The same principle applies on asocietal level.
Sometimes there are things thatthey're objectively wrong, but
(20:45):
there's not something to be done.
Part of the problem, a big partof the problem with everything
we're discussing or what'sbeneath it, is impatience or
what's beneath it is impatience.
I see something's wrong.
I think it should be fixed, andI'm not going to wait for God
to take care of it.
I'm not going to wait for thegovernment to act as it's
(21:07):
supposed to.
I'm not going to wait for theprocess of justice to work out.
I'm impatient.
Something must be done now, andif other people aren't going to
be doing it, then well then,it's up to me.
Christa Potratz (21:19):
When you talk to, I think of Peter in the
Garden of Gethsemane how hedraws his sword, and I don't
know what evoked him.
But he just was thinking thisis wrong and I'm going to do
something about it, and I'mgoing to do something right now,
and it just, I mean, obviouslyJesus didn't want him to do that
(21:40):
and everything too, but he justreally got, I think, fired up
in the moment.
Jeff Samelson (21:46):
Yeah, there's another good example which, if
this airs when I think it'sgoing to, will be next Sunday's
gospel reading from Luke 9.
Jesus and his group ofdisciples and such are traveling
south from Galilee to Judea, toJerusalem, and they're passing
through Samaria and they want tostop at this one Samaritan
(22:06):
village and the people thererefuse.
They say no, jesus is headingthat way, no, we don't want you
here.
And on the way as they'releaving that village, james and
John, the sons of thunder, asJesus called them, said Lord, do
you want us to call fire downfrom heaven and destroy them?
Whoa, what a nice, full ofgrace and love and mercy
(22:28):
attitude there.
But they were, you know, theyhad the same kind of misdirected
, impatient zeal.
It's like well, this isn'tright, it needs to be fixed now,
and I think we can all relateto it.
But we also have to recognizethat's not God's way.
Bob Fleischmann (22:47):
We've talked about before, about how we don't
like dictators, but we all feelthat if they would just listen
to me that I could fix it, andthe idea that I would be the
true benevolent dictator.
And I was thinking about that.
You know, these last few weeksthey've had these no kings
(23:08):
protests and so forth, and ifeveryone just looked at the
logic of it, you object to theguy who you think is acting like
a king so that you could be theking and have it your way.
It's something we do and Ithink when people want to affect
change, they just never arehappy with God's rules.
Whether it's Adam and Eve inthe garden, you know wanting to
(23:30):
be like God, or you get intoPeter taking it upon himself to
act.
The sons of thunder, you knowwanting to bring thunder and
destruction onto the city.
I mean you got Jonah who wasn'thappy with God's handling with
Nineveh.
Paul Snamiska (23:48):
I mean.
Bob Fleischmann (23:48):
It's just you constantly are finding that the
people who are supposed to knowbest don't always know best.
It would be an important lessonfor society to learn that
nobody has a market on purity inthis regard.
The Republicans, the Democrats,we've all got little
deficiencies and the church hasgot deficiencies.
Somebody in the church,someplace, is teaching that we
(24:11):
need to overthrow the governmentto make it a truly Christian
government and, quite honestly,they're wrong, flat out wrong.
They're not just mildlymistaken, they are wrong.
They cannot find a biblicalpassage that's going to even
remotely support what they thinkthey're trying to do, but it
seems to appeal to itching ears,and when people take action,
(24:34):
action appeals to itching ears.
That's why I've always been alittle bit concerned with
populist movements, becausepopulist movements are always
built on itching ears.
What do you get?
What's everybody riled up on?
I did a deep dive on.
How do you elect somebody likeAdolf Hitler to head up things?
(24:55):
You know 1938, he comes to headup things and pretty soon he's
got concentration camps, he'seliminating the World War.
I you know disabled people.
You've got all of this going on.
How do you get to that point?
Well, you do it with what'scalled a populist movement.
You get people riled up by kindof like some small common
denominator things and then itjust explodes from there and
(25:17):
nobody bothers going back to thestandard of God's Word to do a
check, because populist thingsare not in and of themselves
wrong, but sometimes populistthings are wrong and the only
way you know is by going back tothe standard of truth.
Christa Potratz (25:35):
Yeah, you know we talked about some of these
biblical examples of people kindof getting fired up and wanting
God to act in certain ways.
But what does the Bible teachus about responding to extreme?
Jeff Samelson (25:47):
wrongdoings comes to mind and I think answers a
great deal of this is Romans 13,where Paul, speaking by the
Holy Spirit, points out that theauthorities that exist, meaning
the political authorities, theyexist by God's authority.
(26:10):
He has established them, thatthe ruler is God's servant.
And what is the servant's job?
To punish wrong and to rewardwhat is right.
So that's the government's job.
So, by definition, then, ifyou're not part of the
(26:30):
government, it's not your job.
Part of the confusion we have inthe United States is that you
know alludes to something Bobwas saying earlier.
It's like there's this ideayou've too much absorbed the
idea that this is a part ofthings.
Start thinking that, okay, well, that means all the authority
(26:51):
of the government belongs to meas well, so then I can go out
and make these changes.
But that's not the way it's setup.
God has not actually given youthat amount of authority.
It's an issue of vocation.
You can have a vocation as amother, a father, a husband, a
wife, a teacher, a lawyer, ajudge, a wife, a teacher, a
lawyer, a judge, a assembly lineworker, a farmer, whatever it
(27:14):
might be.
That is not the same thing as avocation that says you can go
out and punish wrongdoers orit's you know, you have the
vocation of going out andstopping some great wrong from
occurring.
That's not saying we're notresponsible for loving our
neighbors and looking out forthem.
We do what we can.
But this idea of being themeans of retribution, that is
(27:38):
not something God has given tothe individual person,
particularly not to theindividual Christian.
That's something he's given tothe government and I think that
is just a real fundamentalprinciple from Scripture that
informs a lot of this.
Bob Fleischmann (27:54):
The passage you know, vengeance is mine, says
the Lord, and then a lot oftimes we like to add the words,
but I'd like to help you knowand sometimes we are that way.
We just I've sat down withpeople especially you know,
obviously I've been at this allthese years the abortion issue.
Babies mean an awful lot to meand the idea that someone would
(28:17):
choose a profession of killingthe children is just—and so you
know when I've told people I canidentify with the rage that
says that there needs to be apunishment for this.
But it's not my place to dothat.
When Jeff referenced the Romanssection on the government's
(28:37):
establishment by God, a lot ofpeople have said so.
You mean to tell me that Hitlerwas God's choice and so forth.
Remember this.
First of all, when Paul wroteRomans, he hardly had a
God-fearing government that hewas working under.
At that time it was Nero.
I believe it was Nero, and Nerovery much did not like
(29:01):
Christians, tortured them,burned them at the stake, all
that kind of stuff.
But it was in that climate thathe said they are still God's
authority.
Why?
Because governing is governingthis world.
God is governing all ofcreation.
Your mind should never be offthe focus of eternity, even when
(29:22):
bad people get into goodpositions.
You know the ultimate solutionwhen you want to affect change
in the world is then you've gotto run for office In a
representative form ofgovernment.
You have a voice.
Get involved.
Now if nobody wants to vote foryou because you're a wingnut,
you know there might be.
You know a message there toothat you should take to heart
(29:52):
your case, and you try to getthe ear of people who are in
those positions and you try toexplain what's going on and you
try to point out from Scripturehow they should be.
Now, if you're doing this tosomebody who doesn't accept
God's Word, that's pearls beforeswine Then you're not doing it.
Then you want to appeal toother secular-type authorities.
Now, by the way, it's aninteresting thought project to
try to imagine how you make thiscase to Christian leaders and
(30:16):
how do you make this case tonon-Christian leaders.
What do you say when you havepeople who reject God, reject
the Bible, but they happen to bein a position of authority and
they're the government?
How do you affect change?
I think you pray.
You start with pray, you startwith pray and you talk to them.
(30:39):
You know.
The thing is that we've talkedabout this before that the first
century Christians began toreally shine when the heathens
found that they were rescuingtheir children that were left
out for exposure and so forth.
When you show a love in a worldthat's growing cold, you stand
out as an oddity.
And if you stand out as anoddity, then people are going to
(31:01):
wonder.
They're going to just becurious about you.
You can make friends withsomebody who doesn't believe in
Jesus just because you show akindness that they haven't seen
and it opens a door, and thenyou have discussions and
remember you're not going totalk them into your faith.
That's not your authority.
You don't have that power.
You're just simply the witness,and the thing is is that you
(31:23):
witness with your words and withyour actions.
Do a postmortem on your actionsfor the day.
How did my actions convey God'slove or did they convey God's
vengeance?
In which case, then, I usurpedmy authority, because I am not
in charge of vengeance.
Christa Potratz (31:41):
Any other things to maybe leave our
listeners with on this topic?
Jeff Samelson (31:53):
this topic.
Well, just keying off ofsomething each one of you said
you mentioned praying for thepeople who don't seem to get
God's will, and Bob talked aboutthe tendency people have to add
a but to vengeance.
Is mine, says the Lord.
But there's also another thingthat applies to this.
When Jesus says, love yourenemies and pray for those who
persecute you, people want toadd a but to that as well.
(32:13):
Yeah, but this guy's really bad.
You didn't mean him, lord.
But don't we need to love thesepeople more, which means we need
to do something bad to thatperson over there?
No, it's a clear, precisestatement Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you.
So if you're motivated to rightsome wrong and self-examination
(32:36):
shows you that really what thisis is, I'm just really mad at
that person because I identifyhim as my enemy Well then what
you need to do is sit down, stepback and say, okay, I need to
love this person, I need to prayfor this person.
I don't need to shoot him, Idon't need to somehow try to
make his life miserable orwhatever.
(32:56):
I need to love and remember whoyou are as a Christian, who you
have been called to be, who youhave been created to be, and it
is not an instrument ofvengeance, it is not the writer
of wrongs, it is something somuch better.
Christa Potratz (33:11):
Thank you both for all of the information today
on this topic and we encourageall of our listeners to.
If you have any questions onthe subject, you can reach us at
lifechallengesus and please, ifyou enjoyed this episode, share
it with other people as well.
Thanks, Bye.
Paul Snamiska (33:31):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of
the Life Challenges podcast fromChristian Life Resources.
Please consider subscribing tothis podcast, giving us a review
wherever you access it andsharing it with friends.
We're sure you have questionson today's topic or other life
issues.
Our goal is to help you throughthese tough topics and we want
(33:51):
you to know we're here to help.
You can submit your questions,as well as comments or
suggestions for future episodes,at lifechallengesus or email us
at podcast atchristianliferesourcescom.
In addition to the podcasts, weinclude other valuable
information.
Thank you for every lifechallenge.
on today's episode.
Bob Fleischmann (00:03):
Remember this First of all, when Paul wrote
Romans, he hardly had aGod-fearing government that he
was working under At that time.
It was Nero, I believe it wasNero, and Nero very much did not
like Christians, tortured them,burned them at the stake, all
that kind of stuff.
But it was in that climate thathe said they are still God's
(00:26):
authority.
Why?
Because governing is governingthis world.
God is governing all ofcreation.
Your mind should never be offthe focus of eternity, even when
bad people get into goodpositions.
Paul Snamiska (01:01):
Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from
Christian Life Resources peopleget into good positions and more
.
Christa Potratz (01:08):
Join us now for Life Challenges.
Hi and welcome back.
I'm Krista Potratz and I'm heretoday with Pastors Bob
Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson,and today we're going to talk
about our extreme measures tocorrect extreme wrongs warranted
.
And this topic really stemsfrom the recent events in
(01:32):
Minnesota where I believe it wasa state representative and her
husband were shot and killed anda state senator and his wife
were shot and hospitalized.
And as more information kind ofcame out in the story and with
the shooter and everything too,I mean we learned that he was,
(01:56):
or at least claimed to be,christian.
And so, just with all these too, we just wanted to talk about
the topic.
But before we get into some ofthese questions and everything,
does somebody want to talk abouta little bit about what
happened?
Jeff Samelson (02:16):
Well, you described it pretty well.
I mean we could get into allthe ins and outs details of it,
but I don't think that's so muchrelevant and I imagine most of
our listeners have heard atleast the outlines of the story.
This is a guy who apparentlygrew up Lutheran hometown of
Sleepy Eye, minnesota.
If I remember correctly.
There's some recordings thatbecame very serious.
(02:38):
I don't know if born again isthe term you would use, but very
serious conservative Christiangot into a charismatic church
Pentecostal and claimed to be ina or to be starting a mission
that was aiming to reach out toMuslim fundamentalists and such
and try to convert them toChrist, and traveled the world
(03:00):
to do that.
What was reported?
It's kind of a mixed up guy whonever seemed to be able to
settle on much of anything.
He's always trying one thinghere, one thing there, which I
think is probably indicative ofthe fact that what motivated him
or what was leading him intohis decisions was not so much.
I have a strong religiousconviction, but I don't know
(03:21):
from one day to the next whatI'm about and oh okay, I think
this is the thing I'm abouttoday and I suspect we will find
that that's a lot of what wasgoing on with him, but we have
not been given.
At this point today is the 20thof June when we're recording
this I'm not aware that anythinghas been released by the police
about anything.
(03:41):
They've found any kind ofmanifesto or something
explaining this, and he has notgone public with any kind of
statements either, and sothere's still just a lot of
speculation as to what exactlywas motivating him.
But what we do know is that hepublicly identified as a
Christian and that he did allsorts of things that were out of
the ordinary as a Christian,and it's natural that people in
(04:06):
the media and elsewhere areconnecting.
Bob Fleischmann (04:09):
Well, and just remember that the media is very
much attracted to what's out ofthe ordinary news, and so when
you've got somebody showing upat the door dressed as a
policeman, knocking on the doorof a state legislator and then
killing them, that's obviouslyout of the ordinary.
So it makes a big deal.
These stories get high profile.
It's not anything new tohistory.
(04:32):
This has been going on,certainly in American history,
for many, many, many years.
I just finished a documentaryseries on Ulysses Grant and was
just tracking what happened withReconstruction after the Civil
War and then when Reconstructionkind of fell flat in the South,
(04:53):
then you had the Jim Crow lawsand everything and then people
were just taking dramaticmeasures to try to keep other
people in their place and soforth.
We've known it in the pro-lifemovement.
There have been people who'vegone and shot up abortion
clinics.
We've had people who've shotabortion practitioners.
We've had people on the otherside come and vandalize one of
(05:18):
our centers, severely vandalizeone of our centers.
We've had assassinationattempts on President Trump two
of them.
In other words, this keepscoming out and of course, the
media keeps saying well, we needto tone down the rhetoric.
We need to.
I think you know.
Only people who don't knowhistory talk that way.
I think when you understandhistory, you find that there's
(05:42):
always a vein in society thatseems to be focused on bringing
about change in the mostdramatic and fantastic way they
can, and in this instance,assassinating, killing the
opposition, because that's oneway to affect change.
Christa Potratz (06:01):
I mean I think too, yeah, like we just kind of
view those people like well,they're just unhinged and just a
little crazy and mental.
But I mean, is there more to itthan just that, like that these
people are just disturbed, oris there something else?
Jeff Samelson (06:22):
I mean, ultimately we can't really know
Maybe if one of the people whodoes something like this comes
out and very publicly, openlyexplains their motivations.
But even then we wouldn'tnecessarily know whether we
could trust him or not.
I mean, personally I have astrong suspicion that some of
the worst school shooters andpeople like that have been
(06:42):
directly influenced by Satan,that he's been basically
whispering in their ears, youknow, to get them to do some of
these things.
It's just, I have no proof ofthat.
It's just.
You know what I think makes awhole lot of sense, and so we
have to admit that there's, youknow, a lot we don't know, but
we do know that there's alwaysgoing to be a spiritual aspect
(07:03):
to these things.
Whether somebody's choosing todo evil or choosing to do good,
there is a spiritual componentto that.
And particularly when peopleare choosing evil, well, we know
that's not coming from God.
Whether it's just their owntwisted sinful nature that's at
work, whether it's influence ofthe sinful world, or whether
it's Satan and his minionsworking on them, we don't know.
(07:23):
But that's not something wetalk about in public, that's not
something we can say.
Well, there needs to be agovernment policy against
satanic influence.
We can't do that kind of thing,but it helps us as Christians
to understand that evil isactually evil, that to a certain
extent you can't well, I meanyou cannot eliminate evil.
(07:44):
It's a reality that we dealwith until Christ comes back.
Bob Fleischmann (07:49):
But we can manage a lot of things around it
and that's what we havegovernment for, for instance, to
try to protect from that verycareful of simple answers to it,
because there is in everyfabric of society, there's going
to be these threads of peoplewho will take the most extreme
(08:16):
point of view.
You know, when theassassination attempts were made
on President Trump, theDemocratic Party was working
hard to distance themselves fromit, and understandably so and
rightfully so.
For all of my differences thatI might have with the Democratic
Party, I don't think that theyare arguing to go out and
(08:36):
assassinate their opponents.
I don't think they're doingthat.
And the same is true with theRepublican Party.
There's nobody advocating that.
There's nobody in theRepublican Party that I know of
that would say that this was agood thing that happened, or
anything like that.
And the same thing is true forreligious groups.
Now this fellow appears to be,from what I've read, attached
(08:59):
himself to a thread ofChristianity that is very big
into kind of Christiannationalism, which seems to very
much support the idea that oneof the first criteria we need is
Christian leaders In order torestore Christianity.
You know we need Christianleaders.
Now, there's a logic to that,but the problem is that it kind
(09:22):
of lacks the biblical mandate.
We're called upon to spread thegospel, we're called upon to
share the message of salvationthrough Christ.
The problem is that some peopleare just not happy with that.
There needs to be a moralconformity, and sometimes they
want the moral conformity first.
So we need to abolish abortion,we need to abolish gender
(09:44):
confusion, we need to abolishabortion, we need to abolish
gender confusion, we need toabolish euthanasia, and so we're
going to take drastic measuresto make that happen.
And it sounds great, and theBible even talks about the
zealots who tried to enforcekind of a Christian,
God-centered form of rebellionwithin the societies.
Gamaliel talked about it in thebook of Acts and so forth.
(10:07):
But the reality is that is notwhat God is.
I mean, first thing I did whenI heard of this fellow, you know
, assassinating these people.
All I can think of is Jesustelling Peter you do know, I can
call down legions of angels andchange all this.
You do know, I can call downlegions of angels and change all
(10:27):
this.
And a lot of times these arelike niche groups of people who
think that God somehow can't doit unless I do it, and that's
the beginning of bad reasoningand then it just goes south from
there.
Christa Potratz (10:42):
When we think about.
You know some of these topicstoo.
You know what are, I mean, someof these extreme wrongs, so to
speak, and I know, bob, you knowyou identified some of them too
differences whether you'repro-life or pro-choice or things
like that.
You know what are some of thesetopics and what makes these
topics so polarizing, and youknow, and kind of the ones that
(11:08):
we hear about when we do hearabout these extreme cases.
Jeff Samelson (11:12):
I mean everyone, maybe not everyone, but lots of
people have this one thing thatjust really bugs them.
There are people who are justfine with, say, rampant divorce
and you know, unmarried couplescohabiting and things like that.
But boy, that neighbor acrossthe street who married his
(11:32):
boyfriend and they're a gaycouple living as husband and
husband, and that just driveshim nuts.
Lots of people have thosethings.
It's like just that one issue,whereas somebody else is really
dead set against abortion andwants to limit in every way, but
that homosexuality stuff, thatyou know other stuff, that that
just that's not an issue, and sowe tend to focus on that.
(11:54):
And, of course, you couldreally get down deep into the
psychology as to why this personcares about that and what that
person cares about the otherthing or whatever, as to why
this person cares about that andthat person cares about the
other thing or whatever.
But we just need to realizethat there are different issues
out there.
They can all be disturbing, butsome people are going to be
more disturbed by them thanothers.
(12:15):
And there's the abortion issue.
There was that incident wherethe lady smashed up the IVF lab
or whatever there are thingsabout marriage, so that one's a
little harder to get a targetfor any kind of extreme action.
The gender issues, all sorts ofother moral things and, of
(12:36):
course, on the other side,issues that people that we'd say
maybe on the left are going tobe very attuned to, anything
that they see as racialinjustice or things that are
economic injustice and all sortsof things like that as well.
Bob Fleischmann (12:50):
My first exposure to this I was a student
in college and I rememberreading a story that was done on
Harry Blackmun.
Harry Blackmun was the primaryauthor, although according to
some sources, justice Brennandid most of the writing.
But Blackmun was alwaysconsidered the author of Roe v
Wade, a 1973 abortion decision,and in the story he talked about
(13:16):
the horrendous hate mail andthe threats that were made and
so forth, and it just seemedlike a peculiar way to try to
convince somebody that they'rewrong.
It's kind of more of the bullyapproach.
Now, you know, we had a bullywhen I was growing up.
We had a bully living in ourneighborhood and his idea was,
you know, being a bully is well,you can't walk by where he's
(13:39):
standing on the street corner,you have to walk on the other
side of the street and so forth.
None of that made me like him.
I mean it just.
You know, and I think that whathas happened to Christians is
that you don't forge arelationship to talk about the
truth, to share the gospel, bybeing so contrary.
(13:59):
And we see this happening timeand time again and the way I've
often spoken or written on it isI usually say we become so
ideologically perfect, we becometheologically worthless.
Nobody wants to talk to us.
I mean, who is this guy goingto convert, having shot two
state legislators?
Who is he going to convert?
He's going to have his ownthumbs-up group, his own fan
(14:23):
club.
That's going to like what hedid, but he didn't win them over
.
They were already on his side.
The problem is that we losesight.
We are not creating heaven onearth, and I could say that
until Judgment Day.
We are not creating heaven onearth, and I could say that
until Judgment Day we are notcreating heaven on earth.
And yet people still act likewe got to do it.
We got to do it now.
Christa Potratz (14:43):
I think too when I hear this story, I mean I
even think like it doesn't evensound American to do that, you
know.
I mean because I feel too likewe kind of our premise for being
American is that we're going tohave differences and we're
coming together and you know,and even just like political
(15:11):
parties, like OK, you haveDemocrats, you have Republicans
I mean your neighbor across thestreet is going to be different
than you, probably have adifferent religion.
I mean we're just, we're just amelting pot of these
differences, and so to just bethat extreme just doesn't even
seem like it fits with Americanvalues as well.
Bob Fleischmann (15:30):
And I used to believe that until about 10
years ago, diane and I I waspreaching down on Louisville,
kentucky, and on the way down Idecided to stop in Springfield,
illinois, and visit the AbrahamLincoln Presidential Library and
highly, highly, highlyrecommend it.
It was one of the mostenjoyable times we spent and we
(15:53):
came back.
I mean, we went there and cameback.
But one of the shockingrealizations is they got a room
that they built.
There were all the doors andwindow frames are all crooked to
suggest slanting a story andthey had all the editorials.
And then they had a speakergoing on where people were
(16:14):
actors, were doing the speechesgiven at that time.
They were horrendous.
I mean they went after Lincoln,they went after his family,
they went after his wife and theRepublicans were no better.
I mean they were suggestingthings of other people.
Part of it is when you live in asociety that has venerated free
speech and venerated, you knowyou have these rights to life,
(16:38):
liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness.
I don't know, it's kind of liketelling a child you can go in
the candy store and do whateveryou want.
I think they just kind of gocrazy, even though they had a
bad experience at the dentist,even though they got sick from
the last time.
They ate all the candy.
They just keep getting backinto it and I think people just
(16:59):
kind of jump on these bandwagonsand they just kind of can't
control it.
It's kind of like what Jeff wassaying it happened to be their
one thing and they just couldn'tcontrol it.
And we've all got it.
It's funny because not too longago I started this practice of
writing down the things that Ifeel I need to work on more, and
(17:21):
I'm already on the third page,by the way, and the… Just
started last week.
Just started, last week too,yeah it's rough, it's a sobering
thing, but it's amazing how,even when you think you've
gotten on top of your problem,when it comes up in an
unexpected way, it's amazing howit comes back to still agitate
(17:42):
you the same way.
And I think that that's what'shappening.
And I've heard, you know, Iwatched endless television
programming.
We watch, I think, fivedifferent news networks to try
to get a balance on the news,five different news networks to
try to get a balance on the news.
And it's very common for thenews to keep talking about how
did we get to be so bad, how didwe get to this point?
(18:04):
And I think, first of all,there's too many young people in
the news who think that we justgot here.
You know, when you read thehistory, when you read what was
going on we've been there allthe time and it's interesting
when Scripture talks about ityou constantly get the message
yeah, you know they're bad, yeah, yeah, they're bad, but you
(18:25):
worry about you and I've oftentold everybody the one thing you
can control is you, andsometimes we're not so good at
that.
Jeff Samelson (18:34):
I wanted to go back in something inspired by
the premise of your earlierquestion, the idea that you know
there are wrongs that requirecorrection.
Yeah, and there's an assumptionoften that well, I'm 100%
correct in identifying that thisthing is wrong and I'm 100%
(18:55):
correct in identifying that thisis is wrong and I'm 100%
correct in identifying that thisis a wrong that needs
correction by me.
Probably there are people, notjust in the past but definitely
still today, that link, forinstance, being a good Christian
and following God's will withthings like white supremacy or
(19:17):
racism, anti-Semitism orwhatever, and they say, well,
I'm a good Christian.
Those things are wrong, youknow, and they're connecting
these things.
So they are going to be wrongwhen they identify as wrong
something like advocacy forracial equality or things that
they see as giving favors to thepeople that they hate, and I
(19:38):
will say there's nothingChristian about any of that, of
course.
And then there are also thingsthat we might objectively and
correctly identify as wrong, butthey're not necessarily things
that we or anybody needs to takeaction against in order to
correct.
Sometimes trying to fix asituation just makes it worse.
Sometimes it's best to justleave it alone and let it kind
(20:02):
of die on its own or maybe evenfester until it's at a point
where something can be doneabout it.
And there are some things thatare just not our government's
and not our own individualresponsibility to take care of.
Imagine that you're outshopping and you witness a
seven-year-old child reallymisbehaving, talking
(20:22):
disrespectfully to his mom orhis dad.
It's wrong, objectively so, butit's not your place to step in
and offer correction, nor is itthe government's place to step
in and suddenly say, oh, I don'tknow, you need to correct this.
The same principle applies on asocietal level.
Sometimes there are things thatthey're objectively wrong, but
(20:45):
there's not something to be done.
Part of the problem, a big partof the problem with everything
we're discussing or what'sbeneath it, is impatience or
what's beneath it is impatience.
I see something's wrong.
I think it should be fixed, andI'm not going to wait for God
to take care of it.
I'm not going to wait for thegovernment to act as it's
(21:07):
supposed to.
I'm not going to wait for theprocess of justice to work out.
I'm impatient.
Something must be done now, andif other people aren't going to
be doing it, then well then,it's up to me.
Christa Potratz (21:19):
When you talk to, I think of Peter in the
Garden of Gethsemane how hedraws his sword, and I don't
know what evoked him.
But he just was thinking thisis wrong and I'm going to do
something about it, and I'mgoing to do something right now,
and it just, I mean, obviouslyJesus didn't want him to do that
(21:40):
and everything too, but he justreally got, I think, fired up
in the moment.
Jeff Samelson (21:46):
Yeah, there's another good example which, if
this airs when I think it'sgoing to, will be next Sunday's
gospel reading from Luke 9.
Jesus and his group ofdisciples and such are traveling
south from Galilee to Judea, toJerusalem, and they're passing
through Samaria and they want tostop at this one Samaritan
(22:06):
village and the people thererefuse.
They say no, jesus is headingthat way, no, we don't want you
here.
And on the way as they'releaving that village, james and
John, the sons of thunder, asJesus called them, said Lord, do
you want us to call fire downfrom heaven and destroy them?
Whoa, what a nice, full ofgrace and love and mercy
(22:28):
attitude there.
But they were, you know, theyhad the same kind of misdirected
, impatient zeal.
It's like well, this isn'tright, it needs to be fixed now,
and I think we can all relateto it.
But we also have to recognizethat's not God's way.
Bob Fleischmann (22:47):
We've talked about before, about how we don't
like dictators, but we all feelthat if they would just listen
to me that I could fix it, andthe idea that I would be the
true benevolent dictator.
And I was thinking about that.
You know, these last few weeksthey've had these no kings
(23:08):
protests and so forth, and ifeveryone just looked at the
logic of it, you object to theguy who you think is acting like
a king so that you could be theking and have it your way.
It's something we do and Ithink when people want to affect
change, they just never arehappy with God's rules.
Whether it's Adam and Eve inthe garden, you know wanting to
(23:30):
be like God, or you get intoPeter taking it upon himself to
act.
The sons of thunder, you knowwanting to bring thunder and
destruction onto the city.
I mean you got Jonah who wasn'thappy with God's handling with
Nineveh.
Paul Snamiska (23:48):
I mean.
Bob Fleischmann (23:48):
It's just you constantly are finding that the
people who are supposed to knowbest don't always know best.
It would be an important lessonfor society to learn that
nobody has a market on purity inthis regard.
The Republicans, the Democrats,we've all got little
deficiencies and the church hasgot deficiencies.
Somebody in the church,someplace, is teaching that we
(24:11):
need to overthrow the governmentto make it a truly Christian
government and, quite honestly,they're wrong, flat out wrong.
They're not just mildlymistaken, they are wrong.
They cannot find a biblicalpassage that's going to even
remotely support what they thinkthey're trying to do, but it
seems to appeal to itching ears,and when people take action,
(24:34):
action appeals to itching ears.
That's why I've always been alittle bit concerned with
populist movements, becausepopulist movements are always
built on itching ears.
What do you get?
What's everybody riled up on?
I did a deep dive on.
How do you elect somebody likeAdolf Hitler to head up things?
(24:55):
You know 1938, he comes to headup things and pretty soon he's
got concentration camps, he'seliminating the World War.
I you know disabled people.
You've got all of this going on.
How do you get to that point?
Well, you do it with what'scalled a populist movement.
You get people riled up by kindof like some small common
denominator things and then itjust explodes from there and
(25:17):
nobody bothers going back to thestandard of God's Word to do a
check, because populist thingsare not in and of themselves
wrong, but sometimes populistthings are wrong and the only
way you know is by going back tothe standard of truth.
Christa Potratz (25:35):
Yeah, you know we talked about some of these
biblical examples of people kindof getting fired up and wanting
God to act in certain ways.
But what does the Bible teachus about responding to extreme?
Jeff Samelson (25:47):
wrongdoings comes to mind and I think answers a
great deal of this is Romans 13,where Paul, speaking by the
Holy Spirit, points out that theauthorities that exist, meaning
the political authorities, theyexist by God's authority.
(26:10):
He has established them, thatthe ruler is God's servant.
And what is the servant's job?
To punish wrong and to rewardwhat is right.
So that's the government's job.
So, by definition, then, ifyou're not part of the
(26:30):
government, it's not your job.
Part of the confusion we have inthe United States is that you
know alludes to something Bobwas saying earlier.
It's like there's this ideayou've too much absorbed the
idea that this is a part ofthings.
Start thinking that, okay, well, that means all the authority
(26:51):
of the government belongs to meas well, so then I can go out
and make these changes.
But that's not the way it's setup.
God has not actually given youthat amount of authority.
It's an issue of vocation.
You can have a vocation as amother, a father, a husband, a
wife, a teacher, a lawyer, ajudge, a wife, a teacher, a
lawyer, a judge, a assembly lineworker, a farmer, whatever it
(27:14):
might be.
That is not the same thing as avocation that says you can go
out and punish wrongdoers orit's you know, you have the
vocation of going out andstopping some great wrong from
occurring.
That's not saying we're notresponsible for loving our
neighbors and looking out forthem.
We do what we can.
But this idea of being themeans of retribution, that is
(27:38):
not something God has given tothe individual person,
particularly not to theindividual Christian.
That's something he's given tothe government and I think that
is just a real fundamentalprinciple from Scripture that
informs a lot of this.
Bob Fleischmann (27:54):
The passage you know, vengeance is mine, says
the Lord, and then a lot oftimes we like to add the words,
but I'd like to help you knowand sometimes we are that way.
We just I've sat down withpeople especially you know,
obviously I've been at this allthese years the abortion issue.
Babies mean an awful lot to meand the idea that someone would
(28:17):
choose a profession of killingthe children is just—and so you
know when I've told people I canidentify with the rage that
says that there needs to be apunishment for this.
But it's not my place to dothat.
When Jeff referenced the Romanssection on the government's
(28:37):
establishment by God, a lot ofpeople have said so.
You mean to tell me that Hitlerwas God's choice and so forth.
Remember this.
First of all, when Paul wroteRomans, he hardly had a
God-fearing government that hewas working under.
At that time it was Nero.
I believe it was Nero, and Nerovery much did not like
(29:01):
Christians, tortured them,burned them at the stake, all
that kind of stuff.
But it was in that climate thathe said they are still God's
authority.
Why?
Because governing is governingthis world.
God is governing all ofcreation.
Your mind should never be offthe focus of eternity, even when
(29:22):
bad people get into goodpositions.
You know the ultimate solutionwhen you want to affect change
in the world is then you've gotto run for office In a
representative form ofgovernment.
You have a voice.
Get involved.
Now if nobody wants to vote foryou because you're a wingnut,
you know there might be.
You know a message there toothat you should take to heart
(29:52):
your case, and you try to getthe ear of people who are in
those positions and you try toexplain what's going on and you
try to point out from Scripturehow they should be.
Now, if you're doing this tosomebody who doesn't accept
God's Word, that's pearls beforeswine Then you're not doing it.
Then you want to appeal toother secular-type authorities.
Now, by the way, it's aninteresting thought project to
try to imagine how you make thiscase to Christian leaders and
(30:16):
how do you make this case tonon-Christian leaders.
What do you say when you havepeople who reject God, reject
the Bible, but they happen to bein a position of authority and
they're the government?
How do you affect change?
I think you pray.
You start with pray, you startwith pray and you talk to them.
(30:39):
You know.
The thing is that we've talkedabout this before that the first
century Christians began toreally shine when the heathens
found that they were rescuingtheir children that were left
out for exposure and so forth.
When you show a love in a worldthat's growing cold, you stand
out as an oddity.
And if you stand out as anoddity, then people are going to
(31:01):
wonder.
They're going to just becurious about you.
You can make friends withsomebody who doesn't believe in
Jesus just because you show akindness that they haven't seen
and it opens a door, and thenyou have discussions and
remember you're not going totalk them into your faith.
That's not your authority.
You don't have that power.
You're just simply the witness,and the thing is is that you
(31:23):
witness with your words and withyour actions.
Do a postmortem on your actionsfor the day.
How did my actions convey God'slove or did they convey God's
vengeance?
In which case, then, I usurpedmy authority, because I am not
in charge of vengeance.
Christa Potratz (31:41):
Any other things to maybe leave our
listeners with on this topic?
Jeff Samelson (31:53):
this topic.
Well, just keying off ofsomething each one of you said
you mentioned praying for thepeople who don't seem to get
God's will, and Bob talked aboutthe tendency people have to add
a but to vengeance.
Is mine, says the Lord.
But there's also another thingthat applies to this.
When Jesus says, love yourenemies and pray for those who
persecute you, people want toadd a but to that as well.
(32:13):
Yeah, but this guy's really bad.
You didn't mean him, lord.
But don't we need to love thesepeople more, which means we need
to do something bad to thatperson over there?
No, it's a clear, precisestatement Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you.
So if you're motivated to rightsome wrong and self-examination
(32:36):
shows you that really what thisis is, I'm just really mad at
that person because I identifyhim as my enemy Well then what
you need to do is sit down, stepback and say, okay, I need to
love this person, I need to prayfor this person.
I don't need to shoot him, Idon't need to somehow try to
make his life miserable orwhatever.
(32:56):
I need to love and remember whoyou are as a Christian, who you
have been called to be, who youhave been created to be, and it
is not an instrument ofvengeance, it is not the writer
of wrongs, it is something somuch better.
Christa Potratz (33:11):
Thank you both for all of the information today
on this topic and we encourageall of our listeners to.
If you have any questions onthe subject, you can reach us at
lifechallengesus and please, ifyou enjoyed this episode, share
it with other people as well.
Thanks, Bye.
Paul Snamiska (33:31):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of
the Life Challenges podcast fromChristian Life Resources.
Please consider subscribing tothis podcast, giving us a review
wherever you access it andsharing it with friends.
We're sure you have questionson today's topic or other life
issues.
Our goal is to help you throughthese tough topics and we want
(33:51):
you to know we're here to help.
You can submit your questions,as well as comments or
suggestions for future episodes,at lifechallengesus or email us
at podcast atchristianliferesourcescom.
In addition to the podcasts, weinclude other valuable
information.
Thank you for every lifechallenge.
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