Knowledgeable Narrator [00:00:00]:
If Christ is king, how should the Christian consider the kingdoms of this world? What does the Bible teach us about human authority? And what it means to love our neighbors and our enemies. Before we render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, let’s know what it means to render unto God what is God’s. This is the Biblical Anarchy Podcast. The modern prophetic voice against war and empire.
Jacob Winograd [00:00:32]:
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty network. I’m your host, Jacob Winograd. Here on the Biblical Anarchy podcast, as I often liked to say on my old extended intro, we seek to live counterculture to the empire of man and to instead seek the kingdom of God. And I used to open up every episode that way, and it got a little old after a while, and I feel like people might have started to get tired of me repeating the same thing. But the reason I said that a lot is because I always liked to set the tone of what I meant by biblical anarchy. Because the word anarchy certainly can come with certain connotations. I remember the first time that I talked to my pastor about it and told him the name of my podcast when he heard I did one, it came with some head scratching and a little bit of a look. But the term biblical anarchy, although I mean it in sort of a 2 or threefold way, I mean it obviously in allusion to libertarian anarchism.
Jacob Winograd [00:01:46]:
And I often in some of my episodes and my live streams, I’m engaging in libertarian and political discourse, talking with people from the libertarian movement or the libertarian party, and offering commentary on current events that overlaps with the libertarian worldview. I also sometimes mean it in a sense of, you know, perhaps alluding to, I guess, a semi protestant spirit of not being beholden to a specific church denomination or tradition. I am, of course, very much influenced by reformed theology, but and this is sort of, I think, like, the lesser of the threefold sort of meaning of that term. I don’t use it in this way a lot, and there’s certainly a danger to it. You can go too far with what I’m saying here. But I guess the essence of it being that I don’t worship systematic theology. I don’t worship theology, right, or theological systems or denominations or specific church doctrines, but rather I wanna be informed by the Bible and the authority of scripture alone as being the infallible authority to submit to. Not that there aren’t other authorities, but that the Bible is the infallible authority that I think we as Christians submit to.
Jacob Winograd [00:03:13]:
But then the other, you know, the threefold senses in which I use the term biblical anarchy is what I would describe in my intro, is living for the kingdom of god and being counterculture to the world. And that’s the biblical idea. Right? And the things in my intro, if you took them out of the context of me saying the phrase biblical anarchy see if I can recite it from memory here. We seek to live counterculture to the empire of man and to instead seek the kingdom of God by unpacking what the Bible teaches about government, authority, and human relationships. Well, that’s kind of, like, uncontroversial. Right? So you could say, I’m doing a bit of a motte and bailey. Right? I’m leading with the biblical anarchy. It’s like, woah.
Jacob Winograd [00:04:02]:
And I’m like, woah. All I mean is this. Right? And, you know, there’s a couple good episode I’m gonna recommend in the description 2 episodes. And the first is actually just episode 1, 1 is biblical anarchy. And the other one, I don’t remember the episode number, but it’s entitled why I’m not an anarchist. And those are good episodes to maybe listen to in conjunction with this episode in terms of sort of explaining my, I guess, hierarchy of values or where my loyalties and allegiances lie in terms of my ideas. I do wanna be transparent. I definitely am influenced by libertarian political thought.
Jacob Winograd [00:04:47]:
Right? I mean, if you look behind me on this side, which is to you, the left of my screen, but to me, it’s my right because my thing’s mirrored. So we have Choice. This is by Robert Murphy. Next to that, we have the anatomy of the state by Murray Rothbard, another Murray Rothbard book right here, the progressive era. Down here, we have some Christian libertarian reviews, and there’s a whole other there’s a bookshelf to my left here, which you can’t see, filled with other books. We got stuff by Tom Woods. We got stuff by Scott Horton. We got more stuff by Rothbard.
Jacob Winograd [00:05:22]:
So I’m definitely a libertarian in my political leanings. And I’m within the realm of libertarianism. I’m an anarchist capitalist. I’m a Rothbardian. And I’ve been doing a lot of theology lately. I know long time listeners to the show, you diehard fans out there. Maybe you were getting sick of how much, you know, I was in the weeds of eschatology for a while. Right? And I still am kind of so just a little I’m sorry.
Jacob Winograd [00:05:51]:
This is so disorganized. I am gonna put a final episode out on eschatology here soon, just to wrap everything up in a bell. But, like, that series dragged on for a while, and I’ve kind of, like, said most of what I wanna say. And I just wanna put out a final one to kind of make my closing thoughts on that and then tie it in a bow. And then I’m probably gonna combine all the episodes and put them out on, like, YouTube and Rumble as, like, a combined, like, 4 hour video. But I like talking about that stuff. But I also like talking about political theory, right, and economics and things like that. And I think it’s important.
Jacob Winograd [00:06:29]:
And there’s nothing wrong with Christians being, you know, like so there there’s a passage in Colossians I think it’s Colossians 2, and it talks about not being possessed by, like, I forget the exact phrasing, but it it it boils down to, like, the the ideologies of this world or by smooth argument or, like, you know, ideas that sound very pleasing to the ear, but that can often be based in half truths or twisted truths, things taken out of context, or to just be possessed by worldly ideologies that might be pleasing to the flesh but might be contrary to the word of god. And there’s always a danger there. Right? Like, I think Christians can explore economics and politics and can even read the philosophic writings of non Christians. And and that’s all well and good if you make sure that those things are subject to your commitment to the word of god and what the word of god teaches. Subordinate be another word for it. Right? I can gain insights from someone like Sam Harris or Bret Weinstein or Jordan Peterson is not quite a Christian, but he’s closer than his other 2 are. I can gain insights from more secular minded people on various subjects. Other good example would be like Bart Ehrman or the Bert.
Jacob Winograd [00:07:58]:
Bart or Bert. Don’t quite write off the top of my head. He’s a more agnostic biblical scholar, but he makes arguments and insights about the Bible, which are just noncontroversial, right, and just good to know. And he’s even argued for, like, the existence of Jesus from an historical standpoint. So we should not be closed minded, but we do have to be careful not to be possessed by things that would lead us to believe things or act on things contrary to god’s word. But then the so the question is, you know, when we’re coming to politics, what do I do to make sure I’m not influenced by libertarianism too much? And I do wanna start talking more about libertarianism on the show. It’s been a while since I did some more you know, I I’ve been very theology heavy. And I guess I I do, like, 3 different types of shows.
Jacob Winograd [00:08:46]:
I I do episodes on theology. I do episodes on politics and current events. And then I do episodes where I try to show the intersection between the 2. And this is one of those episodes where I’m kinda trying to show the intersection between the 2. And I’ve been rambling for 10 minutes in sort of my prefacing here to to get to the fact that how I do that test. Right? Because what I wanna be able to do is go, okay. I think libertarianism has a lot of value, and I think it’s compatible with Christianity. Like, very compatible.
Jacob Winograd [00:09:19]:
Like, sometimes the Venn diagram is closer to a circle than I expect it to be. But then I wanna be grounded and wanna make sure I’m not captured ideologically by because a lot of libertarian thinkers are Christians, so Bob Murphy there who wrote choice. But I’m sorry, like, I’m for the video listeners, this makes sense. The audio listeners, just bear with me. I’m pointing to books behind me. But, like so this book here, Choice by Bob Murphy, well, Bob Murphy is like me, a Christian libertarian. I’ve had him on the show before, but not all libertarians are Christians. In fact, a lot aren’t.
Jacob Winograd [00:09:55]:
Rothbard is not a Christian. He’s more of an atheist. Mises was not a a a Christian. Hans Hermann Hopo also talked about not a Christian, though he’s friendly towards Christians. So I need to make sure that the things I’m talking about, not only are compatible, but that, like, I’m not doing isagesis where I’m reading the Bible and sort of, like, inserting my libertarian ideas into what scripture says. Instead, what I need to do is when I’m reading scripture, I need to first divorce it from my political leanings and just read what the text says and read what Christians have interpreted these texts as meaning throughout church history, which isn’t always gonna be a unified response, but I need to make sure I’m not coming up with something that’s, like, brand new and out of left field. If if I’ve you know, after 2000 years of church history, if I’m reading a passage and go, I’ve stumbled across something no one else in church history has, I I would I would have to have a, you know, angel showing up in front of me experience to really make me die on that hill to be like, yeah, you know, the the rest of you are wrong, and I got it right. Rather and that doesn’t mean that the things that I say or that Christian libertarians say will always be, like, word for word, but, like, it it should be something that you can logically deduce or logically follow to be like, okay.
Jacob Winograd [00:11:23]:
I can this is at least within the context of Orthodox Christian thought, and maybe you’re adding some sort of, like, contemporary context and contemporary application to it. I think that’s all well and good. And that’s kinda what I’m gonna be doing this episode is sort of talking about politics from a Christian perspective, but divorcing myself from talking about it from a libertarian worldview. And instead, just talking about it in a strictly theological sense. And you’ll see how I did that here in a minute. First, I wanna pause for one second here. So as I always take some point in the episode to do, this is my section where I remind you to do all the podcast stuff. So please, if you’re watching this on on YouTube, on Rumble, on x, or Twitter where we call it these days, please give this video a thumbs up, and make sure you’re subscribed or following me on Twitter if you aren’t already.
Jacob Winograd [00:12:29]:
Wherever you’re watching it, I really appreciate it. There’s a lot of times where you look at the analytics and you see a lot of people watched it. Even pea a lot of people watched it the whole way through, and then there’s no engagement. And the algorithms just don’t like it. Right? And I want this message to reach as many people as I can. And then beyond just that, also, if you’re the audio listeners, leaving 5 star reviews really helps us out a lot. And so if you guys could take a little bit of time out of your your day to do that, I really appreciate it. And then, you know, if you guys haven’t considered already doing this, for the do you have, I thank you.
Jacob Winograd [00:13:07]:
But if you go to biblicalanarchypodcast.com and then go to the donate link that should show up from there, sign up for like $10 or more a month, you can become an LCI insider. You get free ebooks, you get discounts on, on merchandise. You get to interact with us more behind the scenes and kind of get previews as to what we’re doing. So I highly recommend that. I think it’s a great value, and you help support what we’re doing here at the Libertarian Christian Institute. And producing content like this, you know, everything has its cost. Nothing is free. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Jacob Winograd [00:13:43]:
That’s a valid libertarian and Christian truth right there for you. So whatever you can do to help support us, we greatly appreciate. Even if it’s just giving that thumbs up and subscribing or sharing this on your social medias or with your friends and family or even your churches, we greatly appreciate that. Speaking of sharing things with churches. So I’ve talked about this before on the show, but it it’s not a secret to people at my church what my beliefs are. I mean, I’m sure not everybody knows. My church is it’s not a megachurch, but it’s not small either. It’s medium size, probably 3 to 400 people.
Jacob Winograd [00:14:23]:
But a lot of them know I do a podcast, including my my pastors and those on my elder team, and they know my political views. Well, around the time of the Trump assassination, I felt really convicted to, like, I I was looking ahead and going, man, we’re entering such a contentious political cycle. And, you know, I’m I’m not gonna really convince people to vote one way or the other, and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do that from the position of the church puppet or the the you know, like a church blog or anything like that. But what I wanna do is at least remind people that politics, while I am in the political world a lot, that we should never be putting our hope or our faith in politics. And to try to, you know, sprinkle in some wisdom to talk about, like, you know, how should we, no matter, like, what your political leanings are, like, what are some key biblical truths about government and politics that we should keep in mind, no matter what we are considering or what our biases or things are. And so I approached my pastors and said, what if I wrote a blog? And I won’t use the word libertarian or anarchy or anything like that. And I just try to touch on the key passages that touch on our relationship to the state and to government and to authority and, you know, kind of make the arguments that we would at least all agree on. And they loved that idea, told me to write a draft.
Jacob Winograd [00:15:57]:
And so I did that, went through a couple rounds of editing, and it’s up on my church website now. You probably Google it with not too much effort, although I not hiding my church’s identity, but I’m not trying to, like, light them up on the map either. I’m going to eventually republish this article on LCI’s website, probably add to it. But I’m gonna read from this article here and sort of demonstrate kind of like what I was doing over the the last, you know, month or so when the episodes with eschatology, where I’m mostly just talking about theology and then kind of applying that to be like, okay. And so this is how this connects to certain political or current, you know, political debate or current events that are going on or what maybe the Christian response should be. That’s kind of what I’m doing. Like, I don’t do that in this article, but this article kind of sets the stage for that. It’s sort of what I talked about at the beginning of this episode where I’m just trying to figure out what the Bible teaches, and then, you know, I can go back and see, does this align with certain political conclusions that I have come to? So the introduction just kinda gives a little background about me and how I am interested in politics.
Jacob Winograd [00:17:16]:
And I get to a part where I I kinda talk about my political sojourn, how I was on the left, and then I was on the right. And then I, you know, started looking into 3rd party politics in the libertarian party. And then picking up after that, I said that through all these political affiliations, I noticed a recurring flaw, a tendency to place hope in governments, politicians, and earthly powers rather than in Christ. People idolize their political parties and leaders, investing their hopes in their side, quote, unquote winning, like hoping that their side would win and fearing disaster if the opposition prevailed. This realization struck me profoundly, especially after encountering first Samuel 8, a passage that my church’s name covered in our sermon series through first Samuel, which is actually cool. My church went through the entire book of first Samuel last year. The Israelites demanded a king rejecting god as their ultimate ruler, and this mirrored the tendency, the modern tendency to place undue trust in human leaders. God’s warning to Israel that a king would draft their sons for war, seize their fields, and take what was rightfully god’s portion serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of power and the idolatry of human rulers.
Jacob Winograd [00:18:45]:
Like the Israelites, we too are tempted to look to political figures and institutions to solve our problems instead of trusting in god alone. So then the first section here after the intro, and the whole name of this article actually is Christ is king. Caesar is not. Christians proclaim Christ as king, and this is brought up in 1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 15, Isaiah 96 through 7. I can’t hold on. What is the book of the bible that’s is it is it Jonah? That’s j n bible book abbreviation. I wish Google could keep up with me. Oh, book of John.
Jacob Winograd [00:19:28]:
Man, duh. Man, I should’ve guessed that. I’m not used to 2 letter abbreviations, but when they wrote this, they they did that. So I was like, John, I’m used to just pull up the whole word. It’s only 4 letters. Right? John 1836 through 37 and Revelation 17 through 14 or 17/14. Sorry. And so, yeah, Christians proclaimed oh my gosh.
Jacob Winograd [00:19:50]:
Can’t talk today. Christians proclaim Christ as king. Let’s read some of these passages here. I just cite them in the blog. First Timothy 6 15, which god will bring about in his own time, god, the blessed and only ruler, the king of kings, and the lord of lords. The next passage is Isaiah 96 through 7. For to us, a child is born, and to us, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty god, everlasting father, prince of peace, of the increase of his government, and of peace, there will be no end. And on throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the lord of hosts will do this.
Jacob Winograd [00:20:42]:
Should remember that. I’ve read this, like, twice over the last 2 months. Yeah. And then John 1714, it’s funny because that’s the back of my phone case. Jesus is king. And let’s read that one quick. Revelation 17/14. I kinda know these off the top of my head, but I would rather just read them verbatim rather than summarize them.
Jacob Winograd [00:21:06]:
They will make war on the lamb, and the lamb will conquer them, for he is the Lord of lords and the king of kings. And those with him are called chosen and faithful. So Christ is king. Bible is very clear about that. In light of that, how should Christians view the state or kingdoms of this world? The Bible teaches there is a role for government, and it also sets clear boundaries on their authority as it does for all human authority. Now here is where someone might go, oh, hold on. You’re questioning limits on government and limits on authority. Are you doing some libertarian isagesis right now? Well, let’s see what I say here.
Jacob Winograd [00:21:51]:
Governments are not to be seen as infallible or beyond critique. In acts 527 through 29, the apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin for preaching about Jesus. The high priest questions them, reminding them of the strict orders to not teach in Jesus’ name. Peter and the other apostles respond boldly. We must obey god rather than men. Peter’s declaration underscores that divine commands supersede human laws, especially when the latter contradict god’s will. If there is a conflict between god’s commands and human human authority, we must defer to god’s command. A similar message can be seen in first Peter 2’s instruction to honor the emperor but fear god, underlining the importance of placing god above all else.
Jacob Winograd [00:22:43]:
These passages serve as reminders that while we are to respect governing authorities, our ultimate allegiance belongs to Christ. And as Jesus says in Matthew 624, we cannot serve 2 masters. So right there, I just made a bunch of cases straight from the Bible from passages that are pretty hard to read in different ways. I mean, Peter literally says we have to obey God rather than men in response to human laws and rules being placed upon them that would limit what they do. And now from this, can you derive libertarianism? From this alone, no. But what we can derive is that Christ is king, that our ultimate allegiance belongs to him, and that there are limits on human authorities. And at at the very least, all other questions put aside, if obeying a human authority ever comes in conflict with obeying God, we must obey God rather than men. And our allegiance must be with God rather than men or any other nation.
Jacob Winograd [00:23:53]:
You know, one of the more controversial things that sometimes us Christian libertarians do, or even just Christians in general have done this, not only libertarians. But the example I can think of recently was when I was talking to libertarian party chairwoman Angela McCardell, and she talked about a recent coalition event she was at, and she pushed that they would not do the pledge of allegiance before the event. She was like, we can do the national anthem if you want, but I don’t want to pledge my allegiance pledge my allegiance to a piece of cloth to a nation. My I’m a Christian, and my allegiance is to Christ alone. I know that might be triggering to some people. You know? Some of you put your kids in public school. Some of you, you know, think the pledge of allegiance is an important civic duty, and you’re probably used to leftists and and progressives and people hostile to Christianity criticizing the pledge of allegiance. A lot of those people criticize the pledge of allegiance because they just hate America and they hate Western values and maybe more fundamental than any of that, they hate Christianity and they hate Christian values and they connect all those.
Jacob Winograd [00:25:03]:
Well, listen, that’s a conversation for another day. But what I will say is that I don’t hate America. I I I don’t hate all Western values, although look around you today, like, you know, there’s some things that the West currently values that I don’t think we should value and certain things that maybe we should be able to reflect on about Western culture and the enlightenment, and maybe point out where certain things went wrong. Not everything about modernism and, you know, kind of this modern material world that we live in is good. They’re not unquestioned goods, but I don’t hate America. I don’t hate, you know, my, my nation in terms of the nation, like the people, but my allegiance isn’t to land. It isn’t to people it’s to Christ and his kingdom. And so the Bible is clear that we are sojourners living in this world.
Jacob Winograd [00:25:57]:
This is not our home. And so while we should live here and live respectful under these authority figures, that doesn’t rise to level of pledging allegiance to these nations or to their flags or to their symbols. And I would say there there is an issue here. Like, I wouldn’t even have to be a libertarian. I could say that I was a socialist. Like, I believe in central planning, and I think that everyone should you know, the the means of production should be owned by the people, and I could be pro war. And I could, like, abandon every libertarian position I had, but still say, yeah. But, you know, we should be pledging our allegiance to earthly things.
Jacob Winograd [00:26:37]:
We should be pledging our allegiance to Christ because that’s what the Bible teaches. So I think that’s all pretty solid. There is a libertarian, you know, upshoot to this. Right? But we’re not making that yet. So moving on in my article here, what does it mean to honor those in positions of authority, especially if authorities don’t follow God’s commands? Well, Romans 13 1 through 7 is often cited in discussions about Christian submission to government. The apostle Paul writes this. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
Jacob Winograd [00:27:32]:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but too bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. God’s design for creation is not one of lawlessness. When a person is wrong, whether through aggression, infringement on property rights, or broken contracts, god ordains certain individuals to act as judges or arbiters to settle disputes and uphold justice and even using force if necessary. I cite Genesis 9. That’s the passage after the flood. If by a man, if a man’s blood is sheddeth by a man and by another man, shall his blood be shed? I’m butchering that, but you get the idea.
Jacob Winograd [00:28:38]:
Leviticus 22 and Romans 13, this authority comes with power. Unfortunately, however, the same sinful nature in man that leads to conflict can also corrupt those who wield this power. So what am I saying here? So Romans 13 and these other passages that I’ve cited here, they certainly make the case that God’s creation is ordered and that God recognizes the fallen state we live in. And God has deemed that it’s appropriate that when aggression of different types is initiated, that there is a just response to that initiation of force. I’m using kind of libertarian sounding language here, but that’s kind of because it’s hard to find different ways to say it. Because how do you let’s back up here. Right? Do not murder and do not steal. Well, stealing is not merely the transfer of property.
Jacob Winograd [00:29:42]:
Transfer of property can be good or bad. There’s legitimate and illegitimate transfer of property. If you and I, whoever listening, you know, just pretend you and I have a conversation. And I said that I’m going to give you $10 for your lunch. It’s like, I didn’t bring lunch. And it’s like, oh, I really like that. Can I have it? You know? Or can I buy half your lunch? Whatever. Well, then you agree, like, it’s a voluntary exchange.
Jacob Winograd [00:30:08]:
Right? But if I just take your lunch and and we didn’t agree to anything, well, property has still been transferred, but that’s not a legitimate transfer of property. How we just and then, you know, same with aggression. Right? If I, if, if I punch you or if even if I kill someone, right, we don’t know right away if killing or if attacking or punching is morally good or bad. And we need the context. Same with the transfer of property. We need the context. 1 can, you know, so when it comes to property exchange, the way we judge that is consent, right? Like did was were were both parties agreeing to transfer property exchange for whatever was exchanged. Right.
Jacob Winograd [00:30:50]:
But usually trading involves, like people find the things that are being traded mutually. Like they I value the thing that you have. You value the thing that I have. You would rather have the thing that I have, and I’d rather have the thing you have. Let’s, you know, let’s transfer. That’s mutually beneficial in most in most cases. Right? For to be voluntary. If there is coercion involved, however, then a transfer property can be involuntary.
Jacob Winograd [00:31:24]:
How we determine if the transfer property is wrong, how we determine if a killing is wrong is by who initiated the like the coercion. Right? If there is an initiation of coercion, that is where the immorality comes in. If I’m using force against you, but it’s in response to your initiation, that’s a just use of force. But if you initiate force, you are the aggressor, and that is what it’s how we define murder. It’s how we define theft. It’s through the initiation of aggression or coercion. So, yeah, this kinda sounds like libertarian stuff here, but I would challenge you to find a different way to describe it than what I’m doing. It just happens.
Jacob Winograd [00:32:12]:
The libertarians are picking up in their right on this. And, honestly, this is just what we teach kindergarteners and people when or, you know, our kids. Right? Like, you know, don’t take the kids’ toys and don’t hurt them. Don’t bite the kids. Don’t punch the kids. Don’t pull their hair. Don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff isn’t just a libertarian idea. It’s a it’s a rule we all basically believe and abide by.
Jacob Winograd [00:32:34]:
Libertarians just kinda go, hey. Maybe there’s no exceptions to that rule. You know? Well, this is the secret. Right? Libertarianism is just basic morality and saying, hey. Maybe there’s not really exceptions to these rules. Maybe they’re universal. Anyway, jumping ahead of myself. So getting back to what I was writing here in the article, god’s not you know, he recognizes man has fallen, that they were there will be people who violate the rights of other people who initiate aggression, and there needs to be some way to handle that.
Jacob Winograd [00:33:05]:
And so, you know, there is a just use of force to respond to those who have initiated force. But the same right? Because people are fallen and they will initiate force. Well, that same fallenness can, you know, cause corruption and cause problems, cause the people who are using power to respond to perhaps not use that power correctly. Traditionally, church teaching is that when any government commands that which is not explicitly sinful or against a clear command from god, Christians are justified sorry. I think I read that wrong. Church teaching that when any government commands that which is explicitly sinful or against a clear command from god, Christians are justified in not submitting to that command. This makes sense when reading from rodent when reading Romans 13, we see governments are called to a standard to uphold what is good and use their power against wrongdoers. They are not described they are described as not being a terror to those who do good.
Jacob Winograd [00:34:20]:
Right? Let’s read go back and read it. Rulers are not a tear to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is an authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive approval. So the the government’s here being described as the people who use their power, not against those who do good, but against those who do evil. They are described as not being a terror to those who do good. Right? So what I’m doing here is just applying some basic logic. Right? If they are not a terror to those who do good, if that’s the way they’re described here, then that means that that is God’s prescription for them, is that those in government are not to be a terror to those who do good. Now this should be striking, like, this is my article again, because many governments are a terror to those who do good, including the government that Paul was living under when he wrote this, including, like you know, think of Stalin, think of Hitler, think of Mao, think of even Marius said the Romans.
Jacob Winograd [00:35:25]:
Think of, like, even in time as the British Empire has been a oppressor and tyrannical. Right? There are so many instances throughout history. Heck, through even biblical history where governments are the bad guys. So right away, this is not like a libertarian observation. This is just a hold on. Like, pharaoh was government. He wasn’t doing what was pharaoh was not using his power in a way that could be described as not a terror to those who do good works. Right? He ordered the the Hebrew women to kill their babies.
Jacob Winograd [00:35:58]:
And then when they wouldn’t do it, he made, he went out there and did it himself through his men. So, okay then. Like, so we gotta like now if you’re like an atheist, you go, well, the Bible’s contradicting itself, but, you know, okay. We’re we’re Christians here. We believe in the inspiration of scripture. Aid, if you’re not a Christian, maybe just appreciate that, like, you know, a a complex book like the Bible needs to be read a little bit more sophisticated reading than something to sort of a, prima fascia sort of like surface level analysis. So how do we, how do we reconcile this? Right. Governments are not a tear to good works, but they kind of are all the time.
Jacob Winograd [00:36:42]:
Well, here’s how I explain it in the article. Let me take a sip of something quick. Therefore, it logically follows that human authority must be necessarily limited. Romans 13 decrees that the authority is instituted from god, but there is implicitly an understanding that there is a difference between just and unjust authority. God providentially establishes both. That’s the beginning where all authority comes from God, but God only but from his moral decree, he only sanctions just authority. So I’m getting into liberty of theologic language here, but God has different decrees. God has a and there’s more than 2, but just for this purposes, God has a providential decree and a moral decree.
Jacob Winograd [00:37:36]:
God’s providential decree was that Joseph was going to be sold into slavery, and then god would use the circumstances to rescue his family and all the people of Egypt because of what happened. But God didn’t morally decree that it was good that Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery. There’s still evil actions on their part. As the text says, what man intended for evil, God used for good, but the evil is still evil. Therefore, from this and other examples like this in scripture, Christians have traditionally understood that there is a moral decree and a providential decree. God allows and ordains certain things to happen. Even things that aren’t morally sanctioned. God providentially ordains over all governments and all things that happen.
Jacob Winograd [00:38:29]:
Every bad thing that happens, God is still sovereign over it and has ordained that bad thing to happen as part of his greater plan to work all things out for, for his good and for the good of the elect, the good of those who are in Christ, good of the church, the good of all mankind, ultimately the good of restoring creation. But these bad things still happen and he doesn’t morally decree them. So we understand then that this is the way to read Romans 13. That Romans 13 is can be read as a prescription of sorts, that it is describing that governments are prescribed in this way to do what is good, which is the enforcement of property rights, the enforcement of the lex talionis, which means that if someone’s doing evil, they wield their sword, not in vain, but against the evildoer. And that if you’re doing what’s right, you have nothing to fear from that. But this can just like everything is fallen in this world. This can be distorted by sin and the fallen deaths, even the people in the positions of being a sort of governing authority can be fallen and misuse their power, and God does not morally sanction that. And so that’s what we read from Romans 13, that they’re called to a standard to uphold what is good.
Jacob Winograd [00:39:58]:
And that when they don’t do that, they fall outside of God’s moral decree. This understanding of Romans 13, back from my article, was consistent with the numerous examples of God’s people resisting immoral authorities. Daniel and other exiled Israelites refused to obey Babylonian rulers. In first Samuel, we ray read how David, while respecting Saul’s position, did not submit to Saul’s unjust actions and persecutions. Moses led the Israelites out of pharaoh’s oppressive rule, and the apostles continued to preach the gospel despite Roman orders to stop. So we see Romans 13’s call for sub subjection then has two meanings. When governments are doing what they are supposed to do, we should follow their authority and uphold just laws. And that should probably come without much like, if you’re just if governments are doing what they’re supposed to do, which is just enforcing what is good, Then if we’re doing good, we should just effortlessly be in submission to them.
Jacob Winograd [00:40:57]:
When governments are unjust and misuse their authority, we are still called to submit to them and to honor them, but not to ourselves participate in sin or disobedience to God’s law, nor do we ever give them our ultimate allegiance, which belongs to Christ. Key here though, that submission does not mean blind or uncritical obedience. Throughout the bible, prophets consistently call out the injustices perpetrate, perpetrated by those in power. Isaiah condemns Judah’s leaders for corruption and failure for to protect the vulnerable. Jeremiah calls for justice and righteousness, rebuking, Jehoiakim for greed and exploitation. Amos criticizes social injustices and judicial corruption in Israel. Micah encapsulates the prophetic call to justice, mercy, and humility. These passages underscore that God expects leaders to act justly, love mercy, and to walk humbly.
Jacob Winograd [00:42:02]:
They highlight the responsibility of God’s people to hold their leaders to these standards. As the new covenant people of God, we have inherited this prophetic tradition. We are called to speak truth to power, to advocate for the oppressed, to hold leaders accountable. This responsibility is integral to our faith and mission in the world. In today’s context, this means being vocal against injustices, such as systemic corruption, exploitation of the poor, and abuse of power. It involves actively participating in the pursuit of justice by supporting policies and leaders that promote righteousness and challenging those that perpetuate injustice. Now the rest of this article gets into some, like, practical steps of how to play this out. So I’m gonna pause my reading of the article there.
Jacob Winograd [00:42:58]:
And like I said, I’ll be releasing a full version of this through LCI and on Twitter. They’re like, I’m gonna try out that next articles thing, I think. But I think you see here that I’ve sort of made arguments for how government is kind of only morally sanctioned by God to uphold property rights and to enforce what is good and that whenever they’re using their power to be a tear to those who do good works, They are no longer morally sanctioned by god’s moral decree. Now even from all this, we’re not gonna be able to make a perfect, like, just oh, we’re we we’ve just proved libertarianism from the bible. Right? However, we have proved a compatibility because libertarians often talk about how there needs to be a need for the government to be limited and point out the government’s ability to kind of violate the very thing it exists to do in the first place. I wanna be clear here. The Bible does not explicitly teach libertarianism or anarchism, but I do think that the teachings and principles and truths that I sort of did a brief exegesis of different passages and sort of a logical reading of them in this article, that then we if we take those logical conclusions and just kinda map them out, There there’s not many options left on the table in terms of what a Christian political philosophy could be. You would have to make some arguments against, perhaps, say, you know, Christian theocracy or theonomy or Christian nationalism, and that would have to be a separate episode.
Jacob Winograd [00:44:50]:
And I’ve done episodes on this in the past also on why I don’t think that governments are sanctioned from a Christian point of view to deal with nonaggressive sins. So I’m probably gonna do that in an upcoming episode, focus more on that. I didn’t get into that into, I didn’t get into that in this article, but what sort of things that did get called out by this article implicitly are things that libertarians talk about. For example, libertarians say that taxation is theft. Now later in Romans 13, it says this is why you pay taxes. Right? There’s the render under Caesar passage. Honor the emperor. There’s other passages say to pay, you know, pay what is owed.
Jacob Winograd [00:45:35]:
Well, we have to ask ourselves again the the normative questions of what is owed and ask ourselves as a question, like, we’ll see you in Romans 13, that we do understand that those in government governing authority can misuse their power. Then we have to ask in what ways can they misuse their power? There’s a lot of heavy lifting being done by the phrase to pay taxes, pay tribute, pay honor, etcetera, to whom they’re owed. Right. Same with like render to Caesar render onto Caesar. What is Caesar’s? Right. And I’ve done a fuller episode render to Caesar. I’ll link that in the show notes as well. But I want you to make, to, to just note here that what the Bible is saying is to pay what is owed.
Jacob Winograd [00:46:22]:
And that begs the follow-up question of what is owed? What do we owe the government? Do we owe the government, whatever they claim that we have to pay them? Right? I think everyone have to agree, like, well, hold on. That doesn’t follow. Like, if the government had a 100% tax rate, hopefully every Christian, no matter what their political affiliation is, would agree, okay. What well, well, okay. That doesn’t make sense. Obviously, if the if the if Caesar or the government or the IRS says you you owe a 100% of the income you make and a and you gotta pay, you know, more than you make in property, it’s like, well, that’s just not possible. It’s unreasonable. But, like, why would it be? Let’s say, well, you you you know, you could try to say it’s not fair, but that who defines what’s fair? I think the argument you’d have to make it is to be, well, I don’t think that you you’re rightfully owed all my money.
Jacob Winograd [00:47:18]:
They will hold on. If you’re not right if the government’s not rightfully owed all your money, how do we determine how much money the government is owed? Well, if God’s moral decrees are universal and like theft is wrong, then I would say governments only owed that which those in government can voluntarily negotiate for. And the problem is this is a little bit of a libertarian insight, but this isn’t in conflict of what scripture teaches here. We have been conditioned to think that government, we just have to pay government that what they ask for. And then it’s okay. But I would say this is an example of submitting to something in spite of it not being okay. That actually a lot of the times when the government is taxing us, they’re asking for more than what they’re rightfully owed. I mean, listen, if a judge performs a service, he should get paid.
Jacob Winograd [00:48:14]:
A police officer performs a service. He should get paid. If a road gets built, people who build the roads should be paid. Everyone who performs a service for someone else, like, you know, that’s how the market works. It’s like, like I said before, it’s a trade of mutual value. But what none of us get to do is to say, well, I’m providing this service to you no matter what you say, and you’re gonna pay me this much for it no matter what you say. Not again, this and I’m probably have to we’re short on time here. This gets into all things.
Jacob Winograd [00:48:46]:
What about democracy? What about representative government? Fair enough. There there are ways to talk about this, and you might not find yourself fully in Rothbardian anarcho capitalism. Taxation is theft libertarianism like I’m in. But it at least follows that you don’t have a slam dunk like, oh, well, Romans 13 pays says pay taxes. Therefore, we just uncritically pay whatever the government. No. We have to have the conversation about what is Caesars, what taxes are owed to government. And even if someone’s owed something, there’s a wrong way to collect it.
Jacob Winograd [00:49:25]:
Right? Like if we made an agreement that like, we were going to make a trade for something and I don’t pay you right away, can you come and lock me in a cage and add fine? Like, like there are always limits to what’s done in the marketplace. And we don’t often think about applying those same sort of normative rules to what government does. And all that I’m suggesting is that the principles that I’ve sort of laid out here, just reading what the Bible says on the on this stuff would lead us to conclude like, well, actually those are important questions to ask. And that’s where I’ll leave you at is that we need to ask those questions. And I think I’m gonna dive deeper into some of these subjects in upcoming episodes. So that’s all I have for you guys today. A little bit of a longer episode, not too long. Please make sure you’re subscribed.
Jacob Winograd [00:50:19]:
If you aren’t like this video, 5 star reviews, greatly appreciate it. I think next week, I’m gonna kinda pick up where I left off here, and we’ll talk more about taxes and maybe more, like, on the political side of, like, different political structures and how those align with Christian teachings. And then after that, I’m gonna finish my eschatology series. So that’s what’s coming up. Also reminder to be subscribed to the if you’re not if you’re either YouTube watcher, you get on my live streams. But if you’re not, if you’re an audio listener, make sure you’re subscribed to the LCI Green Room audio feed so you get all of those live stream conversations in audio form for you to listen to and consume. That’s all I have for you guys today. I will talk to you again next week.
Jacob Winograd [00:51:08]:
Live at peace. Live for Christ. Take care.
Knowledgeable Narrator [00:51:11]:
The Biblical Anarchy Podcast is a part of the Christians for Liberty Network, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute. If you love this podcast, it helps us reach more with a message of freedom when you rate and review us on your favorite podcast apps and share with others. If you want to support the production of the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, please consider donating to the Libertarian Christian Institute atbiblicalanarchypodcast.com, where you can also sign up to receive special announcements and resources related to biblical anarchy. Thanks for tuning in.
;?>/smartquizbuilder/includes/images/sqb-registration-img.jpg)
