Two Kingdom vs One Kingdom

All right, well, welcome everyone to another edition of Theology Throwdown. So here's the question.

How much should Christians be involved in the world they live in? We know that we live with dual passports, but how much should we get involved in the things of this world?

How much are we involved in the culture? How much are we involved in the politics? How much do we say versus how much do we just go hands off like this world is fading away and we're citizens of a far country and so we're going to focus our energies there.

So that's really what we're going to be talking about as we think of two kingdom theology and what is two kingdom theology, what is one kingdom theology, and how does this play out in the lives of everyday believers like you and me and all of us.

And so with me tonight is going to be this panel of other Christian podcast community podcasters.

So first, let me have Colleen introduce herself.

Colleen, would you like to introduce yourself and talk about your podcast? Hi, my name is

Colleen Sharp and I host Theology Girls podcast. Excellent. And Jeremy, how about you, sir?

Hello. Yeah, I'm Jeremy Howard. I am one of the hosts of the Do Theology podcast and I am coming to you live from Utah.

Excellent. Greetings from South Carolina. And Eve, hello.

Hi, I'm Eve Franklin and I co -host the Are You Just Watching podcast in which we talk about biblical context of secular movies and other entertainment.

All right. So already a source for Christ and culture. And Nathaniel.

Yeah, I'm Nathaniel Jolly. I am the host of Truth Be Known podcast, which is an apologetic dealing with the dangers of the charismatic doctrine and pastor of Homer Reformed Baptist Church here in Alaska.

Excellent. And I am Anthony Russo. And I am the co -host now that my wife has joined me on Grace and Peace Radio, which is a weekly

Christian living podcast. And we just cover kind of basic Christian living.

We talked about cheerfulness a couple weeks ago. We just did a two -part series on reconciliation. So those kinds of things.

So with that, let me ask you this. What if someone on Twitter, it's a real popular thing to say.

Explain it to me like I'm five, whatever the thing is, somebody was talking about as we're recording this

GameStop stock is in the news and people were misunderstanding what short shorting is and all that.

So they would say, explain it to me like I'm five. So let me throw this out to the group. Let's say

I don't know anything about two -kingdom theology. And I say, explain it to me like I'm five.

Now, that might be an oversimplification, but who wants to take a crack at a basic definition of two -kingdom theology?

I think I could do it. I think a basic definition is

God rules the whole world. R. Scott Clarke uses two -fold kingdom instead of two kingdoms to kind of make the point that they aren't separate, fully separate.

But God is ruler of the whole world and he rules in two ways. So the church is different than the state.

That you'll see as opposed to one -kingdom theology that wants to transform the culture to make it more

Christian, we would see a two -kingdom theology would see more of a distinction between the church and the culture.

Excellent. And anyone have anything else that they would add to that?

As I was doing my research, what I found, and I'll just explain it as best

I can understand it, is if you want to think of it also along the lines of a linear spectrum, maybe on one far end, you have, say, theonomy, which really wants to change the culture and also have the culture run with the laws of civil

Israel. And then you've got this

Kuyperian view, Abraham Kuyper view of this one -kingdom view where no, it's not the laws that apply to national

Israel, but we do want to see, say, the Ten Commandments or some sort of scriptural governance of the society, the civil realm.

And then you've got really another distinction where you get into this two -kingdom aspect where there is the spiritual kingdom of God, but then also there's this civil realm, and the civil realm really is not even governed remotely by any kind of special revelation.

It's governed pretty much by its own laws that men and women make up.

Colleen, is that a fair explanation of a rough draft?

Yeah, I don't know if I would have said exactly what you did about their own laws in that you gave the extremes.

I thought that was actually really good, going from the extreme theonomy to then neo -Calvinism or Kuyper's view.

And then even within all of these, whether you talk to a theonomist or a neo -Calvinist, which is

Kuyper's view, or you talk to someone in the two kingdoms, there's even extremes in that. So I think there's probably extremes within two kingdoms, and you've got

Lutheran and Reformed, that may differ on how much our faith influences our politics.

And it's not just man -made. Obviously, even two kingdom people are fighting against abortion for a reason.

We would still fight against the things that are contrary to God's law, because our faith influences what we do in the kingdom of the left.

Yeah, yeah. And I think you're right about that. One of the things I read was that there's sort of a further view in the two -kingdom realm where there is this distinction.

So yeah, I probably blended those two. So let me ask this more generally, to open it up to the group.

If you weren't using theological labels, how would you see the

Christians' involvement in society to be? So in other words,

I don't want you to feel like, oh, I don't know what two -kingdom theology is.

I haven't read up on it. I don't know who Abraham Kuyper was or whatever. Don't worry about that. Put that off to the side.

In very simple terms, how do you see the

Christian involvement in society? How does

God want us to live and act and influence, if at all, the society that we're in?

I think the first thing we have to confess is that it's extremely difficult to be consistent.

So we have a general broad strokes view, each one of us, and they're probably all very closely aligned.

But there are certain areas where we start talking about what we desire as Christians in the culture and in the government, and we start sounding like theonomists, even though we're not theonomists, because we believe certain things so sincerely and we want to see realities in our culture that we can almost start sounding like we believe in the implementation of Old Testament civil laws, if we're taking a reformed view of the law, that that aspect of the law should start being enforced in our society.

And then there are other things where we say, yeah, we don't want anything to do with those civil laws that Israel is subject to.

And so I think the first thing we have to confess is that it's really hard for any of us to be consistent straight down the line.

If you are a through and through theonomist, that is probably a very consistent position. And if you're a through and through, keep the kingdom separate totally, or that the twofold aspect of the kingdom, keep them away from each other to where they don't touch, that's probably more consistent.

But anywhere in between, we're going to end up being inconsistent. I think we have to be okay with that, just as we're being honest as Christians, we just have to be okay with that.

So for me, that's one of the first things that comes to mind. I think that's a great point.

I just finished reading a biography of the Cambridge pastor, Charles Simeon, and he was very careful to instruct his pastoral candidate students that it really is a matter of expediency in applying the practical wisdom of God in situations that in some situations this makes sense, in some situations this makes sense.

It's answer a fool according to his folly, don't answer a fool according to his folly. Even though there are differences there, we might call them inconsistencies, it's okay.

We're free to have that. God gives us those guardrails, and then we operate within those guardrails.

One thing I'd like to say, because I don't think I made it clear before, but in answering your current question,

I'm so sorry my dog is barking, is that as a

Reformed Christian, believing that the law is useful in different ways, it shows us our sin, it drives us to Christ, it shows us how we are to live as Christians, one of the things we talk about is the civil use of the law.

And so even as somebody that doesn't want to see this combination of church and state and the government to be made a

Christian government, I do believe that the laws that God has given us are useful for, and I'm speaking specifically of the moral law, are useful specifically for ordering society.

I was taught, I had a conversation with the admins in my group about some people who say the gospel is the only answer.

And I said, no, wait, the law is the answer too. And, you know, there are things in life that I don't want somebody breaking into my house, and I'm not going to say the gospel is the only answer to keeping that from happening.

I also will say, no, the law is the answer too. Somebody does that, they should be penalized, there should be a law against that, and so on.

Eve, you deal with movies on your podcast and how they impact society and what they're trying to influence society with, their views and morals and so on.

How do you see this? That's a loaded question.

I feel that God's law is perfect and that he's sovereign, so it's really hard to divide secular, the secular from the spiritual completely, because God is ultimately in control.

So I guess in that way, I would be, I don't know whether that falls under one kingdom or two kingdoms, because I don't really understand the terminology there, but I think as Christians, we are supposed to influence the world for God and Christ and the gospel, however

God calls us to do that. And God has a calling on each of our lives.

So we follow that calling where God leads us, and if that calling is into politics, then we apply our

Christian morals as best we can to whatever we're doing, whether that's pastoring a church or being a lawyer or being a graphic designer.

I like to think of somebody was saying once that, sorry,

I just lost my train of thought, but if you can be a Christian everywhere you are, and God doesn't call us to be a missionary always as, you know, like spreading the gospel in a particular place, which some of you are pastors, so I understand that is your calling, but some of us are not pastors and God called us to a different ministry, and our ministry as Christians is wherever God puts us in whatever profession that is, and so there should be

Christian politicians, there should be Christian lawyers, there should be Christian school teachers, there should be

Christian whatever, whatever God calls you to do, you should be a Christian in that position, and you shouldn't separate your spiritual morality, your spiritual well -being, your spiritual imperative from what you are doing in the quote -unquote real world or the secular world.

They shouldn't be divided. They should influence each other. I don't know whether that made sense.

What you said makes a lot of sense. I feel like maybe I wasn't clear. In Two Kingdoms Theology, you just described the doctrine of vocation, which is whatever

God has called me to do, I will do it well and to the glory of God, so I wouldn't believe in a separation.

I would agree with everything actually you just said. So is anyone here post -millennial?

Okay, because I think that's probably at the heart of all this. I don't know how much that is part of the conversation that you desire.

Well, do me a favor. Since you brought that up, two things. One, answer the question for yourself.

Now I'm curious. And two, for our viewers and listeners, help us understand why did you ask that?

How does a post -millennial view tie into this? Help explain that, because I think that's a really good point.

Yeah, so I'll go ahead and out myself. I'm a dispensational premillennialist. So pick up your tomatoes and stones or whatever else you have and virtually toss them.

But yeah, so basically, for super broad strokes purposes and for this conversation, premillennialists and amillennialists see the world as basically in a not great state and not going to get better state leading up to the return of Christ.

Premillennialists, of course, believe things are getting worse and worse leading up to a great tribulation.

Well, dispensational premillennialists, leading up to a great tribulation, which will be the worst time on earth as far as God pouring out his judgment on the face of the earth and the things you read about in Revelation 4 to 18 are taking place and it's going to get really bad before the return of Christ to establish a 1 ,000 -year reign on the face of the earth.

Amillennialists believe that metaphorically we are experiencing the kingdom along with the tribulation at the same time in the here and now.

And the next thing on God's calendar is the return of Christ and the times of tribulation and times of kingdom reign are going to keep happening.

It's perpetual until that return, in which case or at what time

Jesus will establish his final reign over all things and the new heavens and new earth.

And postmillennialists, differing from those two, radically see the world getting better and better, that the tribulation has taken place in history in the first century and there is no time of great tribulation and what's now happening is either, depending on the postmillennialists, a literal 1 ,000 -year period of Christ reigning or a metaphorical postmillennial reign of Christ where he's building his church and Christianizing the world leading up to his return so that all cultures and all governments will be submitting to Christ.

And their role then as church members, the view that the church should have from that perspective is being the instrument in God's hand, not just to evangelize individually but to bring about Christianization of cultures and kingdoms globally.

And if you believe in postmillennialism, you are really going to be excited about the Christianization of cultures and kingdoms.

If you're premillennial or amillennial, you're saying, I don't think that's what's going on leading up to the return of Christ.

And so the mission that we have in mind as far as the stewardship of our ministry, the mission will be radically different.

Excellent. I really put you on the spot with that. And you really did a great job of presenting all of those views.

And even the middle one, the amillennial view, which is the correct one. So, wow.

I would agree with that. Hey, that's good that you're also showing where you are.

That's good. Get all the cards out on the table. I just wanted to be, in all fairness, I thought, you know what, I can't put him on the hot seat and not own up to it.

But I do love all and I have no problem. To me, it's not a big thing.

So Nathaniel, how about you, sir?

What are your thoughts on all of this so far? What are your thoughts on this two -kingdom aspect and how

Christians are to be in this world and so on? Yeah. You know,

I think how it plays out in your life has a lot to do with your eschatological view. Especially, I think, if you're a post -millennialist is where we see major stuff happening right now.

And, you know, I cover charismatic stuff mostly in my podcast. And this is something that is really big in the charismatic church.

The idea of what they call the seven mountain mandate. Effectively, you know, there's this idea that they can transform all these areas of culture and basically turn it into a kingdom culture.

They can turn it into a fully Christianized thing. So, for instance, one of the mountains is the media mountain.

And so, you know, the charismatic movement would encourage Christians to go into the media realm.

So, maybe you're a TV producer or whatever. And then with the hopes that you can turn all of Hollywood into a

Christian Hollywood kind of thing. And eventually, you transform so much of society in all these areas that, well, now you have laid the foundation for Christ to return because things are all better, so to speak.

And you got variations of that. I think if you're post -millennial right now, you might be a little depressed with everything that's going on because facts aren't adding up with the theology there, at least for the moment.

I am not a post -millennial myself. So, yeah, you know,

I think for the average person, I'm thinking about questions that I get as a pastor and things that have come up in our church.

You know, people aren't coming up and saying, you know, is my eschatological view wrong?

They're wanting real answers to real questions. Should we be, you know, as Christians, should we be totally depressed that Joe Biden and baby murdering administration is in power now?

Should we be, you know, overthrowing things? Should we be out rioting, picketing?

Should we, you know, what's our response to those things? And I don't remember who touched on this earlier, if it was

Colleen or Eve, but I would just reiterate Colossians 3 as a general principle to answer the question, how do we respond to things?

And 323, whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord and not for people.

And so if you happen to be a school teacher, then, you know, you serve as a teacher unto the glory of God.

You are a Christian who happens to be a school teacher. Right. And so principally,

I think we, you know, I don't believe that we should be trying to transform the culture as our end goal.

Right. I think that we will see people transformed as we proclaim the gospel and as we see those people who

God has called to himself come to Christ. Right. I think that's how we affect things.

We preach the gospel. We see people transformed. Those people, because they love Christ, desire to be obedient to him.

And that's where we see transformation rather than trying to create, you know, a heaven on earth, as it were.

I think scripture is pretty clear. Post -millennialism is clearly wrong.

Although I love those brothers and sisters, things are going to progressively get worse here,

I think. And we see that. Right. So, yeah, for whatever that's worth, that's where I try to focus people on is be faithful where you are.

I mean, maybe the Christian nationalism thing that Beth Moore, she's at least she's the first one that I heard that term from.

Maybe we'll get into that at some stage and how we deal with Christians and politics and Christians and other things.

I would just say this, regardless of views, if once we've come to put our faith in any kind of system, right, for our salvation, for our betterment, we've effectively made an idol.

So right now, I think politics has been exposed as a big idol for a lot of people on both sides of the aisle,

Christians, non -Christians. We expect that from non -Christians, but it's been big in the

Christian realm. It always is at election time, but I think this has been far more than I've ever seen.

People tend to forget our president is not the king. We have one king and that's

Christ and we serve him. And, you know, God sets up kings and he takes them down and he's in control and he's sovereign.

And so we live like that. I tend to I like the Pilgrim's Progress when we talk about how we respond to the world around us.

I love the idea of John Bunyan's Pilgrim.

We're on a pilgrimage to the celestial city. This is our temporary home. This is not our end goal.

So that's my view. One of the things I just thought about listening to you,

Nathaniel, was a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. And one of the reasons why

I bring that up, but we talked about the abortion issue briefly is that as Christians, we have to oppose the murder of children.

And that is a stance that that we want to have. Sorry, that that is an issue that we want to stand up for politically.

But if we enforce our position on that by rule of law, all it does is get turned over every administration.

So we'll have a pro -life president pass laws and whatever.

And then the next time a pro -choice president or pro -abortion president is in office, then all of that gets flipped around.

The only way we can actually impact the culture against abortion is one person at a time talking to them.

The picketing in front of pro -abortion centers and talking to people and praying for people and doing ministries to people who work in abortion clinics and that kind of stuff where you're actually changing hearts and minds.

That's how we deal with the abortion issue in our country, because legislating it is never going to correct it because you're not convincing people why it's wrong.

You're just telling them to stop doing it. And I think that our Christian walk influences people better when we work on the hearts and minds, when we pray for revival and we pray for the gospel to touch people because it's the gospel that changes lives and hearts.

It's not rules and laws that people are forced to follow because then there's always that resistance because they're not really convinced that what we hold as truth is actual truth because they're not convinced in their hearts.

They're just being forced. And so when we try to turn politics into the hammer with which we hammer people over the heads with our views and what we think is right and what we believe to be right based on scripture, we aren't convincing anybody.

We're just creating this antagonism that divides the culture. I had a really interesting conversation.

This was four years ago when Trump was initially elected with a liberal who lived on the

West Coast, and she was actually interested in having conversations with people who didn't believe what she believed.

And we had a very open conversation in which we talked about a lot of these issues that were just directly opposed on.

And she went in thinking that I was a really stubborn, hard -nosed, bigoted person who she wouldn't be able to find common ground with.

And as we chatted, we actually found common ground, and we were able to even talk about abstinence and what preventatives there were for abortion other than using abortion as birth control, which is what our culture uses it for now.

And we had a really good discussion in which she explained how she was fearful about what

Trump was going to do in office. And I was really impressed to be able to talk to somebody who

I was completely opposed with and actually convince her of where I was coming from and that it wasn't hate and it wasn't bigotry and all of this.

And that's what we need to do is more one -on -one conversations with people where we're able to, instead of yelling at each other from opposite sides of the room, we explain to them what our positions are.

Instead of trying to rule them like people who don't care, we actually talk to the hearts of the matters and the hearts of the people.

So no, I don't think that the U .S. is going to be some major portion of theology and the end times or people who try to make

Trump's presidency into something biblical and prophets coming out and saying this and that.

And that just makes Christianity look bad, in my opinion, because when it doesn't come true, then they all say, well, they lump all the

Christians together and say, you all are idiots. And so we need to be very careful of how we apply politics to scripture, not necessarily scripture to politics.

Anyone want to tackle that? I mean, you brought up a lot of good points there.

Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of stuff in that. I might push back a little bit on some of your terminology.

We need to be clear. Abortion is not a political issue. It's a moral issue.

Right. Homosexuality. Yeah. So just the terminology. I knew you meant that there.

I might differ with you a little bit in that I think that we have the responsibility to come against evil in every way we are able to.

So I've lived overseas, and in some countries you don't get to vote. You have more of a dictatorship type thing.

And so scripture talks to how you respond to rulers and things like that.

In America, you have the opportunity to vote. I don't think you have to biblically.

I think it's a responsible thing to do. And if we can stop the murder of children by passing laws,

I don't actually care who doesn't like that. I'm not trying to make the person who can no longer murder their child feel good about anything.

I want to save the life of the child. Now, I agree with you. I would just add that that's one way that we can do what's right and do what's good.

Now, I'm also not for guys picketing in front of places. And I don't think

Christians need to be marching and doing all that. I'm 100 % about Christians being in front of murder clinics who are talking to people, praying for people, giving solutions so that they don't have to murder their children, calling them to repentance.

But I think we can deal with that in all of those issues. You know, if it were illegal to I don't think it's ever going to happen.

Let me just be clear. The reason abortion is still the law of this land is because both political parties want it.

And I don't think anyone with any common sense can argue with that. But if it were to be illegal,

I think that'd be a great thing. And then we'd have other problems to deal with. But it would be better than than what we have now.

And I'm not opposed to it making it illegal. I'm just saying that with the way our system is set up, it would be illegal for four years or eight years.

And then it would be the next administration would overturn that rule. It would just keep being a being a jockey back and forth over, you know, like a political ping pong ball.

So, no, I agree with you. It's not a political matter. But the only way we're actually going to change the culture is one heart and mind at a time.

I don't think that passing laws as much as I would prefer there be a law against abortion.

I don't think that actually solves the problem. We have to be tackling that problem through the gospel because it's the gospel that changes people's lives.

And once God opens their eyes that murder is wrong, then they won't do it and they won't support it.

But passing the law, even if we could ever pass that law, it would not stay on the books.

It would get removed with the next administration. So it just becomes a political ping pong ball. And that was my point.

You know, just to maybe offer a different perspective. So full disclosure here, and none of you probably know this, but I have been involved in politics for a long time.

Not as much the last few years, but I did work on the McCain campaign and a lot of other campaigns, especially at the state level.

You know, one of the things we're called to as Christians is to love God and neighbor. And that influences things that I fight for politically.

We actually have seen some good things in regards to abortion legislation at the state level, which is a great way to go with it, where we've seen abortion clinics closed down in great numbers in the states and things like that, just as an encouragement to our audience.

Because I know what you're saying is true, Eve, that Trump cut off certain abortion funding and now

Biden's going to sign it back and provide our tax dollars for abortions and things like that.

But there are things that we can do. But I even think about, just on a more practical level, on that one reason

I fight against abortion is because it's morally wrong and because I'm to love my neighbor. But even in a political, explaining how this plays out,

I'm against the $15 minimum wage that Biden wants because I love my neighbor. Because I think, in my opinion, that it will cause the destruction of small businesses and it will increase unemployment and things like that.

So that would be my reason for fighting for certain things.

And I think a lot of people don't realize that there are a lot of things that we can do. A lot of times at the state level,

D .C. seems very far away, like we're not going to influence much. But there are things we can do, even on things like abortion and other things like that.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't be politically active. I believe we live in a government for the people, by the people, and we should be voting and we should be active in politics.

I guess my point was that we don't actually change the culture until we influence people on a one -on -one basis.

That's changing hearts and minds for Christ. I agree. I agree with you on that. I really like what

Nathaniel said earlier. You know, we go into culture and preach the gospel. Jeremy, you want to weigh in on this?

Yeah, so what Eve was saying about basically addressing the root and not just the fruit of the matter is obviously super important.

Since none of us are theonomous, it sounds like we all take the view of really communicating the gospel clearly to individual human hearts and seeing lives changed individually and making a change that way instead of creating just a mere framework that doesn't actually have an eternal impact on human souls.

All of us prioritize where human souls are going to spend eternity over something that may be more temporary.

But, of course, to Nathaniel's point, it really doesn't matter what people think. We need to save lives too.

So it's a tough balance. It's a difficult balance. And where it gets really tricky is where do we draw the line on what moral issues we're going to seek to impose on the culture at large?

Abortion is one where we're pretty much all on the same page, I believe, as a Christian church, truly safe people.

You know, we all we all agree that, yeah, we should we should stop the genocide of our infants.

But where do we stop with those laws that we seek to impose?

No fault divorce. How hard are we going to go after that one? Right. And there are a whole bunch of other ones, too, that you could throw out there and say, well, what are we going to do about it?

Are we just going to sit back or we're going to go for it? And I think looping back around to the two kingdom versus one kingdom or twofold kingdom versus one kingdom, however you want to phrase it.

That is that's probably where those of us who are not the honest have a hard time making our case is where do you stop?

And I don't have a great answer, but I love talking about it. And I think we can figure it out.

And the liberty that God gives us is going to be different from person to person in church to church.

But but we need to seek balance in those things and really think through it instead of just doing what we've always done, because obviously doing what we've always done hasn't benefited the

American church all that much. You know, just a few thoughts.

And these are all great, great things that you're all sharing. Colleen, I didn't mention that before I said that to Jeremy, but I really appreciated what you said as well.

I think it also goes back to what

Colleen had mentioned earlier, and I think it might have been Eve as far as a theology of work and.

That, you know, we think of if if it weren't for those that God called to certain positions to try to go right to the culture, right to the government to to affect change.

Some things would have taken much longer. I think of William Wilberforce in England and.

Almost. In, you know, singularly. Looking to stop slavery in in England now, granted, yes, he had a lot of Christians behind him praying for him and supporting him and so on.

But he was basically, as I understand it, just just one man affecting that that change, you know, really.

And it took a long time. Someone not in politics. Think of Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India who was really key in affecting the laws of Sati, I think it's called, where the wives were burned alive when the husbands died.

She she worked hard to to get that changed. And I know there were other missionaries who did as well.

But again, it was affecting change there. So it is, you know,

I think it is that both thing. If if you're in a position that you have authority, you have ability rather to to affect the change, then.

Then by all means, use that opportunity that God has given. But a lot of it is that one to one conversation with people and affecting lives one to one.

Another thing that Jeremy mentioned about this as far as. Well, it just kind of reminded me of a two was as I was reading about this.

Jack Kinnear, he's a professor,

I believe. I know I forgot to write his title down, so I apologize, but I heard a podcast that he was on and.

He talks about the idea that. As Christians, what you don't hear a lot of pastors doing is taking this approach of.

That that this world is Christ and that ultimately it's not so much even addressing the moral issue of whatever the thing is, but it's speaking out and saying this, this world is

Christ. He is king of kings. He is lord of lords. What you are putting forth or what you are supporting is in direct contradiction with the word of God, with what

God desires, with what God says about the case of abortion, human life, the sanctity of human life and so on.

And ultimately saying that you will stand before God in judgment and the wrath of God is upon you right now for what it is that you're promoting and supporting and that he makes the point that that is what

Christians ought to be doing. That is what pastors ought to be doing and in society and we just don't do that.

What do you think about that? Is that what we should be doing? Should we really be going full

Psalm 2, as it were, against the leaders and the politicians at the maybe even the local, the state, national level?

One of the things that can get easily missed when we talk about stewardship issues is the divine sovereignty aspect of all this.

I'm not sure where we all are on Calvinism spectrum. I suspect we'd all probably call ourselves

Calvinistic in the least. And it is a paradox of human responsibility,

Christian responsibility and divine sovereignty. Like common grace is a big part of this conversation, how

God is in control of all the matters of this world and he's fully involved, fully in control, leading this world exactly where he wants it to go.

All the days are written in his book when there were yet none of them. And so it's all going the way he wants it to go.

And if we think we're going to Christianize the world and we go out and try, but God doesn't will for it to happen, it's not going to happen.

And if we say, yeah, it's not really our role, but God wills for it to happen. He's going to make it happen.

It's up to him. And so really, at the end of the day, it is deciding with wise counsel that we have access to in our local churches, from wise teachers, all from the word of God, what it is that God has us doing individually, whether that's super small scale stuff.

Just worried about our family and our local church and don't think outside of that, or if it is bigger picture stuff where we're looking to exert an influence on the government, on the culture at large, whatever it may be.

And at the end of the day, just saying, God, your will be done. That's, that's really it. And we just have to be content with that, where if we're totally wrong in what we think is going to happen in the future, that's okay, because God's going to make it happen according to his will.

And if we're right, I don't think any of us are 100 % right, but if we're close to right with what we think is going to happen in the future, well,

God will be glorified in that too. And let's just worry about the areas of influence that God has given us, small scale, big scale, whatever that may be, all for his honor and not for our own.

Yeah, excellent. Anyone else want to chime in with that or with a new take on this?

Yeah, I, you know, I think, so we kind of veered off of the two kingdom thing a little,

I think, but so, so many of these issues really can be addressed if we get back to having a biblical worldview.

I think that's a fundamental problem that we've seen this last year. And it, you know, our

Christianity should, we should see the world around us through the lens of scripture, rather than I think what we're seeing and what we have seen is the world, we see the scripture through the lens of the world.

In so many, which is why you get professing Christians who are arguing for abortion.

I had a conversation. Well, if you want to call it that with a lady on Twitter. Last week,

I think it was, which inevitably landed me ended in my getting kicked off of banned from Twitter for a day or something.

But she was a professing believer who made a statement something to the tune of, well,

I just can't believe in a Jesus that wouldn't allow women's choice to abort children.

Now, whatever else is wrong with that statement, because there's a lot wrong with that. Fundamentally, the problem is that the

God she worships isn't the God of the Bible, whatever God she's worshiping isn't

God. Right. And, and you see a lot of that. And so if we get back to pursuing scripture, we've got to know scripture before we can pursue obedience to it.

It eliminates a lot of problems. For instance, it eliminates a lot of the stress and strife that people are dealing with right now.

I don't have any fear about what's going to happen to the US in my lifetime.

Maybe it changes, maybe we get a dictator, maybe we don't. Maybe America fundamentally falls apart and become something different.

I don't have to stress about that because I understand the sovereignty of God. I understand also that I can't support things that are against God's word.

So I cannot vote for, I won't even as R .C. Sproul said, and I love R .C. I hope you guys do too.

He wouldn't even, he said he wouldn't even vote for a dog catcher that supported abortion.

And there's a fundamental truth in that. And that truth being we support the things that are right before God.

And if it's not right before God, we don't support those things. So, you know, I've said this on my podcast,

I've never gotten involved in politics, politics. I never will get involved in politics.

But make no mistake, morality issues in my mind are very different than just saying politics.

And so I think our current climate dictates that a Bible -believing, faithful Christian can no longer support the

Democrat Party because, right, not because they think minimum wage should be $15 an hour.

Personally, I disagree with that, but that's fine. We can disagree on that issue. We can disagree on border control.

What we can't disagree with is on homosexuality, on abortion, on those things.

And because they have made that the platform of their party, now Christians have to say if they're going to be faithful to Scripture, yeah, that's no longer an option for me.

I just can't do it. And I'll tell you this, if in two years, five years, 40 years, you can't tell any difference between the

Republican Party and the Democrat Party. Let's say Republicans say, you know what, we're also going to now platform,

I don't know, homosexuality, abortion, whatever you want to call it. If you vote for us, you're voting for that.

Then guess what? You'll hear me say Christians can no longer vote for either party. Didn't you say earlier,

Nathaniel, that Republicans and Democrats both don't care about abortion because they use it for their own gain?

And Trump also had rallies for LGBTQ people.

He had his pro -homosexuality rallies. Sure. And so I use the term platform specifically to address what you just brought up.

So using the word platform kind of eliminates that. There's a difference.

Trump though, because he individually supports those things openly, right? Sure. So I don't want to get too much into just that debate.

And I would say that believers have the freedom to not vote. And again, that's because my biblical worldview takes me back to a place where scripture does not require that I participate in a voting system.

I think it's responsible. I think it's a good thing to do if you can stay evil. But I don't think you have to.

I think you could abstain from voting and you can still be right before God. I think you could.

I think you could have voted for the Republican Party and not be in sin before God.

I think you could have written someone in and not been in sin before God. I think if you voted for the

Democrat Party, you need to repent because you're in sin before a holy God.

So all that to say is these discussions, I think, are more fruitful if we get people to go back to scripture first rather than because the first thing that happens when we talk about political parties,

Trump or Biden, is instantly this thing wells up inside us and we want to defend our party of choice.

At least that's the typical human response, I think. Whereas really, our response should eventually get to the place where it's, before I respond to that, what does the word of God say about this issue?

Is this something I can support? Is this something I can't support? And just going back to scripture deals with so many of life's issues, how we pursue things, how we respond to things, how we don't respond to things.

I went off on a tangent, sorry. I really liked what you said in the beginning that scripture should inform us instead of interpreting –

I forgot how you said it – but interpreting scripture almost based on our worldview. And it is so important to have a

Christian worldview. And I would actually argue also in our behavior, in the way that we debate these things on Twitter and places like that, there was an apologist that once said, and I quote it all the time, but how does the world see us when we treat one another this way?

And the way that we discuss these things, one reason we do this is so we can disagree on secondary issues and demonstrate that it's able to do with grace and respect.

Which is different than essential things and things that are of first importance like things that Nathaniel mentioned.

But one of the things I've been thinking about – I'm even taking a Twitter break from my main account just because I've just felt kind of so sick at the way that a lot of Christians have behaved through this whole thing.

There was a lot of Christian never -Trumpers, and I'm not going to say a lot about that.

But one of the things that I saw happen with some of them is they were upset at some people who were saying, if you're a

Christian, you have to vote for Trump. They were upset by that. And like Nathaniel said, maybe there's a pro -life third -party candidate, which my husband has said many years, that you vote for.

But what happened, they were upset that they were being mocked for not being Trump supporters, but they kind of turned around and mocked anybody who was.

And you just saw this ugliness, and it was right out there for the whole world to see.

And I think it's important for us to remember as we have these discussions and disagreeing, and I distinguish very strongly between essential doctrines of the

Christian faith and the gospel, which I say is my hill to die on, and some of these secondary issues and how we interact.

And part of that Christian worldview is also being mindful of the things that the Lord has called us to do, like love and joy and peace and patience and these sorts of things.

So I have a question that maybe brings us back on topic.

I know that there were a lot of people who were using the Trump administration as,

I'm guessing it was more of the false prophets people in the charismatic movement that Nathaniel was talking about, where they were really setting

Trump up as being like a prophesied leader. And that's where the prophecies all went wrong when he lost the presidency because they were all saying that he would be reelected and all of that.

And that bothered me. I will come out and say I voted for Trump. I did support him.

But at the same time, I didn't necessarily care for him as an individual, and I didn't think he represented

Christianity very well. I liked a lot of his policies as a political leader, but not necessarily would hold him up as a

Christian leader or want him to be affiliated with the Christian church in any way. But I don't see his presidency as being other than a

God -ordained leadership. I don't see him as being plugged into a

Christian view of the world in any way, by a prophecy or anything else. And so I'm just curious if maybe this one kingdom, two kingdom philosophy is somehow driving this idea that there's a

Christian leader who will somehow lead America or something. Is that part of the theology?

It kind of reminds me of what Nathaniel said earlier as far as the

Seven Mountain aspect of the charismatic movement, which

I found kind of amusing in the sense that they would actually have something in common with Reformed theology in the sense of the post -millennials.

It sounded very similar to what a post -mill position would be, that essentially the Christianizing of, in our case, the

United States. So it would seem like that.

I think also too, Eve, in my own experience of just seeing things,

I think a lot of what we saw coming out of that with Trump and blowing the shofar and all those sorts of things is really tied to Arminianism and, no offense,

Jeremy, but dispensationalism. And I really do mean no offense by that.

How Lindsay ruined it for all of us. Right. Oftentimes there's this, I mean,

I'll give you an example. I talked to somebody last week and they were saying, oh, yeah, you know, and every day

I get my email about prophecy news. And I thought, well, how much prophecy news is there really going on that you're getting a daily email about it, you know?

So I think there's that sort of, that plays into it. So I wanted to give a chance to a couple of the other folks who just joined us.

You know, we've been talking about this one kingdom, two kingdom theology.

And even if you're not familiar with those terms, this whole idea of we know

Christians are in the world, but not of it. But yet we're to be doing things as we can in the world.

So how do Christians react and live and influence in the world? So with that,

I want to have Daniel, why don't you take a minute and introduce yourself and tell us about your podcast.

And if you have any thoughts on this, share them. And then Keith, we'll go to you and have you introduce your podcast and you can share any thoughts you've got.

Well, I'm glad to have gotten in here, if not a little bit late, but my name is

Daniel Minnick. I am the host of the Truthspresso podcast. And in the

Truthspresso podcast, we do a lot of series on different topics. We dealt with a lot of economics topics last year.

During the crazy year of 2020 right now, I'm going through a series asking the question, is

Jesus like, insert superhero here. So going through church history and seeing all the different Christological errors that popped up in roughly the order they popped up and analogizing them to a superhero.

Now, I have recently discovered that I am not original on that. So I will need to give credit to a book that I've discovered that was mentioned recently about Jesus being compared to superheroes.

So as a matter of the two kingdoms theology, I guess as a

Reformed Baptist, I would say that I fall into the two kingdoms camp as opposed to the one kingdom camp.

Although I'm not a theonomist, I'm not a post -millennialist, but I'm also not a dispensationalist.

I'm not an escapist or escapism. I'm more of an endurance as James White talked about recently on the dividing line.

So from an amillennial perspective and one who's more of an optimistic amillennial,

I kind of fall in the middle sometimes between people on one side who kind of look at the signs of the times, let's pack our bags for heaven.

And then on the other side where it's like, okay, we need to get control of the sword.

And I'm kind of more like, look, the kingdom's going to grow, but we need to make the proper distinction between the nature of the kingdom of God on earth, which is the,

I'd say the set of the elect, those who are redeemed.

And that elect will grow as we get to the last day, but also the opposition to the church will grow.

And so as the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that people don't notice it, it starts off small, but then it grows to a big tree.

But I don't think it's like a big tree by conquering the culture from the top down.

It's more like the world will kind of all of a sudden notice the big tree there and wonder how did it get there?

It grows, but in somewhat of a subtle way as Christ conquers his foes, he's reigning till all his enemies are put under his feet.

And that's by growing the kingdom, turning enemies into saints.

And that's probably about it. I might bring up some verses in a little bit that show the distinction there.

That's good. Thank you. Keith, you want to introduce yourself and your podcast?

And do you have any thoughts on Christians and the culture and Two Kingdom Theology?

Yeah, this is Keith Heltsley of Quest for Truth Podcast.

I guess I'm a little bit late. I didn't mean to be. My co -host

Nathan Caldwell couldn't make it tonight, but tomorrow we have an interview scheduled that should be pretty fun.

And then later we have an interview that we're going to do with a certain guy who does superhero comparisons to Jesus, who may be on his call right now.

And we do interviews sometimes. Once a month, we dig deep into the scripture, going through verse by verse and digging into the meanings of what's actually happening there.

We had been doing an audio drama once a month, and we're pretty close to bringing that back.

So look for that soon. But normally, Quest for Truth, we have a look at worldviews, comparing them, we kind of have fun, some casual settings.

When we do bring up scripture, we always are serious about that as we apply lessons from that to worldviews and things.

That's kind of what we do on the podcast. Okay. Now, as far as the topic tonight,

I'm only vaguely familiar with it. So I'm going to be more of a list kind of a mode.

Well, one of the questions or one of the topics we brought up earlier is to even remove the labels, the theological labels of one kingdom, two kingdom, just to talk about Christian influence in the world.

What are your thoughts on that? The way I understand the two kingdom thing is

I did look up the reference from Ligonier. So I get the idea that there's, you know, the physical, earthly, secular kingdom, the spiritual kingdom.

And I would definitely say that if you are a Christian at all, you hopefully better be believing in that spiritual kingdom.

But I would also say that while we're on earth, you know, life is a gift or for a reason to enjoy.

Well, we need to make the best of this worldly kingdom we live in.

We don't have to follow all of the downward paths, as it were.

We should always be looking, you know, for God in our trek through our earthly journey here.

You know, one of the things that I was thinking, good, good, good stuff.

One of the things I was thinking about earlier, I think it was when Eve was talking and maybe a bit of when

Nathaniel was speaking earlier, I was reminded of, you think of how much money, how much time, how much energy has gone from Christian pockets into American politics, going back to the 80s with Jerry Falwell and the moral majority, and pretty much everything that came after that.

And just all the time and the effort, influence, to try to influence this world's kingdom, or this world's, like Colleen brought up at the beginning, what

R. Scott Clark says, the twofold kingdom, you know, the fold of this world, you know, has it been worth it?

I would say that it probably definitely was well intentioned early on, like, you know, mentioned the moral majority and stuff.

But I think ultimately, as a lot of Christians have confused politics for the gospel over time, it seems like, you know,

Christianity, evangelical Christianity has become like, just a sector of a party, a political party.

And then in the process, it seems like a lot of Christians have, you know, they've mortgaged their souls, as I sometimes say, to a political party, and then they lose sight of the purity of the gospel.

Sometimes it's like, the gospel takes a backseat to political agendas.

And then also, as the party gets, you know, further away from truth, you know, the

Christians will compromise the truth to be loyal to the party. And so it's like, it's incumbent on us, although we, you know, we really should be involved in influencing the laws of the land, you know, two by two kingdoms, that doesn't mean we're totally disconnected to from all politics, and that we're just good underlings and servants of Caesar, that's not what this is about.

But, you know, it's, we're not, we don't have to set up Christ's kingdom on earth politically either.

But, you know, we need to understand that there's a distinction between the gospel and the purity of the gospel that we need to be jealous for, and not to mortgage it in favor of, you know, a political agenda, or in particularly a platform or certain people, especially, you know, politicians, that we want to avoid any scrutiny of, you know, we should be, we should remember that we should be able to be critical, even of those whom we consider allies and not put our faith in a man or a woman, and so on.

And, you know, just recognize the source of truth, and it's not a political party or a politician.

Yeah, you know, Anthony, I often have wondered what the church would look like if the energy and commitment that people have had for their political party, if they had that for their local church.

You know, if Christians were as passionate, as faithful, and as willing to serve in their local church, as they have been over their, you know, chosen political party this past year,

I think we could be having a very different conversation. Yeah, you know, in my mind,

I, you know, like I said earlier, I wholeheartedly believe that we fight evil on every front God gives us to fight it on.

I think the most impact we could have is if we planted more biblical churches, if we were faithful, if we redeemed ecclesiology, it's become quite clear this last year that pastors don't understand ecclesiology, people in general,

I think American Christians have no understanding of the purpose and value of the local church, of the church in general.

If we could redeem those things, if people could commit to their local churches, if we focused on planting biblical churches, if we focused on, you know, evangelizing, proclaiming the gospel, a lot of what we're talking about would be affected.

You know, I think about Alaska here, where, you know, healthy biblical churches are hard to find.

Some of it is just, Alaska is a tough state, lots of places you can only get to, you know, by flying in or boat or ski, ski mobile or ski machine,

I think they like to say here. You know, but there are plenty of other churches I see all the time that people are struggling to find healthy biblical churches.

I live in a rather liberal city in Alaska, the general area is conservative politically, but the city we live in is extremely liberal.

And, you know, I just imagine if over the course of 20 years, we could put five, 10 more solidly biblical churches in this town, we would see a difference.

We would see a difference in the schools, we would see a difference in those other areas that, you know, all of us would like to see reflect

God's truth in a better way. And why would we see that? Well, we would see that because we have more

Bible -believing Christians who are seeking to honor God in their workplaces, and they would be the teachers in the community, they would be the lawyers in the community, they would be the city councilmen in the community.

I'm a big fan of putting your nose to the grind and planning solidly biblical churches.

I would rather see every Christian pull their funding from political sources to put into biblical church planning.

I don't mind if people give their money to other things. I'm not saying don't do that. But I think our money is better spent, our time, our resources is better spent building up healthy local churches, giving to, you know, solid biblical, you know, mission organizations.

So that's just kind of my take on that. I did want to just touch on something that Colleen said earlier.

She was talking about how the world sees us respond to each other when we're dealing with a lot of these issues.

Specifically, she was talking about social media. But it was a really good point,

Colleen, and I wanted to just bring up Ephesians 429 because it's exactly what you said. And in fact,

I just want to read that because it's a good reminder for me, you know, dialoguing with each other on social media, dealing with some of these things.

And it says this, And it's just something to keep in mind, a little rabbit hole, but I've been thinking about it since you brought that up.

But yeah, so, you know, I think we affect the world we're in, and we're heaven bound at the same time.

I believe that the best way to bring about those changes that we would like to see in the secular areas are by making more disciples, true disciples, people who will go to their workplace, and they will say,

God, help me honor you in this workplace today, regardless of their position.

And if that's the case, then we're still going to have evil. It's still, I think, you know, my eschatological position, it's going to increase.

But you know what? It'll stay a lot of it, too. Find a community that has a solid, growing, healthy biblical church, and I bet you'll find a community where the hungry are being fed, the poor are being taken care of, where there's a higher respect for the civil laws in the area, because that's what

Christians do, right? They live their life based on their biblical worldview.

So I think that's how we can approach a lot of these issues. I'm just going to say real quick,

I'm glad you brought up that passage. And that's kind of the birth that we, when my kids were young, younger, they're all grown now, we had on like note cards around the house because of the way that they would speak to each other.

And I think that what I taught them would be applicable to social media.

I try to remember it myself, but my kids would say something to the other, and I'd say that was inappropriate.

And they'd say, but it's true. Well, just because it's true does not mean it's wise to say it.

And remembering that passage, that saying, we should speak true, but doing it in a way that's edifying.

And another word I use with my children, is it going to be fruitful? Do it in a way that's going to be fruitful, not just to, you know,

I'm going to get that Twitter guy who's saying something stupid. So, how do we, how do we end this?

Or do we just go with the fact that the kingdom is advancing, and we may stop recording, but we're all agreed that Jesus Christ is

King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and his kingdom is advancing no matter what the politics and what the headlines of any nation may say.

Anyone have any final thoughts? Yeah, if I may,

I would agree with, I guess, Nathan Jolly was just talking a moment ago, that it's very important to be involved in your local community, probably more so than worrying about who's going to be president.

Because, you know, you live here, your dog catcher has more impact on your life than, you know, the general of the army.

You know, who you elect as your local alderman. So, if you're worried about changing the government, start with that.

And if you're worried about changing your community for the best, as mentioned, be active in your church and making disciples, you know, improving the small things around you.

That's a way of growing. Yeah, I definitely agree with what

Keith mentioned, and focusing on the local, on the community, your neighbors, your family, your friends.

And it's kind of like, to get that perspective, I think that's what you call the doctrine of the lesser magistrate that people bring up.

You know, you focus on local matters, it's kind of a bottom -up type of perspective to make change, because you as an individual have more say in a smaller setting to go up from there.

And then also, you know, as Christians, when we're thinking about, you know, these big matters like the president of the

United States or the Congress and stuff, it's like, it really does get me a little bit discouraged when there's so much focus on trying, you know, focus on just electing someone to control 340 or 50 million people and not focusing on, you know, who's setting the ordinances in your community or how you can maybe get your city to be pro -life or, you know, witnessing to people like, in fact,

I just started a new job a few weeks ago because I was let go back in November.

And immediately, my coworker there, he said he's a

Buddhist, and I've been having lots of conversations with him about faith, and sometimes he'll bring up politics, but, you know, it's really interesting, and I'm glad that God put that situation there where I can share my faith boldly and compassionately.

But then also to think, you know, there's just so much power grab, there's so much of a power struggle when people focus so much on the president and the

Congress and stuff, because I think, you know, my neighbor might have different beliefs than I do, but, you know,

I can be friendly with my neighbor, I can talk with my neighbor as a human being. But when we distance ourselves from that type of situation or always thinking politically and always thinking about the big matters of who's in the

White House, possibly thousands of miles away, then it's like we think less human of each other.

And, you know, it's like we think of our neighbor as our enemy if they vote for someone else.

Now we can have strong disagreements about that, but, you know, we as Christians, we need to kind of somewhat depoliticize our thoughts away from White House matters and start to think of our neighbors and our friends as human beings that we could share the faith with and not someone who's an enemy holding the sign for the opposite side.

That's my thought. And we do well to remember the simplicity of our

Lord's commands. We love him, and we love people. So, if you're of the mindset of the cross politic that Wilson camp or the apology camp or whatever and you're looking to create a new culture, a

Christian culture, that's going to take over the world. That's awesome. Just love people while you're doing it.

Right. Don't do it for any other reason than love from a pure conscience and from a sincere faith.

And if you're someone who sees things as being more separate and you don't think the world's going to be

Christianized, don't lose your love for people and your love for God and that and love your neighbor enough to go proclaim the gospel, the good news of what

Jesus has done. It's pretty simple. We like to make things super complicated. So, if we just remember the simple commands of our

Lord, no matter what angle we take on this, God's going to use us. And that's what's most important that he uses us and he brings glory to himself while doing it.

And I think that's really the best way to end this because we started out with this theological construct, this big idea that was big and academic and we went from talking about kingdoms, two kingdoms, one kingdom, two kingdom, and really where we ended up at the end of the conversation is to love

God, love others, and do what we can in the sphere that God has given us.

And that ultimately is really a great way to leave this because at the heart of it, it's not about the kingdoms and the academic discussion and the theology of it.

It really is about how can we best love the Lord and serve others in the brief time that the

Lord gives us here on this earth. So, with that, I want to thank each of my panelists.

I'm grateful for their insights. I hope you have gained something from observing our conversation, listening to it.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to visit us on the Christian Podcast Community.

Check out our podcasts. And these are all the kinds of things that we try to do. We try to put out podcasts that are theologically informative and also edifying to a person's walk.

And so thank you very much to everyone and God bless you and have a great day.