Political Activism - A Christian's Role

All right, enough fun and games. We've got work to do here.

Show Introduction and the Problem of Christian Political Backlash

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, welcome back to another episode of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport. And I am joined by Bud. How you doing, Bud?

I'm great, man. How you doing? I am not your host. I am the man that says yes sir and no sir and provokes you occasionally. Bud, are you feeling like a party?

Hey. I mean, that's what your shirt says. Your shirt says, I like to party. So I'm just curious. You got to read the rest of it. Well, you have to sit up for me and read the rest. I just originally saw, I like to party.

I like to party. And by party, I mean read theology. Okay. That makes more sense.

Amen. Can I get an amen? And maybe an amen women? Yeah. No amen women here.

Oh, okay. Yeah. No, we're not. We're not doing that. That, by the way, has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in Congress. For folks who don't know, maybe, you know, they haven't been paying attention to news.

They're just blind to what goes on around them. I don't know. But there was a, I think he's a, he claims to be a pastor. I think he's actually like a chaplain for Congress. And he prayed and prayed amen and a women thinking that man, you're not supposed to say men.

And so he was saying, man, men and women are not realizing amen is actually a Hebrew word. It kind of like means to believe it's a way of affirmation. It's Hebrew. It's not men.

Like everything is oppression, everything. And it's all genderized and it's all politicized. And.

That was just ridiculous. And that's a little bit what we're going to talk about today. But before we do, you know, but you'll be surprised. I am...

Nothing you do surprises me, frankly. I watched a movie.

A movie? I watched a movie. Yes. It was called run. No, wait. Yeah. Run, hide, fight. Run, hide, fight. Yeah. Run, hide, fight was a movie I saw. It is put out by the Daily Wire. They actually are trying to create conservative media, conservative movies, movies that can compete against Hollywood, but with a conservative type of bent, promoting conservative values.

And I'm going, well, there really wasn't conservative values in there as much as just someone not being selfish. Well, wait, maybe that is conservative nowadays. I'm sorry. But it was a really good movie.

It was a thriller. It kept you, you know, paying attention. It wasn't like typical, you know, conservative type or Christian type movies. This wasn't Christian movie, but, you know, where they're really kind of corny.

So like running and hiding and fighting are conservative values? Does that? Well, OK. Relative to the times. I mean, it may just be subjective.

No, I get it. OK, I figured it out. It's changing from someone that is going from a Democrat to a conservative. First they run and then they hide. Hiding is kind of when they're independence. And then when they're conservative, they stand up and fight.

Well, actually, that's not true because we've had seven months of fighting in every city. So let's talk today about political activism.

Great, because I've got a couple of petitions and some boycotts and a few things I need to get you to sign on to when we're done. I'll send them to you after we're finished. Do I have to share them with 10 friends?

Well, you can. That would be helpful because, you know, the more we get involved in this, the greater impact we can have.

I should really focus all of my time on this, shouldn't I? Like about everything else.

Well, you got to have priorities.

OK, so so here's the thing. I did not expect the. Just the overwhelming abuse I got from what I thought was a pretty simple post on Facebook. I posted that I think it's about time we start praying for the soon to be President Biden.

And I put first Timothy one, sorry, first Timothy two, one to two, which which directly speaks to praying for your leaders, pray for government authorities. And I didn't think I was going to get the backlash that I got.

Wow. I mean, I was for Obama. No, I didn't vote for Obama. No. Did you pray for Obama? Yes. Yeah, sure. I mean, prayed for his salvation. I prayed that Obama would, you know, would lead this country well.

Obviously, God didn't answer the prayer the way I was hoping, but he let Obama continue doing what he did. But but yeah, I prayed for him because that's what scripture says. But the amount of people that were just vehement with me.

And the last I dropped the special bonus episode, just talking about what's going on in our country in the capital and how to view some of these things. And a lot of people like to. But there are people, Bud, that I'm realizing that are so tied to their political views that it really does interfere with.

Seems everything. I mean, they can't seem to be able to work with people. Unless they're going to have this issue, whatever it is resolved with, you know, politically, it's it was very kind of discouraging to see the reaction.

Are you talking about Christians or were you on your atheist page? No, I'm talking about.

Debating with atheists. No, no, this was on my wall.

Yeah. So you would think that you wouldn't get that kind of backlash from professing Christians when we're dealing with a response to a command of scripture.

Christian Political Identity Versus the Gospel

Yeah. You know, and it's interesting because there's a Canadian atheist who's been on my apologetics live show, and he actually appreciated. The tone and tenure of what I had said. He's a huge Biden fan and he just hates everything conservative, but have good reason for it, but does anyway.

So look at the paradox of that. You got an atheist. They probably appreciate the fact that you're going to pray to your God for Biden because they are in line and league with Biden. And you got you got professing Christians who are ready to anathematize you because you dare utter.

Yeah, yeah. You should be obedient to a biblical command.

And people were blocking me. People were I mean, I was told that I worship Satan, that I'm not saved, you know, all because I wanted to say I want to obey God's word. And people were telling the other people going, what about the, you know, preparatory prayers?

We should be doing that. OK, let's look at context. And if we look at the context, you end up seeing that the context of first Timothy two is directly related to our role with our leaders. That's direct.

It's instructional. I look at the literature, so it's teaching us things to do and it's giving instruction to pray for our government leaders. When you look at the Psalms and the preparatory prayers, first off, that you don't have that toward their own leaders.

Those are other pagan nations. So, you know, it's not a direct one to one. People make that mistake. And what it is, is those Psalms are our Psalms against pagan gods, really the pagan nations that are doing things in the name of their God.

And it is not the same as the way we should respond to our own leadership, our own leadership. We should be seeing things as with submission. And I think that's missing in the circles that we have. So what I want to do, Bud, this week is want to go through an article.

You can search for it. Actually, you pointed this out to me. If you just go on to a DuckDuckGo, that's the replacement for Google, the one that doesn't track everything you're doing. But if you go to DuckDuckGo and do a search, and just search Christian political activism.

And this article is like two or three in that list. And it's called Political Activism, A Christian's Role. You can just go to strivingforeternity .org, strivingforeternity .org. And there, you would be able to get the...

From there, you can get the article. You can either just search for political activism. Or if you want to go direct, well, I'll have it in the show notes. If you just go down and read there. But it's strivingforeternity .org, slash, and then it'll be Christian...

Or sorry, it'll be Political Activism, A Christian's Role. And there'll be dashes in between each of those. And so that is something. So I want you to go there. I'll have it there. Before we get into that, let me take care of this, bud.

We got a review. I don't know if I read this review. So, but we got a new review. It is a five-star review. So what do you think about that? We got another five-star review. I wasn't on. Yeah. And if anyone wants to give us a review, we would appreciate that.

It is very kind of you. There's a link in the show notes there to leave a review. But you just go to Love My Podcast. It's called lovemypodcast .com, slash, rap report. Remember, rap has two Ps. So the review we got was from Alan554, five stars.

He says, biblically sound, reasonable faith. As a Christian discerning a new church home in the midst of modernism, takeover of American Christianity, I find these podcasts so useful. They help me discern right doctrine.

They are biblically sound and invite reasonable discussion. This is not emotional-driven pop culture. They really expound gospel truth. So we appreciate that, Alan. That is very kind words that you have for us.

So with that, let's get into this article, bud. I don't want to try to read through a lot of this, just so that people can have it. But we're going to comment on it as well. In the first part of the article, I asked several questions.

So let me read that, and we'll start with that. What should be a Christian's role and responsibility in politics? It has been a question throughout the centuries. In our current political climate, and by the way, folks, when I was writing this, this was 14 years ago, 2006.

And it's gotten so much better since then, right?

Yeah, this has become even more relevant than it was in 2006. So in our current political climate, even more so now, many Christians are more familiar with the Republican Party's message than the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

But that one line has gotten me in more trouble. Every four years, this article becomes a hot button. But that one line has gotten me in more trouble. More people get upset with me because I say, many Christians are more familiar with the Republican Party's message than the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Oh, wow.

Oh, I believe that. I mean, you've got a vibrant flavor of American, and I use scare quotes, American Christianity that has, you know, old glory draped across the cross of Christ. And the Republican Party is the foremost representative of those values.

Yeah, this is really the heartbeat of what we're going to talk about here, is there is an issue, I think, as we look at this, where this is a thing that I see within Christianity, where it is, what are you trusting?

Are you trusting in God? Or are you trusting in government? I find it so interesting that conservatives who support the Republican Party, who want to push for the whole thing of, we need to be having small government.

And yet, so many of these Christians are trusting that government is going to solve problems when government is the problem. How are they going to solve a problem when they're the cause?

Any, any government is the problem. It doesn't matter if you go back to the government of the glorious 50s. It doesn't matter.

Oh, well, I'm sorry, but I'm not old enough to remember the 50s.

Oh, well, neither am I, sir. But you seem to get this sort of flavor. Everybody wants to go back to the good old days. Wait a minute, none of them were good.

There were no good old days. You know, and that's a problem. But here's the thing. Let me go through some of these questions that I asked in this article. And because these are things that we're still dealing with today.

And I think that we want to try to answer on this show. So some of the questions that I end up saying here, I said, many in the political world see Christianity much like other lobbyist groups. And that's really an issue for me.

Because what I see there is that to the politics, they just see Christians as a political group that needs to be defeated and the largest supporting group of the Republican Party. So when they want to go after the Republican Party, who are they going to go after?

Christians. Take out the Christians, the Republican Party doesn't get reelected. I believe that's what we're coming to see. We're going to be seeing that very shortly. So here's the questions that I ask.

Is there a difference between activism of Christian in politics and a homosexual? Is it the responsibility of the Christian to be involved in politics? And if so, at what levels? Should Christians be actively trying to change laws to create a more moral society?

Unfortunately, we noticed that there's many Christian leaders that have used their pulpits and their microphones to promote a message of conservative Christianity over that of Jesus Christ. Is it biblical for leaders to do so?

Should Christians support such ministries? In America, all citizens have an obligation to vote and we should honor that right. However, how much further should Christians go to get their message out? What would that message be?

In the past few decades, these lines have been blurred. I think it is time for us as Christians to kind of do a re-examination of our role and responsibility in political activism. And for that reason, we want to look at what the scriptures teach about government.

Living a Christian life in an ungodly society is never going to be easy. And I believe that in our culture, I believe in America right now in 2021, this is going to be even more so. The things that I was concerned with 14, 15 years ago when I wrote the article, I think I see it even more today.

It's more of an issue today. People have become so emotional about these issues. I know that this won't be popular, bud, but I know that so many people want to say that what happened at the Capitol was all a bunch of antifa and they completely slipped it in and they did a false flag type of scenario.

False flag is when basically people come in and pretend to be a group, but they actually will go out and try to make the group look bad. Was there some of that? Yeah, we know that. They just arrested a guy who was an agitator for Black Lives Matter for their protest.

So we know that at least one, but it wasn't all. That's the thing that I think people have to recognize. This wasn't something that was, they're all like this. There were a bunch of people that are so emotionally charged that when some agitators started moving forward, when they could get into that, they did do some damage.

Let's be honest. Who is it that, but you see some of the video and they're just walking around taking photos. That's nothing that you see at a BLM rally. I mean, I don't think I saw people at BLM taking photos with the statues before tearing them down.

But wait a minute. Andrew, they were torching cities and marching in the streets and damaging public property and injuring and much worse and all of those kinds of riots. They got to do it.

What's wrong with us doing it? We're conservatives. We have a right to do that. You have to realize that that never happened. This is the first riot. It's also the first time anyone entered the Capitol under protest.

What happened with Kavanaugh just within a few years ago, that didn't really happen. You have to understand that. Um, but, but here's the thing that you end up seeing. You do have to acknowledge that we had seven months of riots that led up to this.

And we're told that this is the proper way to get your voice heard. I disagreed with it with BLM. I disagreed with it with the Capitol. And it really was in this case, a mostly peaceful protest. Why do we say that?

Because when you look at the sheer numbers of people who are there, hundreds of thousands, and there were only less than a hundred in the building. Yeah, that's a mostly peaceful protest percentage wise.

You know, it's one, one thousand. Now, did we have the same level of peace or peaceful protesting with BLM? I don't think so. I mean, you know, it just, it's not the same. You can't hold it to that same standard.

Um, so I think that we have to acknowledge that there is, um, there, there is some things that we have to see to deal with. So, so what I want to start with, though, but is let's, as for Christians, why don't we start from the early church and set the stage?

Because the scripture was written in a time where there's a historical setting to it. And I think as before we get into some of these passages, we need to understand the early church and understand what they were going through to see when we look at these passages of scripture and the response that the writers of scripture have, what's the context in which they're giving?

That sounds like a fair thing to do, don't you think? Yeah, I think that's fair. Kind of one of the roles of interpretation, right? So looking at the early church, we have to understand that the Roman government was not very considerate toward Christians.

I mean, initially. Ultimately, right. Yeah, I mean, initially they saw, they just saw Christianity as a sect of Judaism. It was just part of the Jewish religion. They didn't see it as separate. But after that separation, there became issues with Nero, where Nero, you know, thought he was this great artist.

Maybe his mother should have let him get into art and be a failure in art rather than emperor. Because, you know, like, well, I guess he was actually a failure in both. But part of the problem is when you're emperor and you pay for everyone to do art, you know, to do a play, and they're all going to tell you it's the best.

Because they die if they tell you, if they criticize it. So, you know, he had an inflated view that he was this great artist. And from what I understand, he wasn't that good either at that. But Nero ended up creating a lot of tension for Christians.

He started to persecute them, even lighting them on fire for his parties.

But what was the impetus for his persecution of Christians? Why did he finally decide to do that after having a precedent of Rome sort of tolerating it as a Jewish sect? What set him over the edge?

What set him over the edge was he burned the city down because he wanted to rebuild it. Yeah, right. He wanted, and also he thought everyone would be praising him for his great works of art and what he was planning, the great things he planned for the city.

But he didn't think about the fact that this was their home. And they didn't quite like having their homes burned and their businesses burned. And, you know, just like today, people don't like their cities being burned.

And again, I guess this is kind of, we see a similarity here. Congress didn't mind, it seems, when the cities were burning because they didn't live there. But when people came in the capital, then they got upset.

Well, OK, it was a feigned, you know, attempt to being upset then. But Nero was the same way. Nero didn't mind the city burning, but he needed he didn't like it when people blamed him for it. So he needed someone to blame.

And the Christians became the scapegoat. Exactly like today, when Pelosi is saying that this breaking into capitals for because of whiteness and white evangelicalism, that's the blame. So we see some actually more similarities than we might know.

But he just, you know, that's where there started to be pressure. And we have to understand that pressure. OK, because Rome ended up outlawing Christianity, making it illegal. And during the first few centuries, there was great persecution with the Roman Empire.

The actions of the early Christians provide today's Christians with an example of a biblical model. So during that early church, the Christians, they practiced their religious worship of God. But the Roman authorities would discover them.

It would mean death, torture or being fed to the lions in arenas. So although the consequences were extremely severe, more severe than we have in our day and age, but I think those days may be coming.

Many Christians think death rather than disobedience to God. Some Christians almost looked forward to suffering as a badge of honor to suffer for Christ. In fact, in the first couple centuries, there was a thought that there was a gift of martyrdom.

People thought that they were given a spiritual gift to be a martyr. So though that's not for everybody, but there were some that viewed things that way. Even when government would come looking for Christians, they were willing to suffer the consequences for their obedience to God.

They did not use their energy and resources to change political views for Christianity. They focused on the gospel. And this is the thing that I think is missing for many today. We're so fixated on trying to address issues that we're skipping the real issue.

And we have people that want to see the government change rather than see the gospel change the government. So, you know, the writing of the New Testament, we have to remember this is under this pagan, hostile, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian Roman government.

And many assume that Christians were nothing more than that same Jewish sect. But as they separated, it came under even more persecution. And so believers became the objects of slander, malicious rumors, due to not only their close association with Judaism, but also because of their own views that people misunderstood.

Okay, so the authorities accused the Christians of insurrection against Rome. That sounds familiar. Sounds exactly like we're hearing today. There were, and you got to understand this, but the Christians of the first century were accused of being atheists.

And that seems strange to some. So let me explain why. They refused to worship all of the pagan gods, the multitudes of pagan gods. And for that reason, they were called atheists because they didn't accept all of the gods.

They've only believed in one. They were accused of being cannibals because of a distortment of the communion, thinking they're actually eating the body and blood of Christ. They were accused of being immoral and incestuous because they referred to one another as brothers and sisters.

So they thought that those relationships were more sexual and encouraging actual incest. They were damaging and destroying the idol trade of their day, and that brought them under accusation. They were accused of destroying family life by introducing Christ into the life of some family member.

So someone gets saved in a family and all of a sudden there's division in family. These are some of the things we end up seeing. They were accused of hating people because they wouldn't adopt the world's ways.

We see that as well today. We see people that attack Christianity because, why don't you, you don't love, you hate people because they're homosexual. No, I'm not hating them. I just say that it's a sin, and that's a loving thing to do, to warn them.

So therefore, when we look at the commands that we're going to look at in Scripture, we have to understand that these are things that are being written under a hostile government to Christianity. So there are some clear Scripture that we could look at as believers' roles toward our government and how active we should be.

The Scripture provides clear examples of those who live these out. In fact, if you look at the first six chapters of Daniel, we see that Daniel, Hanaiah, Mishael, and Azariah, by the way, that's their names.

I don't know why everyone memorizes their Babylonian names, their Hebrew names. It must be easier for people to say, but they provide for us an example of how to respond. You know, when you think about it, Daniel didn't sit there and, oh, you have to eat this food.

I can't eat the food. Let me protest. Let me try to create a group of people to get up together and fight it.

Well, there were a lot of Jews there. He could have had a petition going around, just because Scripture doesn't tell us.

That's true, but what it does tell us is he went to those in charge, and when they said no, he didn't give up. He went to his boss. So it's like, okay, the guy above me says no. I'll go to his boss and see if he'll say yes.

Oh, he says yes, good. And he kept trying to work with the government to get the government to show some tolerance toward what God had given him as a law. And you even see it with Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah when they were told they're going and they were going to be treated differently.

They had to bow down or they're thrown into a pit. And they said, okay, we'll go to the pit. You know, earnest fire pit. Yeah. I mean, they were willing to suffer loss for the sake of doing what's right by God.

Look, I'm not saying that I will be thrilled if this country goes to socialism and they start persecuting Christians. I'm not looking forward to that. But if that's God's will, am I going to fight that?

I don't think we should. I mean, if that's God's will, that's God's will. We want to submit to God. The issue I think we have is we really need as Christians to see what God has to say on this. But let's start with a passage, Jeremiah 29.

This is before this passage became everyone's life verse. So this may put context for what verse 11 is actually talking about. So could you read Jeremiah 29 4 -14 for us? 4 -14, yes.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who are carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and dwell in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit.

Take wives and beget sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands so that they may bear sons and daughters, that you may be increased there and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it.

For in its peace, you will have peace. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you nor listen to your dreams, which you cause to be dreamed.

For they prophesy falsely to you in my name. I have not sent them, says the Lord. For thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place.

For I know the thoughts that I have toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive.

And so when we look at the context here, many people know Jeremiah 29 11 and don't look at the context, but the context God is pronouncing a punishment on Israel. This is a judgment. It's going to be a 70 year judgment.

They were going to be into captivity. And what does he say? God explains that they are to quote, seek the peace of the city, unquote. Wow, you're not supposed to rebel. You're not supposed to try to change it.

You're not supposed to say, you know, Babylon, we don't like your laws. We're going to fight. That's not what it says. Do we pick up arms and fight against them? This is a very unpopular thinking for many because they want to keep capitalism.

And we see that it's the world wants to push this country to socialism. But this is no different than what Israel had to go through. And what does God say? He doesn't say fight them. He says, I'm going to put you into this captivity for 70 years.

Being captive under a pagan nation's rule was God's will. And to fight that would have been sin. Just let that sink in. That God's will was for them to submit. So being captive under a pagan nation's rule is God's will to fight.

It would be sin. Think about that. God promised that they would return to Israel. That's the promise everyone uses in verse 11, right? That was for Israel. What is more important to God? Obedience or politics?

Do we want a more moral nation or a godly nation? Clearly, God desires obedience and has to remind his children that he is sovereign. God uses government to fulfill his plans. Therefore, people should not rebel against governments because it would be rebelling against God's will.

That's hard for some people. That's hard for some to take. I understand. They made no attempt to try to change the culture through political means, but to be an example of godly living, such as Daniel.

Daniel was an example to the leaders around him, to such that they recognized the God of Daniel. But would they have recognized that if he was trying to make a political party and fight the system? In fact, one of the things with Daniel that's kind of interesting, when Babylon fell and the Medo-Persians came in, the thing that typically would happen is you kill off all of the leaders of the previous government.

They didn't do that with Daniel. They did it with all the others. In fact, Daniel remained in a position of power in the new government. Why? Because he fought the Babylonians so hard? No, because even under the Babylonian rule, he stood out as an example.

But why don't we look at Proverbs 24? Mind reading Proverbs 24, 21, and 22?

Proverbs 24, 21, and 22. My son, fear the Lord and the king. Do not associate with those given to change, for their calamity will rise suddenly. And who knows the ruin those two can bring?

As the wisest man that ever lived at that time said, Solomon provides some instruction, or supplies not only instruction, but reasoning. The first is to fear the Lord and then the king. Well, there's a priority there, isn't there?

So we fear the Lord and the king, the Lord first, because if we fear the king and then the Lord, who's really going to be the one we're obeying? The king. So we might put the Lord in second place. No, it's the Lord and then the king.

So that's one thing that we end up seeing here in this. The power of these two verses is the reasoning he gives though, who to associate with. The Lord is unchanging throughout time. Therefore, he's unmoved.

There's plenty of, we had Obama, then we had Trump. Then now it looks like we're going to have Biden. This is the reality. There's always going to be a next calamity, a next king. Do not associate with those given to what?

Change. Hey, wait, wait. Wasn't that someone's political thing? Like a motto. Yeah. Change is not always good. You can hope and change, but if you're just hoping for, I guess the hope that things will change for the better.

The reality though, is we don't want to associate with those who change. We have to be careful with that. We end up having to recognize that though we see that wave of change, and that's really what we see going on in our country right now is on both sides.

Everyone wants change. The Lord says, do not associate with those given over to change, for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin that they could bring.

Well, and that speaks to the doctrine of sovereignty. It speaks particularly to the doctrine of God's immutability. He does not change. Therefore, for the Christian, what do we have? We have the book from which we've just been reading.

We have his unchanging word. So that gives us stability regardless of these fluctuating empires that we may or may not live under and whether we go through what apparently we may be going through right now.

God's word is constant because God is constant, and we have hope in that, and we have stability and perseverance in that.

Submission to Government in 1 Timothy 2, Titus 3, and 1 Peter 2

Yeah, and this is what's so lacking for people. I mean, let's get to 1 Timothy 2, 1 to 3, because this is the one that I quoted and I referred to and got so many people upset with me. But what is it Scripture tells us to do?

I think it's kind of clear.

Can you read 1 Timothy 2? Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.

So let's put this in context. This is Paul when he's in prison, when the persecution is happening. He is speaking, when he says of King, of Nero. Yes. So let us have some context here because Biden is bad, but he's not as bad as Nero was.

And what is it that Paul says that we need to do? He says here that we are to pray, pray for kings. It's like we're to pray for kings, including Nero? Yes, that's exactly what he's saying.

You might say Nero was God's man for the hour. Yeah.

You know, he provides not just one. He doesn't just say pray. He gives four different things to pray, or four different ways to pray. You know, supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks.

He's emphasizing it. You know, let's look at Titus 3, 1, and 2. Do you have anything you want to say on that?

No. You know, it's that paradox of biblical truth that we're given. When he says give thanks, now do you think Paul in prison is giving thanks for Nero? How could you do that? Well, you could do that because when you go back a couple more chapters and go to James, count it all joy, brethren.