My Life and Books (20) Government of God

My book called Government of God explains the perfect system of government that God gave through Moses when he was leading the children of Israel into the promised land. This alternative system of justice, welfare and defence relies on Free Authority. It does not need the coercion and force of Imposed Authority. The book describes how God’s people can prepare for the collapse of human government by applying these principles within Kingdom Communities.

A neighbourhood church becomes a Kingdom Community by providing everyone living in their neighbourhood with the services that governments promise, but fail to deliver. They will provide social support, justice and protection for everyone in their neighbourhood, regardless of whether they have chosen to follow Jesus. When people submit to the wisdom of the elders of a Kingdom Community to obtain these benefits, they are part of the Kingdom of God even though they have not chosen to follow Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is the goal of everything, but there are no kingdoms left on earth, so the word “kingdom” is not very helpful to modern people. The best way to understand the nature of a kingdom is to think of it as a “government”, so I often refer to it as the “Government of God” to make its role and nature clear. This explains the title of this book.

Government of God describes the important insights into political theory that I received as I studied the scriptures and pondered the problems faced by modern political systems. I realise that most people do not get the significance of these insights because they still have strong faith in political power. They believe that the situation in society and the economy will improve if only the right person (or the right political party) is elected to power. Unfortunately, history shows that this is a false hope.

I am patient. The time is getting closer when human trust in political power will be severely shaken. When that happens, people will begin searching for a form of government that does not rely on human wisdom and power. They will then be ready for the insights that I have shared.

More at Government of God.

My Life and Books (19) Voluntary Justice

A really important discovery was that the system of justice established by God in the Torah is voluntary. The judges raised up to apply the law do not have a police force to enforce their decisions. All the judges can do is hear the case brought before them. They cannot force people to appear before the court. All they can do is hear the testimonies of the people who came before them and announce their verdict. They will specify the amount of restitution that should be made if a crime has occurred, but they have no power to enforce their decisions.

In a voluntary community, the only constraint on behaviour will be peer pressure from within the community. When a judge declares a person guilty, the elders of the community should help the person make restitution (they might even lend them the money). They should do what they can to help the person change their behaviour and live at peace with their neighbours.

If the guilty person rejects the judge’s verdict, they are also resisting the wisdom of the people who are trusted by the rest of the people living in the community. They are undermining people who have loved and served them. Their relationship with the community that had sustained them would be dead.

The person rejecting a judge’s verdict would be left out of all community activities (Deut 17:12). They will lose all the benefits that come from participating in its activities, including financial support and spiritual protection. Protection from evil (physical and spiritual) comes from belonging to a community. The price of this protection is submission to the justice imposed by the community.

The person who rejects the verdict of the judge respected in their community is rejecting the authority of its elders. This withdrawal of respect eliminates the elder’s authority to provide spiritual protection for them. Spiritual protection comes through submission to elders who stand together against enemy attacks. When a person rejects the authority of their elders, their protection evaporates (1 Cor 5:5,13).

People who refuse to comply with the justice imposed by judges recognised within their community will lose physical and spiritual protection. This might have more serious long-term consequences than the penalty they are attempting to escape, as those who refuse to submit to judges make themselves vulnerable to evil.

If a person persists in doing evil, they become a threat to the peace and security of the community. The leaders might need to exclude them from the community to prevent further harm.

More at Voluntary Justice.

My Life and Books (18) Powers that Be

After many years pondering the meaning of Romans 13:1, I discovered that Paul was actually affirming the system of excellent judges interpreting the law of God established in the Torah.

Every person should submit to the more excellent judges, because the ones that exist have been established by God (Rom 13:1).

When explaining which authorities are from God, Paul constructs a strange sentence that uses the verb “to be” twice. Translated literally, the verse means “the authorities that are, are from God.” This is odd. Paul was saying that “the authorities that are” or “the authorities that be” are from God. This strange expression, “the authorities that be” refers back to where the book of Deuteronomy says that refers to “the judges that are”.

You shall come unto the judge that shall be in those days: and you shalt inquire; and they shall show you the sentence of judgment (Deut 17:9).

A literal translation is “the judges that shall be in those days” or “the judges that are in those days”. Paul would have been familiar with these texts. When he started thinking about justice, the Holy Spirit brought this expression to his mind.

The Torah introduced a unique system of justice: God’s law applied by local judges. Paul is simply referring back to this verse and confirming that God’s will has not changed. He confirmed that the judges who have emerged in a free society are arranged by him.

More at Understanding Romans 13.

My Life and Books (17) Two Standards

An important discovery for me was that God has different standards for citizens of the Kingdom and the people of the world living close to a Kingdom Community.

• Citizens of a Kingdom Community have freely submitted to Jesus by listening to the Holy Spirit and obeying his word.

• Residents of a Kingdom Community live within the same neighbourhood, but they have not accepted the gospel or chosen to follow Jesus. They may want to receive the blessings that flow from participation in the Kingdom Community, but they are not full citizens because they have chosen not to surrender to Jesus.

Citizens will support the work of the Spirit by loving and sharing with the residents of their neighbourhood. They will provide justice, support and protection for anyone with a need, free of charge and control.

• Citizens of the Kingdom will be expected to live by the gospel standards, because they have received the Spirit. Their law is Jesus’ new commandment.

  Love one another, as I have loved you.

  Turn the other cheek.

  Give to those who ask for help.

  This type of behaviour should be normal for Christians, but it will not be expected from those who have not chosen to follow Jesus.

• Residents within a Kingdom Community who have not chosen to follow Jesus will be expected to live according to God’s Laws for Society.

  No stealing or theft.

  No assault or murder.

  If they want the benefits of living in a Kingdom Community, they will have to accept God’s law. (The same law will apply to citizens who have fallen away from their faith.) They will often benefit from Christian love, but they will not be expected to live by Christian standards.

The leaders of the community will say to the people living among them something like this.

We do not expect you to live according to the standards of Jesus, but you will recognise the need for good law. We are offering you the best set of laws possible. We will apply them if you are willing to accept them. That is all that you need to do to have a part in this community.

That is an offer that would be hard to refuse, as this standard will not be too hard for most people.

The laws for society in the Torah were designed to be rolled out to the world (but Israel failed to demonstrate their efficacious. These laws were God’s perfect standard for the people of the world and for the children of Israel before they received the fullness of the Spirit at Pentecost.

The Sermon on the Mount is God’s perfect standard for people who have chosen to follow Jesus and receive the fulness of the Holy Spirit. This standard is only for the church, not for the world.

• The Torah is God’s standard for justice.

• The Sermon on the Mount is God’s standard for love. It does not replace the laws for society but enables them to be fully fulfilled.

My Life and Books (16) Judicial Branch Only

I came to understand that in a free society, people will be free to choose a judge to decide their case . They will choose judges whose wisdom and skill are recognised by other people that they know. If people have the freedom to choose their judges, they will always go to people that they trust. In a community of trust, people can talk to someone who knows about the record of the judge. Wise judges will be trusted because they have a good reputation in their community.

Judges do not need to be appointed. They will emerge as wise people in their local communities. They will become judges when people start going to them for guidance in dealing with difficult situations. The title judge will be recognition of what they are already doing. Judges who make good decisions will get more cases to decide. Those who make bad decisions will get fewer cases. Those who make good decisions would become widely known in society.

As a person’s reputation for wise judging spreads, people will start referring to them as a judge. The title does not change a wise person into a judge. It is just a recognition of what they are already doing. The reality is that a judge will only be as successful as their last few cases. If they start making bad decisions, people will stop bringing them cases, and they will cease being a judge.

A judge has no permanent authority. Their authority is limited and temporary, because it is gained through voluntary submission. When people take a dispute to a judge, they delegate authority to the judge. This authority of a judge is limited to the situation that is submitted to them. The judge has no authority over any other aspect of their litigant’s lives. The judge’s authority is temporary. It ends when the case has been decided and any required restitution paid. When the case that has been submitted to the judge is complete, the authority that has been delegated is gone.

The people in a community will influence the choice of judge by supporting the implementation of a judge’s decision. If they undermine the decisions of a particular judge, by supporting a person who refuses to make restitution, people with disputes will avoid that judge.

The process is described in Raising Judges.

My Life and Books (15) No Executive

A big shock was realising that there is no Executive branch of government in the Torah. There was no one appointed to implement government programs. There was no bureaucracy to carry out political programs.

One reason why there is no Executive is that there is no compulsory taxation in the Torah. All giving to the community was voluntary. There was an expectation that people would be generous to the poor and needy, but there was no agency with the authority to enforce that.

This means that one of the three standard branches of government described in most political theologies, the Executive Branch, are missing from God’s system of government. The executive branch can only function with money. If there is no compulsory taxation, the executive branch loses its power.

An important step was realising that God does not want kings. He allowed Samuel to appoint a king for Israel, but he was very clear that they were copying the surrounding nations, not doing something that God commanded (1 Samuel 8). Samuel warned that the king would harm the nation and the people would suffer.

I discovered that Moses’ role, apart from being a prophet, was to be a temporary military leader. When the nation was attacked, and the people gathered to defend it, they would agree on a person to lead them. That was a temporary role. When the enemy was defeated, the military leader would go back to their home and become an ordinary person.

Kings are really permanent military leaders. They tend to become dangerous because they are tainted by war, but gain lots of power. No human king is good.

My Life and Books (14) Identifying Universal Laws

Another big surprise was discovering that the Torah has two universal laws. Discovering this key was a huge step forward. A problem with studying the Torah is that it is full of a lot of different stuff mixed up together: history, laws, sacrifices, tabernacle design, covenants, infection control, genealogies, and rules for the priesthood. We need a principle to identify the laws that judges are required to enforce in every society.

After looking for a long time without success, I found the key I have been looking for. That key is a phrase in the book of Exodus. Whereas most laws in Exodus are addressed to Israel, I noticed that a section of laws in the middle of the book seems to be addressed to a universal man. They all begin with the expression, “If a man” (kiy ish). These laws are not addressed to Israel, but to all people. This set of universal laws begins at Exodus 21:12 and ends at Exodus 22:17.

This section of law also stands out as being different, because it is expressed in the third person. Most of the other laws in Exodus are expressed in the second person, ie you shall not steal, you shall not murder. Moses used “you” because he was addressing Israel and announcing laws for his listeners and their descendants. The Ten Commandments are all written in the second person, as they were spoken to Israel. The laws beginning at Exodus 21:12 are written in the third person, ie if he does something, he shall receive this penalty.

The third person is used when referring to someone who is not part of the conversation. It points to a third person, who is not the speaker (I) and not the listener (you). Moses used the third person here because this section of laws is for all people and not just for those who participate in the covenant made on Mount Sinai. The third factor that distinguishes the section of laws between Exodus 21:12 and Exodus 22:17 is that the subject of the verb is always “a man” or “men”. There is no definite article, so the reference is not to a particular man, but to any man. These seem to be laws for all men or “everyman”.

The use of the third person and “man” or “men” as the subject of the command marks off a set of laws that apply to all people in all societies everywhere. These laws are not just for Israel. The penalties for failure to comply with these laws are specified in a timeless way. I refer to them as the Laws for Society, as God intends them to be applied by judges in every society and culture.

The Laws for Society cover two areas of life.

• personal injury.
• protection of property.

Biblical justice is limited to:

• Physical injury to a human person.
• Theft or damage to property.

These two types of offence are the only ones specified in the Judicial Laws of Moses. There is nothing else. This makes God’s Judicial Law very simple and easy for everyone to understand. It means that we do not need a Congress or Parliament to turn out hundreds of new laws every year. We do not need law books with hundreds of pages of detailed legislation. All we need is wise judges, who can decide in any situation whether a victim was harmed by assault or if their property was harmed or stolen.

My Life and Books (13) God’s Law is Enough

God created humans and all the world, so he knows and understands us perfectly. This puts him in the best place to design laws that work effectively.

For the LORD is our judge,
The LORD is our lawgiver,
The LORD is our king;
It is he who will save us (Isaiah 33:22).

God has infinite wisdom, so his laws will be perfect for us.

Paul understood that the law is a tool for dealing with people who disrupt the peace of society. This is a crucial verse.

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers (1 Tim 1:7-9).

The law is used properly when it is used to restrain the evil that harms society. The law is not for the righteous. It is not for Christians. We must understand that the law is for thieves, murderers, adulterers and perjurers who would disrupt the peace and harmony of society. The righteousness of Jesus cannot deal with these people while they are hostile to him. Until they are transformed by the love of Jesus, laws restrain their evil and prevent them from harming other people.

God’s law provides a way of restraining the harm that is caused by people who are willing to harm others. His law is the best for every human society. What could be better for the functioning of society than a set of laws that are holy, just and good (Rom 7:12)? Any other laws will be suboptimal. They will be partly unjust and not always good. Why would any society want to have suboptimal laws? God’s law is the best because he is God.

God’s law is good. He is just and good, so his law is the best basis for a harmonious society. This was an amazing discovery. I was surprised to discover that God has provided the law that every society needs.

Purpose of Law
Going into the land, the people of Israel needed to know how to live together in close proximity with each other. They did not need guidance for living while they were slaves in Egypt because Pharaoh’s taskmasters controlled every aspect of life. The situation would be different once they had a land of their own, with no emperor to control them. Several things should be noted about the guidance that God gave them.

• An executive branch was not established in the Law. This means that there was no one to enforce the laws. Obedience to the law was fully voluntary.

• No legislative assembly was established in the Torah. God provided the laws that his people needed. His laws are better than human laws. He has given us his laws, so we do not need a legislative assembly to create human laws.

• Judges emerged from amongst the people. They were not appointed. They emerged as the people took their cases to the wise people in their midst. Those who did well were eventually recognised as judges.

• Crime - the main problems would be theft and violence. The law provided restitution and exclusion as tools for dealing with these crimes.

• Economic/social issues – God gave Guidance for Economic Life. These guidelines were voluntary. No one had authority to enforce them. They would be fulfilled as an outcome of love.

• Defence – military leaders were temporary, and participation in defence was voluntary.

My Life and Books (12) Branches of Government

From my study of political science, I had always known that in most modern systems have three branches of government.

1. Legislative Branch that makes laws.(Congress in the United States and Parliament in the UK).

2. Executive Branch that implements government policy (The President in the United States and Prime Minister and cabinet in the UK. It includes the bureaucracy managed and utilised by the president or prime minister to implement their policies of the government.

3. Judicial Branch that decides guilt and the meaning of the law (a system of judges and courts with a supreme court at the top in both the United States and the UK).

Most systems of government have some form of these three branches. In the days of kings and empires, the king or emperor would dominate the legislative and judicial branches. In the modern world, the executive has become the most powerful branch of government.

A big surprise when I studied the Torah was that two of the three branches of government were missing. This puzzle took some working through, as I had just assumed that God’s solution would need all three branches. Accepting that two branches were unnecessary was a big hurdle to get over, but eventually, it made sense.

No Legislative Branch
Therefore, an important insight is that no parliament or congress in the Torah. This dramatically changes political theology, although the reason is obvious once I thought about it. God does not want parliaments writing laws, even if the parliamentarians are believers trying to seek his will. Law is such an important issue that God decided to cut out the middleman. When Israel was becoming a nation in the new land, they needed a set of laws so they could live together in peace.

God revealed his Laws for Society directly to his people through Moses. He spoke to Moses on the mountain, and he wrote down God’s laws. God is perfectly wise, so the laws that he gives will be the best possible laws that could exist. Because we have his laws, we do not need any other laws. We do not need a parliament or congress to make up new laws.

The laws were applied by local judges who emerged within their communities. They were not appointed by someone from outside. Their wisdom was recognised in their community, so people would ask them to apply God’s law to their disagreement.

The judging processes were voluntary. Judges could not enforce their decisions. There was no process for that in the Torah. People would accept a judge’s decision because they accepted their wisdom. If they rejected the judge’s verdict, the judge could not make them comply with it.

My Life and Books (11) Torah

My next big challenge was that I needed to change my attitude to the Torah. I had read it at least once a year but was quite ambivalent about it because I assumed that Jesus had made it redundant. Once I realised that this is not the case, I needed to change my thinking.

One day, when I was reading Psalm 119, the penny dropped. I always assumed that it applied to the entire scripture, but I was shocked to realise it was a Psalm in honour of God’s law.

Oh, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands are always with me
and make me wiser than my enemies.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path
so that I might obey your word.
I have not departed from your laws,
for you yourself have taught me (Psalm 119:57-102).

These verses stunned me. I wanted to be wise in the political space. This Psalm explained that I would only get wisdom if I loved God’s law.

I resolved that I would love God’s law. I understand that love is not just a feeling, but a decision, so I decided I would love God’s law and look for the good in it. I put all the laws into a spreadsheet so that I could sort them by topic and theme to see how they fit together and when they applied.

I decided that I would seek the insights it contains. I believe that everything that had been put in the Torah by the Holy Spirit for a purpose. If I found something I did not like, I would ask the Holy Spirit to show me what he was saying when he put the passage in the Torah. Over time, I began to understand God’s law in a totally different way. Loving it became natural. More important, the Holy Spirit gave me some amazing new insights.

For me, renouncing political power had seemed like a backward step because I had assumed that political power would be essential for bringing in the Kingdom of God. At first, I was quite depressed about the situation. It seemed like the Kingdom of God was an impossible dream in this season as it would be impossible for God to bring in his kingdom without relying on political power and military force.

However, when I studied the Torah seriously, I discovered that God had already given Moses a system of government that does not rely on force and coercion. The system instituted through him had no executive power and no compulsory taxation. There was no capability provided for enforcing the decisions. There was no permanent military force that could support government power. The entire system was voluntary. It is radically different from every modern political system, so it took me some time to understand how it works.

My Life and Books (10) Missing Political Theology

One of the most important truths I discovered was that the New Testament does not contain a political theology. There are a few relevant verses, but they only hint at what God wants. Jesus made some political statements, but the gospels do not contain a well-developed political theory. The good news is that Jesus is the king is a political message, and the gospels explain that his kingdom will be totally different (no coercion), but they don’t describe how it will be structured. For someone who is interested in political theory and government, this is a problem.

People looking for a well-developed Christian political theory will not get much from the New Testament epistles. Romans 13 does not help much on its own, as it has been used to justify political dictators like Adolf Hitler. Going back to the Old Testament prophets does not give much more. The prophets critiqued kings and rulers, but they did lay out their ideal form of government.

Christians who are looking for a well-developed political theory and system of government will have to go back to the Torah to find it. It took me twenty years of study before the penny dropped, but one day, I woke up and realised that God had given his chosen people a system of laws and government when they entered the promised land. This was God’s system of government, so it must be the best that is possible. We don’t need to develop a modern system of government because God has already given us his ideal system of government.

This truth is a huge stumbling block for most Christians, who believe that the Torah is redundant. Their rejection of God’s solution has pushed them to accept mediocre and worldly political solutions.

My Life and Books (9) Spiritual Powers of Evil

A big step for me was understanding that the spiritual powers of evil have used politics to leverage their power on earth. Although they were defeated by the cross, they have maintained their authority on earth by using spiritual principalities and powers to control political power and empires on earth. Every town, city, nation and region on earth is controlled by a principality or power in the spiritual realms.

Their authority on earth is perpetuated by a hierarchy of authority.

• The principalities and powers in the spiritual realms control the political powers on earth, such as kings, emperors and other political leaders. The personalities may change over time, but the spiritual powers remain in control.

• These kings and political leaders have authority over large groups of people, so this gives them immense authority on earth.

• The people look to their political leaders to solve the problems that disturb their lives, so they mostly submit to them. They should be looking to the Kingdom of God for their salvation and to Jesus as their king.

• Political leaders and kings use military force and political coercion to control their people. This gives the principalities their power a point of entry to control them.

This hierarchy of authority allows the spiritual powers of evil to exercise authority on earth, despite their defeat by the cross. The principalities and powers have authority over all the spirits living in the nation or region they control. These follower spirits listen and obey their commands.

Christians frequently talk about principalities and powers, but they have not understood the implications of their power. Most kings and political leaders can easily be dominated by a government-spirit because they are vulnerable to pride and control. They make it easy for the spiritual powers of evil to control a nation.

Many Christians assume that other nations are controlled by principalities and powers (Iran and North Korea), but they have no understanding that a principality or power controls their own nation by manipulating political power. This is why political action always disappoints.

My Life and Books (8) Political Power

In the modern world, most authority is political. Human political institutions exercise immense authority. There are very few limits on their authority. The coming of the Kingdom of God means a huge authority shift, so it will bring enormous changes to systems of politics and government.

I worked for thirty years on the edge of the government system, close enough to see how politics works, but not close enough to be distracted by power. I learned a great deal from this experience. I always understood that political power has a significant influence on the functioning of society, but my book on this topic was the most difficult to write, because there were so many things that I needed to understand.

Government is a process for exercising authority over society. Politics is a tool for deciding who should have authority to control people. The basic questions of political theory are:

• How should humans govern themselves?

• Who should have authority in society?

• How should authority be exercised?

• What gives governments the authority to make people do things against their will?

Authority is at the heart of all these questions. Of course, the Kingdom of God provides a radically different answer to them.

A kingdom is a system for exercising authority and Jesus came proclaiming a new kingdom. The coming of the Kingdom of God requires a radical shift in authority, so it will have a dramatic impact on politics and government.

It took me a long time to work out what the impact would be. Over several decades, God showed me the answers to the problems of politics, but I was totally surprised by where he led me. I had a lot of hurdles to overcome, and some false thinking to let go. In the following posts, I will describe some of these surprises.

When I first started worrying about the problems of the world, I had faith in political power. When I became a follower of Jesus, I believed that God’s people could use political power to establish his Kingdom on earth. I studied economics, political science and theology to learn how political power could be used to advance God’s purposes in this nation.

At first, I assumed that it was fine to force people to do things provided that the things they are being forced to do are good. The problem with this approach is that people have different ideas about what is good, and power cuts both ways. If it is acceptable for Christians to force people to do things that they do not want to do, then we accept that other groups who gain political power can force us to do things that we don’t want to do.

Early on, I became worried about the conflict between human freedom and political power. I noticed that people who want to change the world choose politics as a vehicle for their aspirations, because politics has the power of coercion.

Whatever they want to achieve, whether it is elimination of poverty, making business easy, or improving education, they want to force other people to change, and they hope to make other people pay for it.

If these people chose any other vehicle to advance their cause, they could only make suggestions, and they would have to pay for the change themselves, or persuade others to pay for what they do. This always seems too hard, so politics is the preferred option for people who want to change the world.

Political power forces people to do things that they don’t want to do, which is a limitation of human freedom. I noticed that people say that they are going into politics to serve, but you cannot really say that you are serving people if you want to make them do things, or want to spend their money on things they do not want.

I tried to resolve this dilemma by relying on democracy to provide legitimacy. I decided that if Christians could gain a majority in a free election, they could legitimately use the power gained to force their values on the rest of society. I accepted that Christians would have to preach the gospel and win the hearts of the majority before they could gain sufficient political power to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

The victory of the gospel has not happened, and it is just as well because that failure has proved the weakness in my argument. Christians are now a minority in many democracies. They don’t like it when other groups use the political power that they have gained to impose their standards on us. What is sauce for the goose is sauce of the gander. If we believe that it is acceptable for Christians to impose their standards on society if they win power in an election, then it is acceptable for other groups that gain power to do the same to us if their values are hostile to God.

It gradually became clear to me that the power of democracy is a two-edged sword. If it is legitimate for democracy to be used to advance the Kingdom of God, it can just as easily be used to oppose it and to harm followers of Jesus. I eventually came to the conclusion that if we are serious about the Kingdom of God and the gospel that sets people free, we have to give up seeking political power. That is a step that most Christians are reluctant to take, but it is absolutely essential if we are serious about bringing in the Kingdom in God’s way.

Once I understood the hazards of political power, I quickly noticed that Jesus refused to use political power to advance the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that (Luke 22:25-26).

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36).

Jesus refused to use political power to advance God’s work.

Once I realised that Jesus rejected political power, I came to understand that the spiritual powers of evil have used political power to increase their authority on earth. By attacking, manipulating and controlling political leaders, they gain far more power than they can get by possessing an individual person. Political spirits and government spirits have used political authority to leverage their power on earth, despite their terrible defeat on the cross. Those who try to use political power to do good unwittingly submit to the spiritual powers that control the political position they are seeking to use to accomplish good. Evil cannot be used to do good.

One of the biggest obstacles to the Kingdom of God is that most Christians still believe in political power. They disagree about how it should be used, but they believe that getting the right people into political power and changing laws in the right way is the key to advancing the Kingdom of God. This false belief has enabled the spiritual powers of evil to exercise power on earth way beyond their use-by-date, and the kingdom has not got any closer. If we are serious about the Kingdom of God, we must renounce political power.

My Life and Books (7) Prophetic Ministry

Back in the 1980s, I did a study of the prophetic ministry. I got hold of every book and article on the topic I could find. I copied hundreds of quotes onto paper (This was before I had a computer). When I found everything available, I coded all the quotes into themes with alpha codes. I then chopped up the bits of paper, and taped the quotes for each theme together, and a book called Prophetic Ministry sort of fell out. Of course, I wrote a lot of other stuff that I discovered as well.

I think that it is my least important book, but it is my best seller. I originally published my notes on the web. I only put them into book form when I got lots of requests from people wanting a hard copy. I had been reluctant to do that, because I did not have references for many of the quotes, as when I gathered them, they were only for myself.

I think the book is popular because it has some practical stuff, like why pastors and prophets do not get on, the difference between intercessors and prophets, what its like for prophet’s wives, etc. (Some people who sound a bit weird, also write and say they found it helpful, so I am not sure).

Many biblical teachers make prophets into itinerant ministries. My approach is to push the prophetic ministry, along with the other ascension gifts down into the local church. A church should be led by a team of elders, which will include a couple of shepherds, one evangelist, and one prophetic person. Having this balance is essential for a balanced mature body.

More at Prophetic Ministry.