God and Politics: Jesus’ Vision for Society, State and Government by Mark Dever
Review
This little book, while a short read, is very memorable. It will only take you a couple of hours at most to finish it, but that fact alone is astonishing when you realise it is a whole two hours worth of content on one very short, very singular passage of Scripture.
Globally, politics has always been an area of contention, and in every generation, our family dinner tables have weathered their fair share of political argument (for better or worse). Though while the hot button issues have differed over the centuries, one question has cropped up repeatedly: what does God think of it all?
In God and Politics, Mark Dever deftly unpacks Jesus’ vision for a better and brighter future as outlined in Mark 12:13–17. The passage tells of a group of haughty Jewish leaders set upon ensnaring Jesus and killing him. They corner Him and ask whether or not it was important for them to pay the poll-tax to Caesar: the poll-tax being a duty levied on every adult individual regardless of their wealth or societal status, and Caesar being the leader of Rome at the time.
As we recall from the famous passage, Jesus’ reply is to give to Caesar what is Caesars, and give to God what is God’s.
The implication of His words are that we are to abide by the laws of the land in which we live— including paying any taxes, whether they make sense to us or not — but also to give to God our worship, our time, our service, our adoration, our first-fruits. It is to the understanding of these two equally important duties that Dever devotes the body of his book.
Overall it is an easy read, providing some excellent opportunities to think about how we can better steward our resources, and determine where our priorities lie. It also paints a beautiful picture of the society Jesus envisions for us: one of justice and equity that, as believers, we can look forward to in hope.
Standouts
“Jesus establishes a biblical theology of government, and He applies it to the new phase in history of god’s people that He was beginning. While it is going to far to say that Jesus’ statement here established a wall of separation between church and state, or made the state secular, I think Jesus’ affirmation of paying taxes to the Roman government does show that even a pagan state is a legitimate state. That was an amazing thing for Him to say.”
“Let me just do a very rare thing in the West and thank those of you who work for a government in any sense — those of you who work for local or regional governments or for the national government, thank you! What you do in your job is in part reflecting God’s own authority, as you keep order and peace and work for justice in our society. Thank you for the way you work to help display God’s glory. You are doing God’s work.”
“No earthly kingdom is to be identified as uniquely God’s people. […] By Jesus not requiring those who follow Him only to support states that are formally allied to the true God as Old Testament Israel had done, Jesus unhitches His followers from any particular nation. […] If Christians can support Rome, what government could they not support? This is the government that killed Christ and almost all the apostles. And here Jesus is telling them, pay for it. Pay that tax that is gong to pay the salary of the very men who are about to drive the nails into My hands, not because what they are doing is right, but because government reflects the character of God. God will deal with them.”
[On giving to God what is God’s:] “Your whole life, every day, every hour is being offered to God as part of your worship to Him. So that hour you spend doing IT work, that hour you spend as a lawyer, that hour you spend preparing responsibly for something coming up, that hour you spend caring for your [spouse, family and friends] or preparing a report, you realise that all of that is meant to be to God’s glory. Every single one of those hours.”
Rating
4.5/5 🌟 (.5 off for the sans-serif font, again!)
Pages
55.
Time it took me
Only a couple of hours!
