Wrapping up the Bible and government.....

....evidently I do best starting with the NT and then working my way back through, but whatever.  There are two major things in the books of history that come to mind; first, Samuel's warning to Israel about what they were doing when they requested a king, and second, what Solomon did when his father had established peace in the land.

Let's start with a side note, though; none of the kings, at least when they could afford it, seems to have obeyed Deuteronomy 17's admonitions that a king ought not get a lot of gold, horses, and women, and none of them appears to have written out a copy of the law.  Witness Josiah's response at the finding of a copy of the law in the Temple--he acts as if he'd never seen it before--which alas was pretty much true.  Just as the public availability of the Scriptures was low between the Dark Ages and Gutenberg, so was the Word rare in the time of Israel's kings.  We ought to infer, then, that limitations imposed on government are only as meaningful as the citizens insist; the rule of law becomes the rule of men just as soon as the subjects and citizens don't hold their rulers to the law.  It's also worth remembering that the Old Testament concept of government was rule of law, not men.

But now to Samuel; he had judged Israel for a long time, and due (at least outwardly) to the misbehavior of his sons (as Eli's before him), the nation was asking for a king to fight their wars.  First, a bit about what was going on.

Was Samuel, though a priest, to have been the only one judging Israel, or was he, like Moses, to appoint other judges for the easier cases?  Was he to be calling the priests and levites--the Cohens and Levys--to their rightful office?  Samuel succeeded in judging Israel, but appears to have failed in reminding his own "class" of their duties.  In doing so, there were few who could call the 12 tribes to their rightful duty of national defense.  Assuming a population density of about 100 people per square km, we ought to assume that within an hour of a raid, up to 2000 men ought to have been able to walk the 5km to the affected town to repulse that raid.

If....if....if.....the judges of Israel had been able to convince the priests, Levites, and other people to take their duties under the Torah seriously.  It's really very similar to the situation in our country around the War of 1812; people simply could not be convinced to take their freedom seriously enough to fight for it.

Interestingly, though, this isn't how the Lord approaches Samuel; Samuel is told that they're rejecting Him, not him.  In other words, whatever Samuel did to call people to repentance, God knows that the people have hard hearts towards Him.  As a result, Samuel is to warn them that they will not only pay a tithe of taxes, but also will their children become the king's servants, and they will lose lands to the new king.  Keep in mind here that this tithe rightly belonged to God, and that God had granted the people title to their lands in perpetuity by their families.

Obviously, we don't have perpetual title to land here, but we can draw principles from this.  First of all, when we choose to increase the size of government, we may well be rejecting the tasks to which God has called us.  For example, the Torah, the Prophets, and the New Testament all tell individuals and churches to care for the poor and defenseless.  What, then, is a church doing if they decide to campaign to get more tax dollars allocated to the welfare state?

I'd suggest they're missing out on the blessings of personal and congregational charity, to put it mildly.

We also ought to infer that Samuel--and the Holy Spirit leading him--knew that Israel's hardness towards God would continue, and that this would lead to the king living....well, like the kings of the Gentiles/pagans, instead of the guidance of Deuteronomy.  We see that in the marble halls of our own government, really, as ever more resources are poured into the comforts of Congress and bureaucrats.

Going on to Solomon, we see what happens as the king sees himself as a king along the lines of the Gentiles.  Great tributes are exacted, and great taxes are levied.  Jerusalem found itself so full of gold that silver was thought of little value--there's some inflation for you, just as happened in Spain in the 1500s and 1600s.  Great cultural and academic works were started--often with conscripted/slave labor-- and the king found himself with 700 wives and 300 concubines--but interestingly, only one surviving son is named.  With all those wives offering sacrifices to pagan gods--perhaps including some of Solomon's children--the nation took on a pagan character.  Solomon himself gave the verdict of his reign; Vanitas, Vanitatum, et omnia vanitas.  It was all meaningless, and as we'd see from the previous notes, it was also contrary to God's instructions in Deuteronomy, but was entirely consistent with the practice of empire.

If you read just the parts when Solomon was alive, you'll miss what was really going on.  To see that, look at 1 Kings 12, where the northern tribes rebel against....the taxation and labor conscription that was needed to support Solomon's grand state.  Evidently, they had tea parties, too.  The grandeur that was Solomon's would then be gone in a generation--and the stiff necked people would setting in for a few centuries of ups and downs, just as they had had a few centuries of ups and downs prior to the kings.

What can we conclude? First of all, Samuel's warning and Solomon's empire demonstrate very clearly that when government gets bigger, it is often in a way that violates God's Word.  We see this today in funding for Planned Parenthood, the NEA, and other groups whose activities are a profound moral evil.

That said, a good survey of the Scriptures does leave Christian liberals with at least "plausible deniability" as they strive to expand government social spending. While there is no clear argument for government social spending, there is also no simple argument against it.

Except, of course, for "why would you ignore your responsibility to the poor by leaving their care to the government, which often does not care whether they make wise choices or not?  Why would you miss out on the blessings that come with obedience in this way?"

Having taken part in some charitable work over the years, I just might mention some stories that would show why so many prefer to "write a check" to the government instead of becoming personally involved.  But that later.