Bible scholar Dr. Randy Harris visited our KNLS Studio "B" early in 1997 to talk with us about Jesus Christ's unusual approach to life, faith, and religion.  We entitled this series of lessons, Jesus' Upside Down Kingdom to emphasize the unusual nature of His concepts.  Dr. Harris' thoughts follow.  Please note the copyright notice located at the bottom of this page.

You may now jump to:

• God is Searching For You!
• Incarnation: God Made Flesh
• Would God Die For You?
• Will God Forgive Me?
• Is Revenge Really Sweet?
• Jesus' Thoughts on Servanthood
• Upside Down Marriages
• Leading Through Service
• Christians And The Government
• Christians In the Workplace
• BACK TO THE STUDIO "B" PAGE?

God Is Searching For You!

MO: The approach that Jesus Christ took to life and living and salvation and our relationship with other people is very different from our own natural inclination as individuals and certainly very different from the approach taken by many other world religions. As an example of that, in the Bible there is this concept called predestination. This can mean a great many things to a great many people but at the very least this is a description of a God who is willing to pursue his children and go to great lengths working over a tremendous span of time to ensure a fulfilling life for his children and salvation as well. Talk to us about that for just a minute.

RH: I think that is one of the most uniquely Christian ideas about God because we usually think about human beings being in search of God and will do almost anything to go out and try to find God. But in scripture what we see is not so much human beings in search of God as we see God in search of human beings. In the New Testament in the Bible this is pointed out in a story that Christians generally call the prodigal son. But the real emphasis in the story is of the father who never gives up. It's as if I do all sorts of things to disappoint my family and to bring shame and disgrace on my household and still my father doesn't give up on me but he keeps pursuing me and trying to find me. Now if you sort of think about that idea, it's really very touching and awesome that the God who created the heavens and the earth is roaming the universe in search of me and will go to any extent to bring me back into the family. So I know many people out there are in search of God, but the good news is that God is in search of you. That is a concept that I think is fairly unique in the world. Many religions have a concept of God who is sort of sitting back waiting for human beings to discover him but the God of Christian religion doesn't sit back. He comes looking--He's out there searching.

MO: Randy, can you give us any examples of how God has pursued-- perhaps the best way to do that would be historically and say can you give us an example of how God has pursued someone in this way.

RH: I think the example that would be most often given from scripture would be the Apostle Paul, who started out his career as a great enemy of Christian religion. He would go out and take Christians and see that they were put in prison or killed, but God had a special plan for Paul. So while Paul was not looking for God, God approaches Paul on a road to a city and appears to him and basically tells him he is on the wrong side and it's time to change teams. He's not content to let Paul just go his own way. He's going to find Paul, and he does that. We may not expect God to do that in exactly the same way today as he did then but we could give countless stories, probably including some from this radio broadcast about how it's been used by God to find people out there who are in search for God. He's still looking for disciples.

MO: Randy, Christian people often talk about the Bible as one continuous story. Now, for anyone who opens the Bible and begins to read it may at first reading seem to be a disconnected series of stories and books and writings of more than 40 different authors and 60 some books and all different styles and types of writing over some almost 2,000 years of writing. Why is it that we can say this is one continuous story? Can you give us a little bit of perspective on that how God has pursued us over time.

RH: Yes, it's not only one story--it's one story that you could summarize in one phrase. Despite the length and complexity of the book, what the Bible is about is the relentless love of God and what extent God will go in his loving pursuit of human beings. So from the very beginning of the Bible the question is, Will human beings trust God. Will they be willing to count on God or not. To bring that about, God is willing to time and time and time again come to the loving aid of human beings. So it is one continuous story that finally, of course, climaxes in Jesus Christ as the example above all others about how far God will go to pursue his children. We had a young couple at the church where I worked recently who had their little infant child die. This is always a very difficult time for a church, and we all agonized over it. I got to thinking about it later and I asked my church, how many of you would be willing to give up your child if you knew it would save a lot of other children. I don't think there is any parent who would do that because you get so attached and in love with your own children. But the story of the Bible is that God loves us so much that he would dare to do that--he would dare to give up his child Jesus Christ to save all the other children. So in a real sense that is the story of the Bible--God's relentless love that will go to any lengths to reach human beings.

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Incarnation: God Made Flesh

MO: Today Randy we want to talk about the idea of incarnation. This, in some respects, is a very bizarre concept and very unusual in any kind of spiritual or religious literature. This concept that God would humble himself to the extent of taking on flesh and becoming one of us, if you will. In other words, that God would enter his own creation and experience all the pain and suffering that his creatures endure from day to day. Talk to us about what this idea of incarnation means.

RH: It really is a strange concept--the idea that God could take on human flesh. There are certain myths around the world in different religions where gods do that for a time you know. Some listeners will be familiar with the old Greek legends about the gods and there are others in other world religions, but the Christian notion of God taking on flesh has a power to it that those don't because God really takes upon himself all the limitations and pains of being flesh. It's not that he just puts on a skin but he really does experience what it means to be human. I think there are two sides to this notion of God becoming flesh that we have to look at. One side is that this is the way God makes it clear to us what he wants us to be. Those of us who teach know that you can deal with abstract concepts and try to explain things, but students understand best if you give them an example. What they need is something that they can go by. And so somebody has described incarnation as God putting on his people suit and coming down to earth, and now we have a model of what life is supposed to look like. Again I could give you all sorts of instruction about what it means to be a Christian; but one of the best ways for you to learn would be to look at a Christian and see what a Christian does, what kind of values a Christian has, and how they deal with people and that sort of thing, which is essentially what God does for us. He comes down as a real human being and shows us what values are important, shows us how to live, shows us how to die, shows us how to relate to people, shows us what is important. And it's done in such a way that I am convinced that a young child can look at it and understand. There are some complicated things in the Bible but Jesus, God in the flesh, is not complicated. He's a person and you can watch and see what he does. I think that's the first really important thing about reincarnation. It is through God being in the flesh that I understand what it is I'm supposed to be like. Jesus, God in the flesh, becomes my model for life.

The second side of this, which in many ways is equally important, is that the Bible says that because God came in the flesh he understands what we are going through. We often have this notion that until you have experienced what I have experienced you can't really understand. Again, there is no one who understands what it means to have a child die than someone who has had a child to die. There is no one who understands what it means to deal with a terminal illness as one who has had a terminal illness. Well, God experienced everything that we experience. We have a God that truly understands what it is we are going through, and I think that means a lot because sometimes people think about God as sitting up there and not really understanding or caring. After all, he's God, what does he know about loneliness. What does he know about pain. What does he know about rejection. What does he know about what I experience. But what incarnation says is that God experienced it. Jesus knew what it was like to be lonely, to be rejected, to be hungry, to be in pain, to be misunderstood. All the things that we experience God takes in as part of his experience of being God, and that's a lot of love. It's one thing for me to say I understand your experience or your pain. It's another thing for me to put myself in the position where I am actually going to experience your pain. God is not just going to try to understand it; he's going to be willing to experience it. So I think those two things that on the one hand it teaches us who we are supposed to be and on the other hand it shows us that God understands us are very important concepts of incarnation, God taking on flesh.

MO: Randy, Christian people have always made a great deal out of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and rightly so because that obviously is the real key and central concept to our faith. And yet, I have often thought that this idea that God would be willing to leave heaven and come to earth and give up as you mentioned many of the rights and privileges of Godhood is, at least in my way of thinking, is the greater sacrifice. That's something that I find very comforting and I know other people do as well that God loves us so very much that he was able to give up so much.

RH: Yeah, let's think about it in terms of if I had lived in a palace and there are other people who live in these very desperately poor parts of town. It would be one thing for me to send gifts to them and occasionally do nice things for them or frequently do nice things for them. It's another thing for me to move out of the palace and live where they live, and that's essentially what the story of the incarnation is. Jesus is willing to move out of the palace and go live where we live. It's really a striking notion.

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Would God Die For You?

MO: One of the key concepts in the Christian faith is this idea or concept of atonement. This again from the human standpoint, from our perspective, can seem to be a very bizarre idea--this idea that God would die for us. It would seem the more natural concept to think of a God who would accept or even insist on our sacrifice and perhaps even our ultimate sacrifice that we would be willing to die for our God. Perhaps in some respects that would be the case, and yet this idea of atonement that is so central to the Christian faith is a concept of where God is willing to die for us.

RH; When we think of god or gods, gods don't die, they kill. They take victims, they don't die, and along comes Christianity with the notion that God is willing to lay down his life to save us. This is kind of a difficult concept. I mean we ask ourselves why death at all. Maybe the best way to explain it is that it's as if all of us are under a death penalty. We are under a sentence of death so in the morning we are all going to be lined up against a wall and shot. I might decide to act very heroically and say, Look you don't have to shoot Mike, you can shoot me instead, to which our captors would reply, Well that would be fine except for the fact that we are going to shoot you anyway. You can't take Mike's place because we are already going to shoot you; you can't take anybody's place. If you look at it that way, then the only one who can take our place is somebody who is not already under the death penalty. It's going to have to be somebody come in from the outside, and that's God because we've all sinned and fallen short of what God intends for our lives so we are all under the sentence of death. So only someone from the outside could do anything about that, and the only one who could come from the outside is God. So God is the only one who can make this sacrifice, and yet he's under no obligation to do so. No one can say you owe this to us, nobody can say you have to do this, and so the picture that scripture paints is even though he's under no obligation, God pays the price and sets us all free. He says to our captors, I'll take everybody's place and so dies in our stead. It's really an amazing concept that God would be willing to do that for us.

MO: Also, Randy, it speaks to the incredible love that God has for us that he would be willing to go to that extent. In one of our earlier discussions, you related an incident in your church recently, a very sad tragic event, that I think has some bearing on that. Would you mind sharing that again.

RH: Yeah, we had a young couple in our church whose infant child died at less than six months old. I had asked the congregation which of the parents would be willing to have their child die if it would save all the other children; and, of course, no one is going to want to give up their child for the sake of other's children. And yet, God does that; he gives up his son for the sake of all the other children. I think that what makes that even more astounding is that we do read about people acting heroically, saving the lives of people who are close to them; but the biblical picture is that God is willing to do that for us even while we are treating him horribly. He's just not doing it for people who are deserving and affectionate and appreciative. God is willing to do it for people who are hostile to him, so it's not only giving up something precious, your only Son, it's giving it up for those who are often unappreciative or undeserving of it.

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Will God Forgive Me?

MO: Randy, the subject we want to discuss today is what is perhaps one of the most central of all of the concepts or ideas or tenets of the Christian faith and that is grace. This is a subject that Christian people talk about a great deal. Today we want to perhaps take a little different approach to this topic of grace, and that is to point out how unusual or odd or even bizarre this concept really is. It's something very much outside our experience in our relationships with each other. It's this idea that God would provide salvation by faith rather than through a system of works. When we think about God or gods, this is just not what we expect. We expect a long list of rules and demands and a God that insists on certain things to attain or deserve salvation, to work toward salvation, to earn our salvation. And yet that is not at all what Jesus Christ emphasized in his message to us.

RH: No, this is not only what we see in most world religions, that is, you have to do enough things right to make it. It's the way we live all of our lives. I mean I am a school teacher, and the first day of class I lay out all the requirements. I tell people what they have to do to get the highest grade, and if they don't do those things, they don't get them. They have to do the work and they get the grade, and that's generally what we expect in religion. If you do the work, then, so to speak, you get the grade. But we do have a quite different system in Christianity, and I think the reason why we have is because no one can make the grade. If I set the requirements in my classes so high that nobody can make it, there's no way they are going to earn the A. Well, due to the fact that we are human beings and sinful, there's no way we are going to earn our way to heaven. So if we are going to get it, it's going to be a gift of God, which is essentially what grace means. He gives us that which we cannot earn. As we are recording this, we are around the Christmas season, and a lot of kids are going to find presents under the tree and they don't earn them. Sometimes we try to convince kids of that to make them behave. You know if you do X, Y, and Z, I'll do this for you; but for the most part, Christmas gifts that parents give to their children aren't things that the children have earned. They haven't worked for them. It's that the parents love them and want to give them something. The picture in scripture is that God loves us so much that he wants to give us something. What he wants to give us is a relationship with him that never ends, and that gift is because he loves us and not because of anything we have done to earn it. Now, someone might say then, don't Christians do good things? Aren't they supposed to do good things? If they can't do enough good things to go to heaven, what's the point? But that misses the point. The reason that I did things to try to please my parents is because of this unconditional love they gave me, and so the good things I did was just a response to their love. If somebody asked me, Have you done enough to repay your parents' love yet, my response would be that I would never be able to do enough to repay my parents' love. So have I done enough to repay God's love yet? I could never do enough to repay God's love, but when he loves me like that, my natural response is to try to do the things that bring him pleasure and make him smile knowing that I'm never going to do enough to deserve the love he's given me and I don't have to. MO: Randy, that sense of having received grace, of having received a gift that we did not deserve is, in an odd way, very liberating for Christian people. It brings an entirely different aspect to life and to our relationship with other people. Talk about that for just a minute please.

RH: I think as long as I am asking the question, Have I done enough yet, Have I done enough to make it, I am always going to be nervous and anxious; but if I can believe that you can't do enough and God's not keeping score that way, the question is not whether I can do enough. The question is whether God has done enough, and he has. We talked earlier about atonement, God giving the gift that set us free. The question is not whether I can do enough; the question is whether God has done enough, and the answer is yes. God's done enough. He has given his son, and that's enough. So now I live my life not desperately trying to make the grade but in the knowledge that God has already done enough to set me free and now I can just live the life of response to God's love and not worry about whether I have done enough. You can't do enough.

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Is Revenge Really Sweet?

MO: Today Randy is going to talk with us about what Jesus Christ had to say on the subject of revenge. This is something that all of us can relate to. We have all had individuals who spited us or abused us in some way, and there is a very natural inclination, a very strong desire, to want to get even for that slight or that offense. Yet Jesus Christ had a very different approach and idea about how we would react to those who would abuse us. Randy, what was it that Jesus Christ had to say on this subject?

RH: We almost need to look at sort of a progression that takes place. When you do something to spite me, not only do I not want to get even, if I follow my natural inclination, I want to get ahead. That is, I don't just want to respond to you in kind; I want to do something worse to you than you did to me. Well, look where that gets us. Now I'm ahead, and so what do you want to do. You want to do something to me worse than what I did to you so you can get ahead. We have this escalating system of revenge. Earlier in the Bible before Jesus, in the Old Testament God put a stop to that. Some of our hearers will have probably heard the old phrase, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That sounds like that is a principle of revenge, but what it really is is a principle that places limits on revenge. That is, I'm not allowed to try to get ahead of you. For instance, if you slammed my finger in a car door and I was angry with you about that, and I would be, I would be allowed to slam your finger in the car door but I wouldn't be allowed to stick your head in there and slam it. So there is a limit placed on revenge. Now when we come to Jesus, we have the next step where God says not only do you not try to get ahead, you don't even try to get even. You don't even start down that path. What you do instead is when somebody does something offensive to you, you just forgive them. Now of all the things Jesus ever taught, I think this is one of the hardest because it is just not our natural inclination to let people get away with stuff. If I am actually going to forgive you, it's going to be not because I am such a good person and I like you so much; it's going to be because I understand that's the way God treats me and I'm going to try to treat you the way God treats me. God forgives me so I am going to forgive you. Now when that really gets hard is when you don't deserve it. Let's suppose you and I decided to build something together, and we really didn't like each other to start out with. Anyway, here we are, we are building something together. It's not too long during the day before you hit me in the back of the head with a board. I say, Oh, that hurt, why did you do that? You say, Oh, it was an accident and I didn't mean to so I forgive you. A few minutes later, you drop a cement block on my foot. You say, Oh I didn't mean to, I'm sorry. This goes on all day long, and it becomes obvious to me that you are doing all these things on purpose. Now what am I going to do? That's where it really gets difficult, and Jesus's instruction is, what you do in that case is you forgive. Not because Mike deserves it but because God forgives you. Since God forgives me, I have to forgive you. The apostles, that's Jesus's closest followers, asked Jesus about this one time. They said how many times should I forgive someone who sins against me--seven times. Well, I think seven is generous. You know my natural inclination is not to give you seven, maybe give you half of that; but Jesus's response is, Not seven times but 490 times. Of course, what he is really saying is that you are not allowed to keep track. Even after the person has shown bad motives, what you do is you still forgive him, not because he deserves it but because God has forgiven me when I don't deserve it. God sent his son; he died for me, he forgave me when I didn't deserve forgiveness, and so now I am going to treat you the same way. What a different world it would be if we didn't try to get ahead, if we didn't try to get even, if rather we just forgave the way God did.

MO: Now, Randy, if you would, please contrast that to some other concepts that are key to the Christian faith, and that is the ideas of punishment and discipline. Christian people do believe that punishment is appropriate in certain instances. We use that concept with our children, and we feel it is an appropriate concept for society to punish wrongdoers. There is a case for discipline even within the Christian faith. Some of the gospel writers spoke of certain instances among Christian people and in the church family when an individual would need to be disciplined. Draw the distinction between those ideas and this idea of revenge.

RH: Okay, we take the three concepts of revenge, punishment, and discipline. Punishment is largely for the sake of society. To have a well ordered society, punishment is necessary to kind of restrain the wrongdoer from his wrongdoing. Discipline is not so much for the society as it is for the person for whom you are giving the discipline. That is, the reason a parent disciplines his child is for the sake of the child. You want the child to learn certain things, and so you do it for the well being of that person. So punishment is for the well being of society, and discipline for the well being of the person being disciplined. Okay, who is revenge for? It doesn't do the other person any good; it doesn't do society any good; but it makes me feel real good! I think there is a real difference in the concepts-- punishment and discipline absolutely necessary, not just to society but for the well being of children and other Christians. You know discipline is for their well being. But revenge is not looking out for the other person's best interest; it's looking after mine. I think they are completely different concepts.

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Jesus' Thoughts On Servanthood

MO: Today we want to talk about this concept of servanthood. This is a subject that Jesus Christ in his talks and in the writings that relate what he had to say as recorded in the New Testament was very central and very key to almost everything he had to say, but it is a very different approach to our relationship to other people than what would be our own natural inclination. Can you tell us first of all a little bit about this approach that Jesus championed and then perhaps some examples of how that works in our relationships with other people.

RH: It really is different because if you think about Jesus as being the Son of God and having all power, he could do anything he wanted to, and being able to do anything you want to and still being willing to be a servant to other people really is striking. He taught his followers that you've got to be the way I was and, that is, instead of asserting your power, what you do is you serve other people. This is so different because power really is so important in our world today. Again, I'm a school teacher and the reason that my students come to the university is to get power. They want to be able to pull their own strings, and hopefully they are going to be able to pull the strings of other people too. They all in one way or another are looking for power, and in a world that is defined by power, and another word for that power is rights, what I'm going to make sure of is that I'm going to have my rights. Jesus comes along and says it's not about power, it's not about rights, it's about serving other people instead. Now we are going to talk a little later in a few weeks about various ways this works itself out, but we can give an example or two now. I always thought one of the great tests for Christianity and the Christian was not how you treat people who have power over you but how you treat people that you have power over. For instance, how would you expect me to treat my bosses, you know the people who have power over me. You are going to expect me to treat them with respect and dignity because if I don't, I'm in trouble; but the question is how do I treat the people over whom I have power? I don't have to treat them with respect; I don't have to treat them with dignity; I don't have to treat them with deference; I can treat them any way I want to. So now Jesus comes along and says, okay, how are you going to treat those people. Well, you are going to see yourselves as their servant too. You mean I am going to see myself as the servant of my secretary or of my students. Jesus says yes, this is the way it is. You try to serve everybody you come in contact with. Rather than ruling with power, you try to serve their needs. That is strange; that is strange in today's world. MO: Yes, but in a rather ironic way it can also be remarkably successful for one of the things I have been struck with in the last few years is there is now a whole group here in the U.S. of business professionals, business advisors, these are people who make their living advising other business people on how to succeed in their businesses. When you look at the material that they are presenting, it is to a large extent this concept of being the servant of your customer. If you want to succeed in business, then you have to do everything you can to provide your customer with whatever it is they desire and give them the best possible service. Can you tell us how that works?

RH: They have essentially discovered the Jesus principle. For instance, again, if I have power over you, I can get you to do certain things out of fear and intimidation. In fact, I can get you to do a great deal. Again, we have seen around the world that fear, intimidation, and power are great motivators. However, if I convince you that I have at heart your best interests and I will do anything I can to see that your best interest is served, you'll wind up doing anything for me. Now you will respond to me not just out of fear but out of love and affection and genuine loyalty. I mean if you think about the people in your lives who have laid down their lives before you--they serve you in every way, you know they would never do anything to harm you, they do everything for your best interest. Those are the people that you would do anything for. Businesses have discovered this Jesus principle that the greatest motivator is not fear and power; it's rather the love that comes from genuine service to people, but you can't fake that. It's not a way of manipulation; you can't fake that. Either you really care about people and you want to serve them or they will see it.

MO: All right, Randy. We appreciate your taking time to discuss that with us. I don't know about those folks in our listening audience, but that's one I have been struggling with a long time and I'm sure will go on struggling with for the rest of my life. Your words were encouraging, and we appreciate your being with us.

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Upside Down Marriages

MO: Randy, we appreciate your being here today. Randy, this idea that we are discussing is one that Jesus Christ presented in his own life and in his teachings, a very different kind of approach to life and to our relationships with other people and to salvation, a very backward or upside down approach, at least in relationship to what most of us would naturally be inclined toward and certainly the approach taken by most of the faiths espoused in our world. In particular, today we want to talk about the marriage relationship. Now, in the New Testament this idea of servanthood that Jesus Christ espoused is applied to the marriage relationship, and that provides for a very different approach to marriage and that closest of personal relationships than either we are inclined to naturally or is the case in most cultures around the world.

RH: Yes, I suppose the history of relationships between husbands and wives has been kind of domination by the male. In the United States that comes across as the notion that the man is the king of his castle and the wife is supposed to keep that castle neat and tidy and take care of the king. Scripture itself comes out of a culture in which women have a very low position. Men are very much the leaders; they have all of the power, and women are very much second-class citizens at the time the New Testament is written in the ancient Near East. That is still true in many places in the world today, but I think it is particularly striking that out of that culture that the emphasis on the duty of husbands to wives is to love and to nurture and to cherish. There is no notion of tyranny there. It's not like the husband snaps his fingers and the wife falls into line. It is true that the male or the husband is depicted as the spiritual head of the household, but his headship is in terms of nurture and care and service. It's not so much power as it is responsibility and duty to take care of those in the household, the wife and children.

MO: In one particular place, that analogy is even carried to the point of saying the man should be willing to die for that relationship, which actually translates to willing to live, in other words, for that relationship.

RH: Yeah, I think that mutual relationships really are the most fulfilling. You know if a man is willing to do anything for his wife and his wife is willing to do anything for her husband, there is not very much that can go wrong in that kind of situation. Imagine a relationship where I never have to worry about protecting my turf or my position because I know my spouse is always looking out for me. I don't have to look out for myself because my spouse is looking out for me. My spouse does not have to look out for herself because I am looking out for her, so now we are no longer protecting our turf but we are mutually taking care of one another. I think it's a much more pleasing look at the relationship.

MO: Well, I can confess in my own marriage relationship that on those occasions when I have tried to exercise some authority that I really didn't have in the first place, I came out looking like an idiot. If I had taken the servant's approach in those situations, as my good wife did, I certainly would have come out a whole lot better.

RH: As we talked about, this is one more instance of this broader concept of being the servant of all. It's like a lot of other concepts, we may be willing to embrace them every place but our own household. The closer to home it gets, the more resistant to the notion that we are, and so we get into the thing where our reaction is but he, but she. But he doesn't do this or this or this. She doesn't do this, this, or this. Again, what Jesus instructs is don't even start down that part. It's not what they do, it's what God has done for you, so now you are going to lay down your life for this other person.

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Leading Through Service

MO: This idea of the Upside Down Kingdom, what we are trying to express is that the approach to life and to our relationship with other people and to salvation, our relationship with God the Father is very different, very backward or upside down, from what we might expect and from what is the norm in many world faiths. In particular, today we want to talk about this idea of servant leaders in the christian church community. In the New Testament there is spoken of a group of servant leaders referred to as elders or as pastors or as shepherds; and these are individuals who are designated to not only lead the church but, in an odd way, to also be servants of the church. This is a very different approach to leadership than is the norm where you have a group of people who are in charge of any institution, whether it be a church or a business or an organization of any type, that they hold all of the power and that their power trickles down to the individuals below them to carry out certain tasks. But this idea in the New Testament of christian church servant leaders is a very unusual concept.

RH: Yes, I think a lot of the notion is that elders, or leaders of the church, are not so much elected as they are recognized. You know there is the old story about the platoon in battle and you have an inexperienced lieutenant yelling meaningless orders and you have a sergeant who is giving instructions and everybody is following the sergeant. Afterwards the lieutenant complains to the sergeant saying, why were they following you instead of me, and the sergeant's response was, well, they follow their leader; and he was saying, but I'm the lieutenant, and the sergeant says, well, it's still the same, they follow their leader. It's not so much a matter of rank; it's a matter of who do you trust. Who do you trust if your soul is on the line? Who do you want to entrust your soul to? Whose advice do you want to follow? Whose guidance do you want to seek? When we recognize in the community of faith in the church that we have men whose opinions we respect, whose judgments we trust, whose advice we follow, they become elders. So it's not so much a power that they have seized as it is a responsibility we have already given to them because we recognize their judgment and ability to do that. I work in a church with very good elders, and I have often told people that I have seen the job and there is a lot more sweat than there is glory, and they think sure they have the respect of all these people. I'm sure that is a nice thing, but what they spend all their time doing is caring for people and helping them with their problems and giving them spiritual advice and helping them bear their burdens. That's not usually what you think about when you think about the company CEO or the board of directors. We are talking about a completely different concept in the Lord's church than we would in business.

MO: Randy, talk to us about how that actually plays out in the life of a church or even a business. We have contrasted two approaches here, one where you have this office or corporate leadership whose power derives from the office itself and then we have pictured a group of servant leaders whose authority or power stems from their ability really to inspire a following. Describe how those two different approaches play out or work out in the life of a church.

RH: I think if you take the corporate approach, then you essentially have a group of people who are trying to make decisions for the rest of the group. Their major function is decision-making; and so they do the process of measuring public opinion, that is, what most people think. It's like the Indian chief when someone was trying to get him to do something that he didn't think was a good idea; and he says, I don't want to do that because the braves don't want to do that. His response was, well, you are the chief and you can make them do whatever you want to. His response was, if I make the braves do things they don't want to, I won't be the chief very long. Well, this is the corporate executives. They try to measure public opinion and then do what it seems most people want to do. On the other hand, if we have this approach of elders who are servants of the church, and we have really entrusted to them leadership because we trust their spiritual judgment, and so now it's not like we want them to stick their finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing; but we recognize they have a deep abiding relationship with God and we want them to advise and lead us on that basis. It's as if I were a patient and I came to you as a doctor, I'm hoping the first thing that you are going to do is not ask me my opinion about my illness. I have come to you because I believe you have some expertise that I don't. If I take my car in for repair, I don't want the mechanic to take a survey and find out what people think is wrong with the car. I trust him because I think he's got some expertise. So in the same way with elders, I believe they have spiritual expertise, that is, they have walked with God so long and their lives have proven they have a deep knowledge of the will of God, and so now I trust them to give me advice and guidance because of that walk.

MO; Certainly God had provided for and all of us deserve that kind of leadership in our spiritual lives. Randy, we appreciate your taking time to talk with us on this subject.

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Christians And The Government

MO: We are discussing how the approach to life and faith and salvation that Jesus Christ championed is very, very different, unusual, backwards, upside down even from what most of us would expect and certainly what is available to us from most of the world's faiths. Randy, we appreciate your taking time to be with us. Today we are going to talk about the Christian's relationship to officialdom of all kinds, to government. The approach that Jesus Christ espoused in relationship to the government of his own time and the approach that he encouraged all of his disciples to take is, in many respects, very different from our own natural inclinations and very different from what most people would expect from the approach of their own cultures. This is irregardless of whether you come from a background of democratic representative government or whether you live in a state that perhaps hasn't yet aspired to those ideals or has some entirely different concept of government. Talk to us about this upside down approach that Jesus espoused.

RH; We almost at this point need to look at a particular incident in the life of Jesus to see how he feels about your relationship to government because there are two kinds of extremes that he works between. The incident was when some people were asking him about paying taxes to Caesar. Some of your listeners will know that when Jesus was in the Middle East it was dominated by the Roman Empire, which was basically a foreign government and pretty hostile to the Jewish religion which was Jesus' background. So there were a lot of people who didn't think you should pay taxes to this foreign, pagan government because the Romans did not believe in the God of the Jews, and so they would refuse to pay their taxes. On the other hand, there are always those people who believe that the government is essentially the same thing as God. We might call these people Nationalists, that is, they don't make any distinction between governmental authority and God's authority. To them it is all the same. As Santannis' famous line, In every war truth is the first casualty and God is the first draftee. You know God is always on our government's side so whatever the government says is God's word. Jesus doesn't take either one of those approaches. He asks for a coin, and he takes the coin and he says, whose picture is on here. They said Caesar's picture was on the coin, and so Jesus' response is that you give to Caesar what is Caesar's and you give to God what is God's. Now, do you see what is going on there? He says first of all that government has a legitimate, proper function; and remember at this time he is talking about a pagan government. He's talking about a government that doesn't recognize him, that doesn't recognize God; but he says it has a legitimate function and what you ought to do is be obedient to government when they are operating in that proper sphere. On the other hand, he says give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, so he says don't get those two confused. Now at any point at which loyalty to government and loyalty to God come into conflict, Jesus is always going to say that your loyalty to God is first priority because governments of human beings come and go. On the one hand, you are more loyal to God than you are to government. On the other hand, you recognize that government has a legitimate job to do and it's not your task to be in opposition to government. You are rather an obedient citizen. It seems to me that is a very balanced kind of view that he comes to there.

MO: But it does also require, Randy, that as individuals we make our own evaluations and do our own decisionmaking with regard to that. This is one of those places where the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus Christ don't give us a list of dos and don'ts but simply provides a principle and says apply this principle to the situation. That requires some effort on our part.

RH: That's right. As far as I can tell, Jesus has no political theory. He is not a political scientist. Is Jesus an advocate of democracy or oligarchy or tyranny; and the answer is, he's not an advocate of any of them. Rather, there is this basic principle of obedience to government when government is doing what it ought to do. This basic principle of if you have to choose between government and God, you always choose God. But then it is left up to the discretion of the individual Christian to work that out, and you can't take human judgment out of that equation.

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Christians In the Workplace

MO: Randy has been talking to us about the very unusual approach that Jesus Christ took to life and to our relationship with other people and also to our relationship with God. We have talked about some very unusual ideas and concepts that he espoused and also encouraged his disciples to take up and make their own. Today we want to talk about the employee-employer relationship. In the time that Jesus lived, of course, the discussion often centered around the slave owner-slave relationship. I suppose in some way that applies today to our employee-employer relationship.

RH: Sure, because in both cases what you essentially have, as we talked earlier, is a person who has power and a person who has very little, and so the obligations between the two are very much the same even though the social setting is a little different.

MO: The New Testament has something to say to folks on either side of this relationship.

RH: Right. Whether you are the person with the power, that is the boss, or you are the person without the power, the employee, scripture has something to say about the situation. It's interesting for the employer. Essentially what is said is you work for your boss as if you were doing God's work, as if you were working for God. I think this is an important concept because we spend so much of our time at work. A great deal of our lives is dominated by work; and if you take Paul's instructions on this seriously, then that work becomes Christian work. It becomes spiritual work because when I serve this boss or this company, it's as if I am serving God, and I'm going to try to give them all of the respect and hard work that I would give as if I were working for God. In other words, Christian employees are the best employees because they take very seriously their work, not just as service to a company but as service to the God that they worship. Now on the other hand, what we are told if we are employers or masters to slaves, if we are the people who have the power, we are reminded that we too have a master, an employer, or boss, and that is God. So you can almost hear the kind of warning here. How do you treat your employees? Well, you treat your employees the way you want God to treat you, and you better remember that if you treat your employees badly that God is your master just like you are theirs and you better treat them the way you want God to treat you. Both sides are covered there. If I am an employer, I am going to treat you the way I want God to treat me; and if I am an employee, I am going to work for you the way I would work for God, and so Christians become the ideal employee and employer if they listen to the principles of the kingdom.

MO: That is a very powerful motivator, but let me ask you the hard question here. What happens when someone on either side of that relationship isn't keeping their part of the bargain with God. If you have an employer who is not treating his employees appropriately or if you are an employee who is not acting in the way you should, what happens in that situation?

RH: I think there are two things one can say about that. Number one, the big picture thing that happens is you have the world we have where you have almost open hostility between employees and employers. I mean you have a situation where sin has entered in and selfishness and now we are experiencing what happens when one or the other side doesn't take seriously their obligations. The second thing is, now this is back to the small picture, that was the big picture. The small picture is I can't control what you do. I can only control what I do, and I can't take responsibility for what you as an employer or employee decide to do, but for my part I can control what I do. So whether you are a good boss or a bad boss, I am going to fulfill my part of the obligation and work as if I am working for God; and whether you are a good employee or a bad employee, I am going to fulfill my obligation by treating you the way God treats me. That kind of dignity and respect, and that's all I can do. I can't control what you do, and I can go home with a clear conscience at night.

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