(The following is the first article in my new 75-page book released in September 2024. Please see the link below if you would like to read the rest of the book – and please share this link with others if you find it valuable.)
Matthew 22:36 – 38 (NASB)
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.
Objection:
Jesus was concerned with spiritual things - voting isn’t a Biblical issue.
Short Answer:
Jesus commanded His followers to give to the government what rightly belongs to the government and give to God what rightly belongs to God. In our case, America is a representative republic. This means what rightly belongs to our government is the oversight of its citizens. The government doesn’t own the United States or rule over the citizens. Instead, the government answers to the people; therefore, what is rightly due to our government is our voice - our vote! In my opinion, if eligible Christian citizens don’t vote, they are being disobedient to God.
A More Detailed Answer:
Some Christians and critics of evangelical Christians suggest the church's mission should be confined to charity and religious study. In this view, Christians should not organize as a political bloc since the Lord had nothing to say about politics. This thinking can lead to the conclusion that churches or pastors who openly or indirectly endorse any candidate or political position should face legal penalties (such as loss of tax-exempt status) or be shamed into silence.
However, political questions confronted Jesus, and He did provide an answer that should inform us as Christians about our political responsibility as His followers. In Matthew chapter twenty-two, Jesus was challenged concerning the issue of paying taxes. In response, Jesus asked for a Roman coin commonly used to pay taxes. He held the coin up and asked whose picture was on it…
Matthew 22:21 (NASB)
They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”
Jesus did not advocate rebellious defiance of paying taxes, nor did He comment on the fairness or lack thereof of the Roman tax system. His answer illustrates a higher principle: giving proper obligation to differing authorities you encounter in life. In my opinion, He is instructing us to give the government what is properly due to that government. So, what is that?
In our case, our government is supposed to be based on the will of the people. A royal family or a government does not own America – American citizens own America! As it says in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” and “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” This means our government is rightly overseen by “we the people”; therefore, what rightly belongs to our government is our voice! We are obligated by our citizenship in the United States to have our say.
The Roman coin in the Lord’s day had the image of Caesar on it, showing that Caesar legally controlled the use of that coin. If we use the government’s money, we are obligated to give them what they demand for the use of that money. By contrast, American coins are engraved with the motto “E pluribus unum,” which in Latin means: “out of many, one.” Our coins are engraved with “liberty” and “In God we trust.” These mottos and images of elected Presidents on our coins (not royal sovereigns like Caesar) are all images of the fact that what belongs to the American government - to our version of Caesar - is the voice of the people protecting the rights of the individual over the power of the state. This is the reason our Constitution begins with the phrase, “We the people of the United States…” and nowhere in our Constitution is the “will of the people” restricted to non-religious people.
When thinking about what should be “given to Caesar,” Christians and even Christian critics should consider the logic of the Constitution is based on the rights of the individual given by God! This means our political system is founded squarely on a Jewish-Christian religious ethic. In fact, without this Jewish-Christian religious ethic to inform our political system, where would our rights come from? If there is no God, rights or goods go only to the strong at the expense of the weak. Remember, evolutionary biology is filled with notions of “survival of the fittest” and the “law of the jungle” – notions founded on tooth and claw, not unalienable individual rights given by a Divine Creator. Without a Jewish-Christian ethic, America would not exist at all, and recognizing this means Christians must speak up, Christians must vote, and Christians must not be ashamed of the principles of our faith that MUST inform the politics of our day. So, “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s” - in our case, that IS our voice!
In the end…
The argument that we “Christians should not care about voting because Christianity is not about politics” flies in the face of the Lord’s command to give our government what it is rightfully due. If you are a Christian American citizen with the legal right to vote, but you refuse to vote, in my opinion, you may be acting in direct disobedience to God, depending on the circumstances.
My new 75-page book explains a Biblical point of view on the 2024 election. Check it out at:
Great points Pastor Pat. I went for a long time without voting, even after the first few years as a Christian due to some of my own misguided beliefs. I finally realized that I wasn't throwing my vote to the winds by voting for the christian candidates, or at least those who held the same beliefs that we do. Even if "we" don't win, I'll still respect and support whomever does as long as they don't command us to violate God's higher laws, as you've discussed before.
Since you included the scripture from Mat 22, I've always found it interesting to ponder starting at verse 19:
Mat 22:19-21
Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him…