Wretched And Exalted Presents:

Conservative as Christ

Episode 1 – Making a Mountain out of a Hill to Die On

Part 2:  The Bible – God and My Big Three

 

Peace and blessings family! I would like to welcome you all to Conservative as Christ.

Here we discuss the sport of politics, and we sprinkle in my religion to make it interesting.

Last time we went over the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America.

It is the foundation of my political ideology.

We also talked about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it allows me to practice my religion without threat of discrimination from the government.

Today we will be talking about The Holy Bible, which is where you can find my belief system and it dictates how I compete in the sport of politics.

This has been the most challenging episode for me to do so far.

I believe it is because when competing in the sport of politics “dunking” on a politician or political party is a valid way to score points.

I never want anyone to feel “dunked” on when I’m talking about their religion or belief system.

I want to have conversations about the areas where we agree and then work on ways we can build on those areas.

If we have doctrine differences, we may not be able to worship together, but are we able to serve our communities together in areas that we agree on?

Personally, I believe we can.  Especially if we are using the same Bible for our belief system.

So now I will share with you my thoughts on God from the Bible using teachings of Moses, Jesus, and The Apostle Paul.

The first thing to note is that God is just a title.

When I am talking about God, or when I pray to Him, I’m referring to YHWH. 

He is most commonly called Jehovah.

I believe He is the all-powerful creator God.

If you don’t know Him, I will give you a quick introduction by reading Genesis chapter one and ending in chapter two verse three.

[It’s the creation story.  If you are listening, I’m reading out of the New International Version. If you are reading this Google Genesis 1 NIV. Stop reading when you get to chapter 2 verse 3.]

 

The first thing God created was Light.

Light is science and math.

Light can be felt and measured. 

The speed of light is the fastest thing known to man. 

Light is also philosophical. 

We have an entire period in history that we call the Enlightenment Period.

Our Constitution is believed to be based on enlightenment principles. 

I say “believed” because I think those principles were around long before the 1600s.

The last thing God created was mankind.

It says that He created man and woman in His image and likeness.

It didn’t say that about the stars, or plants, or fish, or birds, or livestock.

Man and woman are unique.

Family, we don’t need to agree that there is a creator.

If we do agree that there is a Creator, we can disagree on who that creator is.

The absolute truth that cannot be denied is that we, along with all those other things that I believe God created exist.

That is a solid foundation for us to build on.

I want this show to be for all people living in America.

Therefore, I will speak of God in terms that we can all agree on.

I believe that:

God is Life.

God is Love.

God is Good.

God is Light.

That is the core four that we can all agree on.

The Bible confirmed all those in the passage from Genesis we just read.

We all believe in life.

We all believe in good.

We already talked about light.

Love is the one I choose to build with.

I’m not talking about emotional love.

I’m about that we take captive our thoughts and feelings and make them obedient type of Love.

When it comes to my philosophy on love, I have a big three:

Moses

Jesus

Paul of Tarsus

Let’s start with Moses.

Moses is credited with writing the first five books of the Bible.

You are probably familiar with the 10 Commandments.

They can be found in Exodus chapter 20

1.       You shall have no other gods before me

2.       You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them

3.       You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God

4.       Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy

5.       Honor your father and mother

6.       You shall not murder

7.       You shall not commit adultery

8.       You shall not steal

9.       You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor

10.   You shall not covet your neighbor’s house         

What’s love got to do with this?

Good question.

I believe this is the ground floor of love.

I believe they are a good thing for society.

There are some who argue that we should put the 10 commandments in public schools.

I don’t believe that we should.

The first four are unlawful under the Constitution.

It is a violation of my rights to force us to follow any god.

It is a violation of my rights to restrict our worship of any god.

It is a violation of my rights to restrict our speech about any god.

It is a violation of my rights to force us to observe religious your days.

Why?  The Establishment Clause.

Well, what if we cut out the first four and just went with The Six Commandments in public schools?

We can all agree that the things discussed in commandments 5-10 exist.

Can we all agree they are good ground to stand on?

 

                5.            Honor your father and mother = moral good/unlawful to enforce under the Constitution

6.            You shall not murder = moral good/lawful

7.            You shall not commit adultery = moral good/unlawful

8.            You shall not steal = moral good/ lawful

9.            You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor = moral good/lawful

10.          You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. = subjective/unlawful to enforce

Only 30% of the Ten Commandments are enforceable by United States law.

Because of that, I do not feel that they should be taught in public schools.

It’s also more proof that America is not now, nor has it ever been a Christian nation.

I do believe that the 30% that is enforceable is solid ground to build on if a peaceful society is your goal.

Next up we have Jesus.

To introduce Jesus, we are going to read from John chapter 1 verses 1-18 out of the NIV.

Family did you catch what John did there?

Do you remember the creation story we read out of Genesis?

John just said that Jesus was there.

He says that after he was created, he did all of the other creating.

It says Jesus is the light for all mankind.

I believe he is both God and man.

So how do I find common ground with those who do not believe as I do?

We all agree on light and mankind existing.

I will say that Jesus is an enlightened man long before the enlightenment period.

What was his philosophy?

Love.

Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law of Moses

We looked at the Ten Commandments, but God gave Moses over six hundred commandments.

Jesus was asked out of all of them which were the greatest.

His response and explanation when asked to clarify is the reason I’m a Christian today.

For this account we will be reading out of the book of Matthew chapter 22 verses 36-40 and Luke chapter 10 verses 30-37.

Just like that everyone in the world became my neighbor.

And If I want to be a follower of Jesus, I have to love you as I love myself.

That makes y’all lucky because I really love me some me.

There is one more teaching on love from Jesus that dictates how I compete in the sport of politics.

It comes in Matthew chapter 5 verses 43-48.

This is a hard teaching.

The religious leaders of his time had him killed because they felt he was going beyond what Moses had taught.

Paul of Tarsus was an expert in the Law of Moses.

In his zeal for God, he persecuted Christians overseeing the death of the first Christian martyr.

With orders to hunt down more Christians he had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

This is after Jesus had resurrected from the dead.

We don’t have to agree on that, but what can’t be denied is Paul is credited with writing the majority of the New Testament.

Paul was called the Apostle to the Gentiles because he traveled preaching to people who were not Jewish.

Here is an account of a visit to Athens, Greece.

It can be found in Acts chapter 17 verses 16-28.

I believe that Paul was one of the wisest men in history.

He was in Athens debating all the philosophers of the day.

Those men were the forefathers of the forefathers our forefathers based the Constitution on.

And Paul was able to enlighten them with his knowledge of the God who created the universe and everything in it.

He did that using his expertise in the law God gave to Moses, interpreted through Jesus Christ.

And family the bible tells us that those debates usually ended with a mob throwing Paul out of the city.

On at least one occasion they left him for dead.

But churches were left in his wake and the letters that he wrote to those churches are what make up the majority of the new testament.

We mentioned that in the old testament God gave Moses 613 laws.

Of those the 10 Commandments are what is widely known.

Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Paul said that the greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself.

Wait what?  We say Jesus is lord.

Why did Paul change what Jesus said?

I believe the conversation with Jesus on the road to Damascus was the reason.

Paul was ready to murder people made in the image and likeness of God, in the name of God even though God said do not murder.

He called Jesus lord just as I do, and we talked about how Jesus said to love your enemy.

In Romans chapter 12 Paul says that if your enemy is hungry, you should feed him.

He was quoting Proverbs chapter 25 in that passage. 

He knew what the old testament said. 

He just didn’t have the proper interpretation before he met Jesus.

That’s if you believe what the Bible says.

For my family who only believe in science I will just tell you how I live.

I try to love everyone as I love myself.

Because of that I believe in the complete equality of all people.

As far as it depends on me, I live at peace with all people.

I do that because I want that for myself and the people I love.

That includes you too family.

I’m telling you this so you can know what I believe and why I believe it.

I want you to understand why I make the choices I make when I’m competing in the sport of politics.

If you are one of the 80 million Americans who do not participate in politics, we could use your help at this time.

Domestically we are literally a house divided. 

We have republicans fighting republicans fighting democrats.

None of them are fighting for We the people.

On the foreign policy side, we have two wars that could easily lead to a world war.

I don’t speak on foreign policy because I don’t have all the information required to make an informed decision.

I pray for a speedy resolution and for the safety of all God’s children on both sides of the conflicts.

As always, I’m never asking you to believe as I believe.

I am asking, what do you believe?

Let me know in the comments.

And that is the show family.

I thank you for being here with us.

You could have been anywhere in the world, and you chose to spend your time with us.

For that we are appreciative.

We are trying to build a community of people who believe in the American Dream.

In the Constitution they gave us the power to be the change we want to see.

I intend to use it.

Next episode we talk about strategy.