Jesus came to a highly politicised, fraught, culture. A nation on edge, under foreign rule.
Israel was set up as a theocracy. God was central business; the kingdom was central government. The law was government policy. Politics and theology were not seperate categories. Sin and repentance had public and political implications.
Like today, there were various political and religious groupings in this uncertain mix.
We might think Jesus would have preferred the outsiders, those looking for a new kingdom, committing to a teacher of righteousness, and eschatological expectation, out in the desert. There was just such a group of devout Jews around Jesus' time, the Essenes. We know they liked reading Enoch and Daniel and Isaiah and the Psalms (They held out the longest, at Masada, when the end finally came, against the armies of Rome.)
Or we might think He would find plenty of common ground with those who wanted to take the culture of the temple further afield, to move the realm of temple purity and God honouring elements further into everyday life. There was a group agitating on those lines.
Or perhaps he'd work with those sons of David who saw the need to act to take out the foreign influence and restore Israel's national kingdom. That did look like David, and was a fair Messianic expectation, surely. The disciples seem to still have that in their thinking even after the resurrection and all they have seen and learnt. (Lord are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?).
He threads the needle between all those movements, and the various intersections of these, which were alive and well in his day. Essenes, Pharisees, Zealots, Herodians. He looks a bit like each of them, but does not align with any. He is doubly revolutionary, redefining the reform movements as well.
Given Israel's history, calling 12 disciples was a political and theological statement, that would not be too hard to read, at least as a question. They had 12 tribes after all, and must have wondered. Is he retelling our story? Claiming to remake the nation?
From someone else, the question "Who do they say I am?" could be a moment of insecurity in a leader. From Jesus it's more likely leading his disciples to ponder how this prophetic puzzle he has set them, the selection of the 12, and all the signs and wonders and teaching, is playing out. They report most people have some kind of sense he is prophet, maybe Elijah, but when he narrows the focus to them, "and who do you say I am?" Peter gets the fuller picture : Messiah, saving King, the one designated Son of God. (Thats not, necessarily, yet. a statement of ultimate divine identity in the way it later came to be understood.)
Jesus travelling the country does look a bit like David after he had been anointed to be king, the future and destined king traversing the country, while a Saul is still on the throne. The people maybe get that, and in John 6, try to make him "king by force". But he has another way to kingship; and a wider realm to be king over.
The prophets who went before him, had finally culminated in the final great forerunner and messenger, John the baptist, with his message of repentance. John and his precursors had both a political and theological scope; you could hardly drive a wedge between those realms.
Some of that prophetic line before John had been voices to their kings, from inside the palace. Nathan and Gad, to David. Zechariah and Haggai to Zerubbabel. The exhort and encourage and correct the king, mobilise the people, but broadly from the same page.
Jesus points out John is not the sort of figure you find in the palace, aligned to the king and fine things. He does end up there, sort of, but mainly speaks to the king from prison. He'd addressed Herod's personal morals, taking his brothers wife, and continues to speak to Herod from there, until his end. Paul looks like this too, reaching various rulers from his imprisonments.
Israel had also known examples of "second in command" rulers, counsellors and prophets to pagan kings who are escalated because of their gifts. Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Joseph to Pharaoh.
Other prophets had also written oracles against the pagan nations, even as they warn that God could use them to chastise Israel. Isaiah warns Israel that her dependence on foreign nations will fail; that an alliance with Egypt or Babylon won't stop Assyria being used as God's judge, and yet rebukes the same nations for their excessive cruelty. Jeremiah and Ezekiel do some of that as well.
Other prophets had more heated roles inside Israel - they directly contest the king. Jeremiah and Ezekiel were called to contest the official views. Elijah in particular lived in times of high conflict; trading insults with one of Israel's worst kings, Ahab, about who is the real source of Israel's trouble, and eradicating the legions of Baal prophets that Ahab had married the nation into. Political and personal purity merge together there.
Notice though that even in this low season, God still had an operative on the inside, Obadiah, shielding a hundred prophets from Jezebel's purges. Both options remain valid. Elijah was tempted to see himself as the only one, the one true follower - but God discloses that there are seven thousand more, some probably like Obadiah, walking the line in dark times.
John is also considered a new Elijah, the return of the forerunner. I mentioned he is no chaplain or advisor to the king, except from prison. Paul is similar; he does hear of a convert reaching the emperor's household (Php 4:22) and he preaches directly to his captors. Paul is not above using his Roman citizenship when it suits - appeals to the Emperor when he can't trust the Jewish trial; staves off a beating by citing it, at another time.
Jesus had been no great respecter of King Herod, the pretender king who wanted him dead; calling him a fox, but hadn't encouraged insurrection. The beatitudes - turn the other cheek - should also be read as a mandate for dealing with Israel's situation before her oppressors - take that solider's bag the extra mile, look for the reward to be later. John has spoken to the soldiers as well - don't extort, be content with your pay.
Jesus said, of our core prayer strategy, we should ask to see the Kingdom come. We welcome Him, His presence and ways, his rule and peace, the Kingdom in our midst, into our lives, our hearts first, and to others.
But just when we want that to only be a spiritual kingdom, remember "gospel" was already a known word; it had originally meant the Roman proclamation that the emperor was Lord and saviour and son of God. "Jesus is Lord" is not just a personal conviction, it also means the mighty Roman emperor does not really deserve those titles, is not the real source of peace. Persecution soon followed.
Today, some emphasise a role for getting heavenly patterns and words, and seeing them birthed here. I also like that. On earth as it is heaven.
We might see politics as dirty, fallen, the works of man; since we have the heavenly kingdom to steward and share. And indeed that may be so. But they overlap - the kingdoms of the earth will become the kingdom of God. We have to see the church as ecclessia, a form of heavenly government, both at war with the systems of man, its fallen spirit, but also as purifying salt and leaven, kingdom agency, Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, in the midst. There may be seven thousand like Obadiah in civil and prophetic service, as well as the climatic confrontations of Elijah.
In this age it will often be both. These things tend to be BOTH, AND, not one OR the other. We've loved the first seven chapters of Acts, we also need the last seven.
So, we spread the kingdom in love and evangelism, in prayer and faith. And, some may be the insiders, at all levels, to the mountain of influence called government. Indeed we can hardly avoid it, as a body, in some measure, even as there is a spiritual war involved in being there.
We aspire to Zion, to go higher and deeper into the heavenly realities that we can access now.
The overall body surely has to have representatives in both places at once. Individuals can be in both places at once. Some may look like prophetic counsel, some as contested voices from outside, depending on the season. Either way, we don't necessarily get to do devotion and spiritual kingdom without political context. Like Jesus, we have to thread the needle - we're not conspiracy theorists in the desert. Nor is truth fully owned and implemented by either side of politics, though we can respect those who serve there, even when we disagree. But the truth may well be political.
For those who know that we are called to honour leaders as God's instruments, as in Romans 13 or 1 Timothy 2, I agree. We must certainly pray for all we agree or disagree with, for the stability of the civil function they represent. But the instruction of Paul to the fledgling New Testament church is not the only thing the bible has to say on the matter, as this post explores.
Prayer is world changing and powerful, and the church needs to be incarnate in the world as well. Retreating only to prayer and encouragement from the margins - as if we only offer chicken soup for the soul, and will be chaplains to the worlds abuses - can sometimes leave the operation of the world to the tyrants. Retreating to private piety may seem to keep us alive, and let the world go to the the dogs, even the dogs of war. Tyrants won't mind if we just pray and don't speak or act; though pray we must, and pray often and well. But we must avoid the risk of drifting into a docetic heresy; as if Jesus had not really been incarnate in the spiritual project or remaking the heavens and earth, and we'd prefer to not be either.
We carry his Kingdom forward as the true hope and light, where-ever we be, in all ways, in prayer or citizenship, in service and word, in pastoral care and prophetic counsel, in bringing good news and prophetic confrontation, carrying his signs on earth and heaven.
And in a democracy, we have less wilful kings to deal with. But citizens must engage on all fronts, in prayer and word, lest it revert or drift to arbitrary power exercised without review, for vested interests. And we may need to translate a lot of this to other institutional settings, work or uni or school, a microcosm where it plays out in similar ways.
