Empire

Wise words from Wright ( Paul: In Fresh Perspective ) about the biblical assessment of empire: “Things are not straightforward, by our Procrustean standards, in any of these books [Amos, Isaiah, Daniel]. When God acts to rescue the three righteous Jews from the furnace, or Daniel from the den of lions, they are then given top jobs in the imperial civil service. Jeremiah tells the exiles to settle down and seek Babylon’s welfare as long as they live there. At points like these we realize how inadequate our left-right spectrum i for understanding ho the Jewish people thought about earthly rulers. Radical subversion of pagan political systems does not mean support for anarchy . . . . a classic Jewish position, which echoes on well into the Christianity of the second and third centuries, seems to us to play from both ends of the spectrum at once. The rulers are wicked and will be judged, especially when they persecute God’s people. But God wants the world to be ruled, rather than to descent into anarchy and chaos, and his people must learn to live under pagan rule even though it means constant vigilance against compromise with paganism itself.”