Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

• Matthew 5:33-37

Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone.

• Titus 3:1-2

When this post comes out, it will be about three weeks after the primary elections.  While some positions had several people running and no one ran unopposed, at least on my ballot, there was a lot more political effort made in a few of the positions and little for the others.

For one position, you could vote for four people, but there were about ten running for those four positions.  One of them did a lot of advertisements on video games.  Only one of the candidates themselves knocked on my door, but then only about three had people stuff a flier between the doorknob and the jamb.  The incumbent had some television advertisements.

But of every candidate that communicated their platform, everyone tried to identify themselves as being the “only” candidate that was truly conservative.  The other party advertised how liberal they were, pro-abortion, etc. – all those things that the Bible calls sin – and they were pro-unionization of everyone and pro-increased pay for everyone (which all legitimate studies have shown increases inflation and has disastrous effects on the economy).  But then, I was not voting for any of the liberal candidates anyway.

Then, the candidate that knocked on the door and said “Hello,” handed me a flier that offended me.

She and one other candidate were teaming up so that people would vote for both of them.  Maybe there is nothing wrong with that.  It did not work, but…  Their flier started out.  “Unlike our opponents, we are the only Honest to God Conservatives.”  The flier went straight to the trash, but my reaction was that if they knew what that phrase meant, they would not use it.

Judges 11:35 speaks of Jephthah seeing his daughter emerge from the house and he tears his clothes.  He had made an oath that if God had him succeed in battle, he would sacrifice the first thing that emerged from the house.  Being “honest to God” means you have to be honest in every way, basically by penalty of death.  Odd, how the story of Jephthah is in the Bible to illustrate that, and I have read many commentaries that the daughter slipped away and was never killed, and many that said Jephthah should have broken his oath, a lesser sin, in the theologian’s opinion to killing his daughter.

But we do not live in those times.  Curses that lasted generations were placed on people that broke an oath.  Jesus makes it clear.  DO NOT MAKE ONE if at all possible.  So, I do not even think that God considers that “rule” to be treated softly.  Liberalism in biblical interpretation is extremely dangerous.  We are to not conform to this world, thus secular society can get soft all they want.  “Everybody knows” politicians lie just to get elected.  Deal with it.

But because of their invoking God, I voted for neither of those two.  As a political and biblical conservative, I felt the banner of their campaign to be offensive.

Yet, one of the two won one of the four nominations.  They’ll still have to run against the other party’s candidates in November.

But God also tells us to subject ourselves to the government authorities.  Regardless of who wins the election, they are our commissioners, judges, etc.  But as a citizen, who is also a Christian, we need to know more about what these candidates believe and be better informed voters.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.