Proverbs 14:34 states \u0093Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.\u0094<\/p>\n
How should we understand the statement \u0093Righteousness exalts a nation\u0094? Often I\u0092ve heard preachers explicitly or implicitly tie this passage to the concept of God blessing a nation with righteous leaders. This in turn is tied to the idea that we should vote for candidates who profess to be Christians, or who at least seem to promote policies that are consistent with some concept of \u0093righteousness.\u0094 Usually, in my experience, this means support for candidates who claim to be \u0093born again\u0094 and are pro-life and anti-gay marriage \/ gay rights. I don\u0092t think this is a fair reading of the passage.<\/p>\n
It\u0092s important to understand what this proverb is and isn\u0092t. It is applicable to all nations, not merely Israel. It isn\u0092t, however, connected to God\u0092s covenant relationship with Israel. This is a critical distinction.<\/p>\n
The leaders of God\u0092s chosen people \u0096 the kings of Israel and Judah we read about in the Bible \u0096 were uniquely responsible for the blessings to be bestowed upon or withheld from the nation. When the king turned from God and his law, as most did, God judged the nation. When the king followed and enforced God\u0092s law, God blessed the nation. These judgments and blessings took the form of military and material success, consistent with God\u0092s covenant to establish the nation as a great people.<\/p>\n
The same is not true of the rulers of other nations, including the elected leaders of democracies such as the United States. God has no covenant with any nation other than Israel. Our leaders are not proxies for national faithfulness to a covenant in the same way as the Israelite and Judaic kings. There is no military or material blessing that God grants or withholds based primarily on the behavior of our leaders. Therefore, we should not expect that our national prosperity depends directly on the individual \u0093righteousness\u0094 of our leaders.<\/p>\n
Why does this matter? It matters because our responsibility as citizens extends beyond voting for leaders whom we perceive to be \u0093Christian\u0094 or otherwise relatively \u0093righteous\u0094 in their personal conduct. We must also consider whether those who wish to lead possess characteristics such as wisdom, justice and mercy.<\/p>\n
For example, Prov. 20:26 speaks of a \u0093wise\u0094 king who punishes the wicked; Prov. 20:28 speaks of a king being made secure through love and faithfulness; Prov. 25:2 states that it is the \u0093glory\u0094 of a king to \u0093search out a matter\u0094; Prov. 29:4 states that \u0093By justice a king gives a country stability\u0085\u0094; and Prov. 29:4 states \u0093If a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure.\u0094 In short, Proverbs pictures the good king as one who analyzes issues thoroughly and administers justice evenhandedly.<\/p>\n
It isn\u0092t enough for a ruler to profess some degree of personal piety. Our responsibility as Christian citizens isn\u0092t satisfied merely by voting for the \u0093Christian\u0094 candidate, or even for the candidate who agrees with us on hot-button issues such as abortion and gay rights. We need to look at the total package and choose leaders who are capable of making wise decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proverbs 14:34 states \u0093Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.\u0094 How should we understand the statement \u0093Righteousness exalts a nation\u0094? Often I\u0092ve heard preachers explicitly or implicitly tie this passage to the concept of God blessing a nation with righteous leaders. This in turn is tied to the idea that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-T","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}