The Christian world is divided between those who think Christians spend too little attention to this world and its political problems and those who think we spend too much. Being “in the world but not of the world” surely means we have room for error at either extreme. My observation? American Christians seem to as a group perhaps be overly concerned about politics, while us Brits tend to veer to the other extreme and may even proudly declare that we don’t vote. So, perhaps today’s quote is for my American readers, while later in the week I think I may just do one of my political posts for the sake of the Brits:
It is a contradiction in terms for Christian people to be giving so much of their energy to this world. Church conferences and assemblies spend most of their time in considering ‘this world’, passing resolutions about this world. But our first business is to prepare for that other world! This world is doomed. It is under the condemnation of God; it will never be made a better place. Recall how men have tried in the last hundred years to reform it, and how ministers of religion and leaders in churches have given themselves to politics. But look at the state of the Church and the world! The men who have been the greatest benefactors to this world have been such people as those in Hebrews 11 who realized that they were ‘strangers and pilgrims’ and kept their eye ‘upon the recompense of the reward’
David Martyn. Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier : An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 20 (Edinburgh; Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), 264.
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