My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word! Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, O LORD; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! (ESV)

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” “Money is the root of all evil,” “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Have you ever heard any of these sayings and thought it was biblical wisdom, only to discover that it is not actually in the Bible? You may be re-reading one of those right now, questioning everything you have ever known to be true. Perhaps someone told you something was biblical wisdom and because you trust them, it was never questioned. They themselves may have believed it to be true. I have had a few instances of this happening, which caused me to question things I have believed. God gives us a desire to know truth through his Word, but first, we must know God’s Word. And to know it, we must read it ourselves.  

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John 10:10 says, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.” You might say Satan is out to steal our desire to study Scripture for ourselves, to kill our love for God and others by painting a hypocritical picture of who God is by muddying the words God gave us, and to destroy our faith by dismantling our beliefs based on lies about God. This can also be true of our political stance when we believe the lie that God has no place in politics. As we walk through the book The Party Crasher by Joshua Ryan Butler, he explores ten “Political Commandments” as a commitment to ensure your focus is on the King of Kings in this political season. The fourth “commandment” is Biblical Wisdom, saying that “I commit to having my views challenged by the biblical story rather than using the Bible to proof-text my predetermined positions.”  

I don’t know about you, but I can think of a few instances that I debated someone based on the partial truth as discussed above, but I had not actually studied the Bible myself on the matter. Unfortunately, it is common to let others do the leg work while we sit back and soak in sermons, podcasts, or common misquotations and out-of-context conclusions, without ever actually studying Scripture for ourselves to discern if the messages we absorb as truth are, in fact, Truth. We have our reasons for our lack of desire. It may be that Scripture intimidates us. It could also be some deep-seated pride, and we are afraid God’s answers will challenge our beliefs. It could also be that God is convicting our hearts of an incorrect belief we hold, but this admission means we must begin the work of rebuilding our beliefs based on God’s Word – and that feels like a lot of work!

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I don’t know if any of this describes you or where you fit, but when it comes to politics, I think most of us would admit that allegiance to a party has not delivered the results we hoped. We have placed too much faith in what any leader can do. We justify our stance by aligning a party’s platform vaguely with something from the Bible. We may not realize we are cherry-picking God’s Word.  

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The challenge is to truly know God’s heart, so that we only care about HIS view. We cannot know God’s heart if we never study what he has already said. If we are honest, we already know that constantly having an “us vs. them” mentality is not working. This only leads to seeing half the country as our enemy. Instead, biblical wisdom allows us to see God’s heart. When we know the heart of God, we begin to see each other not as enemies, but as image bearers of God. Any time we put God in his rightful place, our other arguments become secondary. Instead of “us vs. them,” we can automatically choose God’s view. When we start with biblical wisdom, rather than starting with an issue and trying to align it to God’s Word, we allow his Word to read and lead us.  

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How do we begin to shift from making God’s Word fit in our ideological box to allowing God’s Word to challenge our political beliefs? Start today by asking God for the deep desire to know and study his Word. Ask him for wisdom in understanding the Scripture you read. He is faithful. Allow his wisdom to change you and give you the ability to apply what you know to every aspect of your life, including your political leanings. I pray your desire for biblical wisdom and truth far outweighs your desire to see your political party win. Let today’s Scripture be the prayer of your heart as you dig into biblical wisdom this week.

Lord, thank you for the wisdom you give. Strengthen us according to your Word. I pray you will help us to seek you in your Word and to accurately apply the truths you have given us to every aspect of our lives. In this season, I pray we can dig deep into your Word, not to find the answers we want, but for the answers you have already given. Thank you for your Word. Amen.