What is Evangelism?

Jesus Did Not say give taxes to Rome.

He said "Render unto Caesar what is his, and render unto God what is his."

Jesus is asking them to make a choice whar they do with their money. Does Caesar own anything? Do we fear him? Jesus in fact said you could get tax money from the mouth of a fish. Meanwhile, what we render to God is everything. Caesar is just a man.

1 Samuel chapter 8 explains how Israel went from a pure Theocracy to a government ruled by a king. King Saul disobeyed God too much. Even king David sinned, which led to a major mess. Eventually, the kingdom was divided. Finally, Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and Judah was conquered by Nebi baby.
Obviously, the Catholic Church did a horrible job representing God.
In the future, after the world really gets messed up, there will be a pure Theocracy throughout the world.

I usually refer to it literally the way Jesus described it:

That is a 'Benevolent Dictatorship'.

It bothered me the first time that occurred to me, but after considering all the alternative forms of government, I’m 'All In'.

Yes
Jesus will be in power.
With this in mind, there need not be any struggle for people to be the ones in charge.
In this environment, Adam Smith's theory of Capitalism can flourish. The social morality that Bulma promotes and moderate Democrats rightfully want from "the rich" will exist. However, people will not learn to be lazy as happens in Socialism.

My dad uses that word. I'm not sure I agree.

Rather than a benevolent dictatorship, it's more like a minarchy. A govern with the least amount of rule.

As in, much of Judges is propaganda where they say "There was no king in those days..." What really was the case was the complaint when they first asked God for a king like the other nations. They are told that the king will raid 1/10 of their property and possibly sleep with their women. I think that's more or less what they said. No dictatorship that starts benevolent ever ends that way (eirher they gradually become more cruel or they get taken over), because God wants us to cut the cord. Jesus tells us, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." When God comes, it will be because we stop getting fooled by leaders. Trump was a benevolent dictator too, but his rule led directly to the asshole that is Biden. In other countries, the good leaders turned out to be frauds. We would be better with no leader than leaders thar do too much. You see, even someone who tries to push for government that is kind meets resistance from the status quo or from those on the government teat worried about losing their benefits. And so, there's a sort of recoil back into tyranny.

When God truly comes to reign, the only difference between that and doing it ourselves is that we will have the knowledge and self-control to live decently. When we learn to govern our own lives and stop making stupid decisions , God will have rule over our lives. Self-discipline.

My dad, as I say, believed in a benevolent dictatorship. I believe in constitutional anarchy. Ten years later, Trump is out of office, and benevolent dictatorship has been replaced by a true dictatorship.
Dictatorship has been tried, the one thing that hasn't been tried is letting God guide our lives, and ignoring politicians entirely.

Yea, a secular, scientific oriented form of government run by democratically elected civil servants is scary... (cynical)

You jump head first into a dictatorship?

The Germans tried that...

You must scare yourself... I can see why.

I don't remember Jesus being arrested for tax evasion, and he did have a tax collector friend also.

Being a carpenter's son Jesus would have been required to pay taxes just like any other Roman citizen.

Caesars were not "just a man", they were emperor kings and at times Caesars were also revered as Gods.

The disciples asked Jesus if they should pay taxes and Jesus held up a coin and said render to Caesar what is Caesar's.

In other words, give the necessary tax coins to Caesar.

Then, Jesus instructed them on how God would furnish them with money to pay taxes to Caesar through their faith.

You pretend to know the scriptures but your knowledge of the scriptures is pathetic...

Go back to Sunday school...

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...

Power corrupts people. That is why our founding fathers established "checks and balances" in the constitution.
Progressives are making attempts to get rid of these "checks and balances". We must have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other constitutional rights.There must not be " cancel culture". Biden must not be allowed to "stack" the Supreme Court. This will destroy our American society as we have known it.

What zbout not bearing false witness. People do not learn to be lazy with socialism, that is a disgusting lie.

You have a healthcare system that murders poor people through neglect. They are denied lifesaving treatment just to protect the vast profits of fat cat capitalist scum.

That's the system that you support, one that murders children. Jesus was a Socialist, which is why you hate it and why you are no Christian.

You call Hitler ‘Benevolent' ?

You scare me.

You paraphrase a man I admire. (yes, yes Frank, I know all about Sally, etc…)

“The best government is the government that governs the least.”
- Thomas Jefferson

And I agree. But how do we get to a place where that is possible?

You suggested greater 'self control'. Perhaps you recall Paul's agony as he described his struggle with self control. “That which I would not do, I do!, and that which I would do, I do not!”.

But he followed that by pointing to the path that Jesus described. You will never win that struggle with self control until you are 'born again' in spirit. There is no universal formula for doing that. But we are told that in seeking God, anyone can find their own path to it.

Oh you mean like the republicans did stacking the supreme court, denying Obama an appointment with one year left in his last term and then ramming through a drunk rapist and Trump cult religious freak in the last week of Trump's joke of a presidency?

All so they might pardon his corruption on some future date?

Cancel culture, like the deaths caused by Trump's inaction during the virus outbreak? How much culture got canceled during his reign of terror and sedition? Culture was being canceled while he ignored his duty to protect lives. Trump fed the pandemic and made it stronger.

Biden must not be allowed? Really? He is the duly elected President of the United States of America. Who else is going to appoint judges? You talk like a 4 year old.

Like Obama was not allowed to fill a vacancy and then Trump stacks the court with misfits and fake Bible freaks?

Who is stacking the courts?

Democrats need to "repair" the courts from republican treachery.

And Trump lost the first election due to Russian propaganda, outright lying to the American people and Trump lost the second election by a wide margin, his judge appointees are illegitimate.

Republicans sitting in congress right now are not there because they won elections, they are there because they used gerrymandering, voter intimidation and voter disenfranchisement to shift their loss into their favor.

Republican judges are sitting on the courts through nefarious means.

Power corrupts...

Yes, Trump governed the least and played golf the most...

I am certain Trump is not what Thomas had in mind.

And Democrats gave it all to Joe Biden.

Reminds me of a song - 'Are You Happy Now?'

I would rather a president play golf his entire term than pass one law screwing over the American people.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/which-president-plays-more-golf-donald-trump-or-barack-obama.html/

For reference, Obama played a fair amount of golf too. He also passed some very egregious laws. "If you want to keep your doctor..." Meanwhile , what if you don't want a doctor, what if you don't want to be forced to pay for one? Nope, forcing it down your throat.

See also my thread objecting to John's Heaven.

John envisions heaven as taking away all our toys and telling us that he's brought us something better. Be that as it may, I think most of us would prefer the absence of government (sorta the reversal of the decision in Samuel where they said "bring us a king") to someone else who "knows best."
We've had plenty of people knowing best on Earth. What I want most is for God to rule (by removing government), and for the self-discipline to have what is truly right for me. Not the removal of everything normal. COVID's "new normal" is no worse than God's "new normal" under those terms. But doing away with the worldly powers? Sure, I would be cool with that. But I also want someone to love. Taking away marriage and childbirth sounds empty.

Yes, I understand that struggle. And I understand that we have to become a new creation. I also studied history. We can't be all alike. That's part of some of the worst tyrannies, to have people all follow lockstep. We were made in God's image but all of us have different appearance, desires, goals, etc. To strip this and make us all alike is vaguely like lobotomy.

Exactly.

So the challenge God set himself, was to create free will individuals with a wide variety of personalities who needed almost no ‘governing'. It’s an awesome undertaking and it is no surprise that the yield of the process is very small in spite of his desire for all to make it.

But NO, being 'born again' has nothing to do with anything like being robotically reprogrammed.

I’ll look for that thread you mentioned.

According to the Constitution there are to be nine justices on the Supreme Court. If one or more justices dies or retires there are rules for bringing the number of justices back to nine.
Biden wants to increase the number of justices to more than nine. This is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
This is what it means to "stack the Supreme Court".

NoNoNo, you need to learn your Constitution:

"The Supreme Court of the United States

The Constitution does not stipulate the number of Supreme Court Justices; the number is set instead by Congress. There have been as few as six, but since 1869 there have been nine Justices, including one Chief Justice."

"The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress. The first Judiciary Act, passed in 1789, set the number of Justices at six, one Chief Justice and five Associates."

Sure thing.

Yeah, sometimes I write articles because I fixate on ideas, and literally make myself crazy.

One of my main hangups is that the nature of God is often uncertain to me. The Jesus described in scripture is not always Jesus as I know him (or her, actually). So I have a fair amount of angst as to whether I got to know the real Jesus or some sort of false Jesus, either of the world or my imagination.
The other recurring issue I have is the specific passage about "Those who would save their lives will lose them, and who will lose their lives will save them." A number of issues with actually. First, often having extremely black periods where I legit want to die, and being like "what kinda torture is that?!?" Where even the nice things people do are painful cuz life is painful right then. Second, I read Genesis, and it feels like Eden is intended as a kind of pre-Earth spiritual realm, and I kinda get into a weird Gnostic funk where I wonder is living itself in this physical world is somehow evil.

What happens when you overthink theology. And have few IRL friends, thanks to repeated rejections, some paranoia and social issues, and this ******* social distance bullshit. "It is not good for man to be alone." God's first words about evil, and you can tell He speaks from experience.