Leaving Egypt Ministries, Zachary Gomez

Theological, eschatological, and political views abound. There are certainly some staunch positions to take. And while most are disputable matters, I believe their level of importance can be ranked appropriately when viewed through the lens of Christ, His distinct Kingdom, and a love that does no harm to anyone.

I’m writing this article, memo, or mission statement for how and why I believe people of the Way—genuine followers of Christ—should be functioning in this time as “the Church,” that is the Body of Christ. If Scripture is our manual of sorts, and there have been centuries worth of scholars and Church leaders we can glean from, and since we have the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth as our counselor (John 16:13), then it’s possible to be more unified on matters of faith and practice at this pivotal time in history.

How are we to function as the Church? How do we experience a greater unity? How do we know what’s true? How do we walk in greater love and fellowship? How do we have greater power and authority? (And I don’t mean power and authority how it’s understood today in its political sense). How do we foster stronger community?

I believe it first starts by exiting the false systems of the world, getting rid of the mixture, and healing the infections in the Body. We’re not seeing clearly, being discerning of evil, or functioning properly, because we’re sick. There’s so much mixture, because we’re listening to too many voices besides the voice of our Good Shepherd. We fool around with counterfeits because we don’t know our Lord and Savior like we should. So many of these false voices have been longstanding, making their doctrines like strongholds that have been difficult to dismantle or unlearn. We must stop consenting to, and participating in, false religious systems just because it’s familiar.

The false religion of statism infecting Christianity

I don’t want to spend a lot of time breaking down or focusing on all the problems, but some of them are worth mentioning and why they are destructive to true Kingdom advancement. Two dominant ideas in American culture, Christian Zionism and Christian nationalism, are both antithetical to the Kingdom, even though they have some of the most wealthy, prominent and influential proponents. Both are rooted in fear, idolatry, and deception. Neither of them honor or worship Yahweh as the Sovereign Lord of all times and seasons. Both disrespect Christ and His Kingdom by somehow conflating His Kingdom with a religious-political desire to have some kind of theocratic militaristic empire.

The language of “take America back for God” is all wrong. “America,” by which they mean the “United States,” was never “God’s nation.” It was not founded as a Christian nation even though some of its minor founders might have been Christians. “America” is a kingdom of the world, a Biblical Egypt or a Babylon, and the powers that (should not) be have done a good job of deceiving well-meaning people into participating in a system that is taking us nowhere. We have been operating like the Israelites in their idolatry and sin when they wanted a king like the pagan nations around them.

The deceptions in modern Christianity run deep in almost every direction, most of them which cause men to turn toward the State-god as representative of God’s kingdom. We have been given a false Israel in the modern nation-state of Israel, and we’ve believed false interpretations of Scripture, I think, because we want to control an “end times” narrative and outcome as it has been sold to us.

We’ve turned a heartless blind eye to the billions of dollars that have gone into the death and destruction of millions of people’s lives. Why? Because the casualties are brown and Muslim? We can’t feign ignorance as followers of Christ. If your theological and eschatological beliefs (eg., “Christians must stand behind Israel”) lead to all sorts of evils and horrible outcomes, maybe your beliefs are wrong. To believe the modern nation-state of Israel is true spiritual and Biblical Israel, you have to twist Scripture, take it out of context, and have to do all sorts of moral and mental gymnastics, making Yahweh an accomplice of the Devil and worldly elites, who are playing games with people’s lives over land no one can inherit forever except if they have faith in Christ.

Then there’s the golden calf of conservative politics and doing your “civic duty.” We already have so many denominations, a reality I know Jesus didn’t have in mind for His people. Across the spectrum from left to right, greater division is needlessly perpetuated. Jesus came to give us His kingdom (Luke 12:32). Why are we arguing over which candidate or political party is going to save a kingdom that is passing away? Even on a surface-level the insanity gets more obvious each election cycle. When you look into the level of corruption that is ubiquitous and unavoidable in the system, it becomes impossible to keep participating.

In any departure from the status quo, there is a fear of letting go of the familiar ways of doing things, almost as if they were coping mechanisms. There is a transition away from something towards something else. This transition doesn’t have to be long. Egypt and the promised land weren’t really 40 years away. It could have taken no more than a month for the Israelites to enter Canaan. But will we fully let go and embrace the new things the Lord has for us?

The Christian community

Aside from the problems in the Church mentioned above, there is also a general lack of community and love among professing Christians. An emphasis on elaborate Sunday services has led to a huge deficit in the Body both from a relational and financial standpoint. It is a statistical fact that the Church is mismanaging resources. Very little revenue from tithes and offerings on average goes towards outreach and missions. More than that gets embezzled.

I believe we have to start taking better responsibility for every aspect of our lives which we have pawned off on the State or Church “leaders” who have not been shepherding God’s Church properly: from raising and educating our own children, to feeding our neighbors, providing for them in old age, doing commerce with one another, to organizing systems of protection for each other. It was a grave error of the church—the body of Christ—to ever abdicate responsibility and hand over the role of self-governance to the civil gods, who bring bondage to their people rather than liberation. And yet the majority of professing Christians have no qualms with “public schools,” “food stamps,” “social security,” or even “public safety” (police), when these things are the very traps set by the statists to sucker God’s children into being a part of the kingdoms of men. These things, which we should be doing ourselves as part of God’s kingdom, are thought by most people to be the responsibility of the State, which as Jesus points out are false benefactors who exercise authority (Luke 22:25).

Caesar loves when Christians hand their children and communities over to him, not because he is needed in order to have the goods and services he allegedly provides, but because the provision of food, education, and protection are central command posts that any ruler must control if they wish to control the people and attempt to thwart God’s kingdom.

This means we are going to have to get to know our neighbors and be more comfortable being the Church and meeting daily rather than just checking the box of Sunday service attendance and serving. Hospitality and being more family-oriented is what the Lord wants.

The book of Acts Church was not without its problems, but they were thriving in ways we are not, even though they were under an oppressive Roman rule and had to deal with persecution from Jews. If we really want to have an impact in the world, we need to be much more proactive and wise in how we steward resources and relationships, modeling our communities after them.

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32-35).

One way that we can better prosper is to keep money from leaving our hands by buying, selling, and trading with brothers and sisters in Christ. Jewish and Muslim communities do this so well that money changes hands 10 or more times before it gets into a non-Jewish or non-Muslim hand. Christians in our society exchange money 0 to 1 times before it leaves. We don’t even realize how foolish and irresponsible this is. It’s costing us big time.

More of us probably need to be obedient to the Lord in starting the business He’s called us to start. We need to set up systems that market to each other. We need people that are willing to step up and manage Church finances better so that we are all taken care of as the family of God and then have the overflow to be able to reach unbelievers and minister to them.

We are not called to reform Babylon or attempt to “Christianize” such pagan systems as the “United States,” but to organize voluntarily in ways that provide for our own people and show a true love of neighbor rather than the contempt and covetousness toward our neighbors that is evident in such political systems of robbery.

Instead of “taking America back for God,” we need to take back “the Church” from the wolves. That is, we need to recover our responsibilities and duties to neighbor from the false benefactors who co-opted them and used it against us. We need to start living as if we are the “government,” albeit a “government” much unknown to our corrupted, statist world, where men actually serve one another freely without the chains we’re used to having on our ankles.