A Lesson from Ancient Israel

The Lord says: These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”

Isaiah 29:13 

For more than one thousand years, the Hebrew people often confused the kingdom of God with the kingdom of earth. From the day God promised Abraham He would give him land, many of his descendants focused on building a lasting earthly empire rather than centering their hearts on the Giver of that land.

For centuries many Hebrews kept asking God to repel their enemies and give them physical peace, but God kept reminding them He cared about their hearts first (Isaiah 29:13). God sent prophet after prophet to remind them to turn their hearts back to Him, and He promised to use whatever means necessary to regain their hearts—including the loss of their homeland.

The promise to Abraham was never just about the land—it was about faith and relationship. For many, the land has come first, but it was never the point. If it was, the work of God would have been completed when Joshua led the people into the promised land. But as the book of Hebrews reminds us, God had much more in mind: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day” (Hebrews 4:8). God looked forward to a relationship with laws written on tender hearts rather than on civic institutions (Hebrews 10:16).

It is tempting to grow discouraged when watching our influence in culture wane, but the promise of an earthly government that acts with Christian values or a society that behaves according to our standards was never the point of Jesus, His teachings, or His resurrection.

This blog post has been adapted from my book How Jesus Changed the World. You can read more about it here.

The Impact of Jesus on Human Rights and Democracy

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17

As the North American colonies moved toward independence, the founding fathers of the United States struggled with the formation of a new form of government. Based on hundreds of years of experience with Europe’s all-powerful leaders, they favored a government without a king, emperor, or other figurehead. They also recognized the problems of mixing powers of church and state, and determined to have a separation between the two.

Jesus’ teachings strongly influenced the founding fathers, whose faith defined them. Those who might not have identified with the Christian faith were still heavily influenced by the prevailing Christian worldview. As such, they founded the new nation under biblical principles—chief among them was the freedom that Christ bestows to individual humans.

Men like Noah Webster (1758–1843) advocated that the new nation build on the foundation of the Christian religion. He believed people could rise above their own baser instincts and accomplish something for the common good only through devotion to God and adherence to the teaching of Jesus and the Bible. When humanity’s actions neglected the precepts of the Bible, evil and corruption occurred.

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), who became the sixth president of the United States, believed the Bible taught the concept of self-government. Along with others, he believed that the law of human government could not override the law of God. Many of the founding fathers understood the responsibility they held in their hands. They knew the risks of opposing the English monarchy and began to see the form a new country might take. They believed that a government that honored the God-given value of its citizens must have a balance of power. The government needed to exist to consider the needs of all over the needs of a few.

The framers of the United States Constitution placed their belief in God and the teaching of Jesus in the establishment of their new country. They set out to create a nation of laws and rights, firmly founded on scripture. Each citizen was to enjoy the rights endowed by the Creator.

This blog post has been adapted from my book How Jesus Changed the World. You can read more about it here.

The Impact of Jesus on the Founding of America

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

John 4:23-24

The first Europeans who set foot on North American soil intended to build a Christian community. Fleeing persecution in Europe, the Pilgrims (and later the Puritans) sailed for the Americas with the goal of obtaining religious freedom. They sought to worship God and Jesus Christ in the manner they chose without interference or mandates.

Before leaving Europe, William Brewster (c. 1567–1644), the leader of the Pilgrims, said he hoped the Pilgrims would advance the gospel of the kingdom. When they drew up the Mayflower Compact, the very first European political document in the New World, the Pilgrims began with the words “In the name of God, Amen.” The compact also included the phrase “having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” Regardless of what others who followed them may have thought, the Pilgrims saw themselves as forming a Christian colony.

As the colonies turned into states, many other Christian phrases appeared in founding documents. South Carolina, Connecticut, North Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts all referred to God by a number of names: “one God,” “Almighty,” “Supreme Being,” “the Creator,” and “Great Legislator of the Universe.”

The Declaration of Independence contains numerous phrases that reference God, even if they do not mention Him directly. The founding fathers believed that God extends rights to humanity. One central phrase has been passed down through the years: “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

No matter where modern readers fall on the debate of whether today’s United States should be considered a Christian nation, the Christian influence shaped the founding fathers’ work. The original colonists enjoyed the freedom of religion and aimed to create a community where they could worship as they saw fit.

The desire to worship Jesus had a profound impact on the founding of the United States of America.

This blog post was adapted from my book How Jesus Changed the World. You can read more about it here.