No, I don’t need to read the bible again.
Although, at times I do as I’m not all knowing on it, far from it.
But I don’t need to read it on this. But thank you kindly for the arrogance nonetheless. It’s so becoming.
And I know, I responded “in kind” to your initial attack of calling others “naive”.
It’s an original intent thing, much like we say of the constitution, imo.
You framed it in terms of the government that GOD set up, or that GOD wanted, well, what was the first government that God set up?
It was however you want to look at it. It was God speaking through Moses to all the people, and all the people did as God spoke- well, ideally. Obviously many times not.
Or, it was set up through the levitical priests as well, in the time in the wilderness, when they had oversight, and Moses, whom again God spoke to, served as basically chief judge over the people, with lesser judges appointed by him, out of “able men, such who fear God,men of truth, hating covetousness” (Exodus 18:21)- but the chief standard of all these judges again being “men who fear God”.
Which, I believe our entire judicial concept of lesser and the highest court is based on that one verse and concept.
But from there they go into the promised land and have what- not a man king, but judges, hand selected by God (save Abimelech, who sought power being one son of Gideon), who’s chief duty more than anything else was end the idolatry and get the entire nation once again right with God.
Like I said, man cried for a man king to rule over them like the other nations. That was MAN, not God. God always wanted to rule over His people because He is our God. He is our Creator. He is our Father. But because we have free will, if man wants to go their separate way from God, and if man wants to be totally ruled over by man, God will allow that.
You speak of New Testament government- who set up governments at that point? It wasn’t God. It was man.
Then to throw Muslim countries and Sharia law into it, it’s a completely illogical point to even make because you’re talking about a man made religion and a fictitious man made god. No one in this discussion hopefully would advocate for a Sharia law based system. Note that I even said that I’m not advocating for a philosophy. I said that as secular humanists work harder and harder to separate God from government and from the people themselves, which our FOUNDERS DID NOT DO, our government and our entire culture has suffered as a result. If you would argue differently than either you’re at the wrong place or I am, because I’m pretty sure most conservatives would agree with me on that.
YOU can what “separate government and separate church all you want. But that’s not the way you laid out your point. You said that God wanted it that way. I disagree. God ALLOWED it to go that way because MAN decided he wanted it that way- and God respects that.
I know that in the OT the people didn’t want God to rule over them - they wanted a king -so He gave them a king - Saul, who turned out to be a disaster. However, in the NT, there are numerous Scriptures where government duties and church duties are defined. Jesus never told the government officials to go into the world and preach the gospel - he did say, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars, and unto God the things that are Gods. We also know that when the righteous are in charge - the people rejoice. However, only God knows the heart of men - not you, not me. Words can be deceiving and I believe St. Cruz is deceiving people using his “faith” to pull the wool over people’s eyes.