How Do Christians Evaluate Evil? A Biblical Explanation
Thank you again for participating in the Teleios survey. We had 103 responses. For full survey results click here.
The main direct biblical answer in the survey, fortunately, was answered positively by 94% of the participants agreeing that we are in a battle against evil. The primary New Testament comes from Ephesians 6:10-17 explained below:
Ephesians 6:10-17 – The magnificent “armor of God” passage is critical to understanding the Christian lifestyle because it instructs about how to access God’s power by describing a Greek hoplite soldier and his armament. Often Christians wonder how they can know the power of God. These great verses describe it and it comes through the Spirit!
However, this great passage is also important in revealing that our battle is against evil primarily and not humankind directly.
- Truth (our belt to prepare us v.14) – Living in truth is a fruit of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:9) and provides mental preparation for making proper decisions and actions.
- Righteousness (our breastplate v.14) – A fruit of the Spirit is a holy heart that is set apart to serve God and perceives and rejects sin (Ephesians 5:9).
- Share the gospel (the shoes to carry us to battle v.15) – By telling others the message of salvation Christians see the power of God to change others and positively affect society, which is assisted by the Spirit (Romans 1:16-17; 2 Timothy 1:7; John 16:8-11).
- Faith (our shield v.16) – Faith a fruit of the Spirit. Believers make life decisions in faith consistent with God’s biblically expressed desires (Galatians 5:22-23; Romans 14:23) trusting in Him for the result.
- Eternal security (our helmet v.17) – The sound knowledge of security of salvation protects a believer’s head in the face of trouble in this world; its function is from the Spirit (Romans 15:13).
- The Bible (our sword v.17) – The power of God in the Christian walk is through the action of the Spirit in accordance to the Bible.
Wow, what great truths! These passages tell us how the Spirit acts in believers lives to cause them to please God and experience His power.
For the other questions in the survey, Christians must determine in faith what they believe.
The problem – No matter your political persuasion, Christians must realize there are political groups in the United States that absolutely hate us, as consistent with scripture (John 15:18-24).
Christians should be cognizant that to collaborate with these anti-Christian groups ultimately may sign their own death warrant as happened in the past in Communist Russia, socialist Germany under Hitler and under the absolute kings such as Louis XIV.
Sadly, those that hate us generally promote:
- Eliminating Christian access to public discourse
- Limiting free speech
- Early sexual exposure
- Abortion
- Race, gender and religious based bigotry
- Blurring of the genders
- Men using women’s restrooms
- Destruction of traditional marriage and biblical family values
- Acceptance, or even seeking, of unvetted, illegal immigrants into America to destroy Christian values
- Islamic jihadi violence against women and homosexuals, and mutilation of young girls
Their goal – Those who hate God generally wish to replace individuality and personal freedoms by demanding that each person depends on the government for their job, residence, social benefits, and wellbeing. They fight to replace God, communities and family with an all-powerful government. The government is their God and hope!
Their Methods – In short, they tell us to ‘Just shut up!’
Christians often mistakenly believe that God haters think like we do, based in the same intellectual values, and try to engage in the public square in a mutually respectful way. Nothing could be further from the truth! While Christians generally treat others and their views respectfully, those who hate God commonly use repressive tactics with an ‘ends justify the means’ ethic to destroy those with whom they disagree.
So what are their specific methods of culturally cleansing Christians?
- Shame – The classic argument from a humanistic standpoint is that Christians are narrow-minded, unloving, judgmental people in contrast to God haters who are accepting of all and everything. In reality, however, God haters themselves are very narrow-minded and inflexible in their views, and condemn strongly those who disagree with them.
- Intimidation – They seek to silence Christians by violence and verbal abuse.
- Name calling – Of course, any disagreement earns a Christian the title of homophobic, racist, misogynist, anti-science or fascist. God haters try to cover their own agenda by calling believers what they themselves represent.
- Forced cultural change – They have tried eliminating our influence in the public square by using voter fraud and by forced integration of migrants to dilute our communities, destroy our liberty, and depress our Christian culture. Leaders of the God haters have told Christians tour God needs to change to accept behaviors they champion such as contraception mandates and same sex marriage.
The battle – Whether Christians choose to recognize it or not, we are in a huge fight for our culture based on Christian principles for the future of our children. If we do not engage in this struggle, at least at some level, we may doom subsequent generations to living under a tyrannical, anti-Christian regime with its accompanying loss of religious, political and economic freedom.
Therefore, Christians should energetically enter this fight with some part of their lives! With all of us working together, and the help of our almighty God, we can change our culture for good! How can we do this in a practical and doable way? Here are some thoughts.
- We are right – Realize that you are correct in what you offer society. For too long Christians have cowered in the face of a supposed all accepting, diversity-loving society. God haters have made us feel guilty by defining us as narrow and judgmental; yet they are the ones with a narrow view of a God made in their image and pre-judge Christians according to their imagined political narrative.Now all pretense is off! It is obvious that they were suppressing us by guilt and intimidation while taking control of society to usher in a tyrannical, anti-Christian globalist government. What God offers in biblical wisdom has been shown by Teleios research, and others, to provide excellent wellbeing and enhanced service to society. In contrast to the hatred, violence, vitriol, and Orwellian control from the God haters; why would we ever think that what we offer to society is not substantially better?
- Prepare – Learn God’s word and to articulate its advantages in your conversations with others. At the very minimum learn the gospel and other key advantages of Christianity. If helpful, use the home page of the Teleios website which presents the gospel in a succinct form and numerous linked infographics and studies as why we are correct (www.teleiosresearch.com).
- Change the world – Engage on 4 basic levels:
- Personal – Consider your dear family, friends, and colleagues and others with whom you could begin to discuss these serious issues facing our culture and the truthful answer that Christ brings. Encourage and educate others.
- Share the gospel – God can change people’s hearts. Again, my past blogs posted on Teleios’ website offer some help about how to do this (see blogs posted September 14-October 5, 2016 and October 26-November 30, 2016). It is only by sharing the gospel and changing people’s hearts that ultimately our culture will change while we sustain it with political action.
- Institutions – Consider donating to institutions that help support Christianity in our culture such as American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ, https://aclj.org) or Judicial Watch (https://www.judicialwatch.org).
- Political – Consider engaging in the political process by financial support of elected officials who support freedom of expression and religion. Write letters to these elected officials! Express your views and encourage them to stand firm for what is good and right!
Now is the time we need to encourage each other, convince others and press our elected officials to keep moving towards victory against evil. God can change our culture.
