God’s Word Is Good – The Law of God and Public Policy

God’s Word Is Good
The Law of God and Public Policy

God’s Word can guide us in matters of public policy.

“And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them…” Deuteronomy 17:18, 19

God’s Word is good, and it teaches us what is holy and righteous and good. The people may clamor for this, that, or something else; but government does not serve the clamoring of the people. Government is God’s servant for good, not the people’s servant for whatever the public desires.The demands, needs, interests, and agendas of the people and the nation must be considered against the backdrop of God’s standard for goodness, and only those policies should be enacted which express and further the good purposes of God.

The Law of God is holy and righteous and good (Rom. 7:12). Since it is also part of Scripture—indeed, the very cornerstone of divine special revelation—we should also look to the Law to equip us for every good work, including the good work of public policy-making (2 Tim. 3:15-17). We have seen that God intended His Law as a standard of goodness and wisdom for all nations, and that our own nation still recognizes the value of God’s Law in a variety of ways.

The alternative to the fixed, unchanging standard of the Law of God—rightly understood—is whatever moral and ethical standards the spirit of the age may abide. But this can easily become a means by which public officials may advance their own interests, or special interest groups their individual agendas, without adding anything of lasting good to the common weal.

Believers in Jesus Christ must not allow the unchanging standards of goodness, revealed in God’s Law, to be obscured by the self-interest of public officials or the clamoring of special interest groups and the electorate in general. We insist that the spiritus mundi is not a reliable standard for policy-making; at the same time, we will work to persuade officials and the electorate alike of the goodness, justice, and peace to be discovered in following the teaching of God’s Law, rightly understood.

Visit our website, www.ailbe.org, and sign up to receive our thrice-weekly devotional, Crosfigell, featuring writers from the period of the Celtic Revival and T. M.’s reflections on Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition. Does the Law of God still apply today? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, and study the question for yourself.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.