The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
True Christian Freedom
Freedom carries profoundly different meanings depending on whether you're viewing it through the lens of modern culture or biblical truth. This thought-provoking episode tackles the paradox at the heart of Christian freedom—that surrender to Christ actually leads to our greatest liberty.
Pastor Bob Fleischmann begins by sharing Martin Luther's powerful insight that "A Christian man is the most free lord of all and subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone." This seemingly contradictory statement opens the door to understanding how Christian freedom differs fundamentally from the world's concept of autonomy.
We explore how today's culture—from children's entertainment to political discourse—has shaped a shallow understanding of freedom as "having no rules." Even Frozen's beloved anthem "Let It Go" contains the revealing line: "No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free." Against this cultural backdrop, we unpack Romans 6 and Galatians 5 to reveal how before Christ, we had only the "freedom" to sin—essentially the freedom to choose our chains. Through Christ's redemption, we gain something far greater: the freedom to do what is right.
The conversation takes an especially practical turn when discussing Christian citizenship. Rather than seeing our freedom in Christ as an exemption from civic responsibility, we discover how it uniquely equips us to serve our neighbors through thoughtful participation in society. As one pastor notes, "Christians are called to be yeast in society—influencing it while remaining distinct."
Whether you're wrestling with personal freedom questions or wondering how faith intersects with Independence Day celebrations, this episode offers refreshing clarity on what it truly means to be set free in Christ. The answer might surprise you—and transform how you view both spiritual liberty and its outworking in everyday life.
On today's episode.
Bob Fleischmann:And in a representative form of governing, which is what we have in the United States. It's also why you participate. You have a voice in what the rules are. I do not endorse this kind of sequestering ourselves away from that, because we are to be the yeast of society, permeating into society, and the challenge is to do that and not become like society.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and during this time of year we tend to like, with Independence Day, talk about different things related to freedom, and so today we wanted to talk about this concept of Christian freedom and how that differs from freedom in the world. So, as we start this topic today, asking ourselves, what does freedom in Christ actually mean from a biblical perspective?
Jeff Samelson:Not quite straight from the Bible, but it just somewhat. That definitely is biblical. Just start with a quote from Martin Luther. He wrote an entire treatise on the freedom of the Christian, and it was one of his earlier writings, 1520. And he said and you'll find various translations of this but A Christian man is the most free Lord of all and subject to none. A Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone. And it's just a wonderful and pithy description of it. In one sense, we're free. Christ has set us free not just from sin, but from the burdens of the law and all that. And, yeah, wonderful. Nobody has that authority over us except God. But on the other hand, precisely because we are Christians, we have a duty of love toward everyone else, and that means that we don't put ourselves first, we don't do what we want. The freedom that we have we don't necessarily express, because we have that duty toward everyone else as well. So it's a complicated thing, it's real, but there is complexity to it.
Bob Fleischmann:I felt that in these latter years it just seems like people have become more simplistic. So when they think of freedom, they think well, I want free, I want to be free, I want everything to be free. Nobody should tell me how to live, nobody should tell me what to do. You know that kind of stuff, that kind of a freedom, and I think you know when we talk about and we've talked about it before on this podcast about Christian nationalism this idea flesh, in other words, there's a fence around freedom, and that doesn't make you less free. In fact, I think a lot of times we don't think about what does. If you really bind into this idea of absolute freedom, do you really know what you're asking for? That means you know freedom, not just to do what you think you can do, but that means the perverted person living next door wants to be free to do what he wants to do, and that kind of stuff. In other words, freedom has a fence around it.
Christa Potratz:And it's maybe just good to talk about that difference a little bit too, about how the freedom in Christ differs from the freedom of this world, and I think you know how you just kind of talk about like having a fence on Christ too. There is, I mean, I don't know if a fence, but just something that maybe almost protects you from the consequences in a way. I mean I think of like a kid in a candy store. And if you just let a kid in there and just said, okay, you are free to eat whatever you want I mean my kids definitely would and just okay. Like you have a stomach ache now, or you really don't feel good or you really shouldn't have eaten all of that. Or now there's like gum everywhere, it's all sticky and gross and you know there's consequences to the freedom that are not good for you as well.
Bob Fleischmann:This idea of doing whatever you want is deeply indoctrinated today in our culture. I wrote an article just a week or two ago in which I talked about why people are leaving the church because you know, they're not letting people be free to do with what they want and I pulled out three examples of freedom from children's programming. One is a song by Raven-Symoné that says you don't have to be like anybody else. So what's the problem? Why can't you be like yourself? You're individual. You might as well let it show. That's freedom.
Bob Fleischmann:There's a show in which the entertainment is Gabby Duran and the Unsittables and their lyric is I do my thing, you do your thing. When we don't fit in, we stand out in the crowd and we shout it loud I do my thing, I'm the one and only Don't try to fit in. But then you get into something very popular like Frozen and let it go. The line in Let it Go from Elsa is it's time to see what I can do to test the limits and break through. No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free.
Bob Fleischmann:We keep indoctrinating ourselves with those kinds of notions and then we wonder why, when the kids aren't getting their homework done and you say you stop playing the video game. We got to get the homework done. They feel like you've infringed on them. I'm free, no rules, and the world teaches that. So when we get into Independence Day, only the fool doesn't even know the story behind Independence Day. It had nothing to do with this absolute, no moral consequences type freedom. It had to do with freedom to practice your religion, freedom to do things that were not allowed, but still with offense around it.
Jeff Samelson:I think the world tends to define or think of freedoms pretty much strictly in the negative. Freedom from, freedom from rules, freedom from restrictions, freedom from judgment, and even I'm free to do whatever I want, has the implied clarification of and no one can stop me. That's again freedom from that, but freedom in Christ certainly there is freedom from, and that we are free from guilt and fear. We are free from our captivity to sin, death and from Satan, from their control. Christ has set us free in all those ways, but with Christian freedom there's much more of a positive aspect, not of freedom from, but freedom for. He set us free to do what is good and right and God-pleasing, and that is something that wasn't available to us before. It wasn't possible for us. Before we had been cleansed of our sins and made pure and righteous, we didn't have the option of doing what was good and right and God-pleasing.
Jeff Samelson:I sometimes taught this with the example of Alcatraz, that imagine that you were imprisoned on Alcatraz. This rock, this island in the midst of San Francisco Bay was put there as an effective prison because even if you could get outside the walls, you couldn't swim to safety or anything because there were sharks in those waters and it was really cold. Imagine that you are a prisoner and the warden comes to you and says hey, I've got really good news, you've been pardoned, you're free, but then does absolutely nothing to put you on a boat back to the mainland. What kind of freedom is that? Okay, you're no longer a prisoner, you no longer have to be punished for this, but you can't do anything with that freedom, with Christian freedom. We were on that boat. We're given the free pass to the mainland and then we're able to do the things that we weren't able to do before.
Christa Potratz:Which scriptures can help us to understand our freedom in Christ?
Jeff Samelson:Well, In Galatians 5.13-15,. After all, brothers, you were called to freedom. Only, do not use your freedom as a starting point for your sinful flesh. Rather, serve one another through love. In fact, the whole law is summed up in this one statement love your neighbor as yourself. But if you keep on biting and devouring one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. It's really, you know, it's got. That complete sense there of freedom is wonderful, you've got it. But if you just treat it as, oh, I'm free to do whatever, you've lost it because you end up biting and devouring one another, because everybody does what they want and there's no love.
Bob Fleischmann:And it's interesting because you are free to serve, which is interesting. The word for serve, the Greek word, is doulos, which is you get like doula and things like that from, but it's the idea of you're free to serve, serve others. And what translation did you? That's the EHV.
Jeff Samelson:Okay, yeah it's interesting.
Bob Fleischmann:Those of you who've got the NIV 2011,. You'll see that it talks about humble service, which I find interesting because the word humble is not in there, but it's talking about a biblical—I think they were trying to incorporate the biblical concept of love, which is sacrificial, putting others ahead of yourself. And then it says but in that context, you're free. Now, does everybody remember when the first challenge to freedom and the first challenge to that and that was Cain, having killed Abel, you remember Cain saying am I my brother's keeper? And, of course, what's the implication? The implication, well, yes, you are. By asking the question, you know he was condemning himself, he rejected freedom, he wanted his own version of freedom. And when people are seeking their own version of freedom, you're going to ask yourself are you pursuing the Cain version of freedom? I am not my brother's keeper, I can do what I want, and my brother kind of got in the way so I killed him.
Bob Fleischmann:But the thing is is that we are free to serve, and the idea is that you have this wide latitude to serve others. Some people might serve them by tending to their wounds the Good Samaritan. Others might serve them by providing food or providing water. Others might serve them by helping them out with money. The story of the Good Samaritan is a real slap in the face to people who thought that they had downed the idea of Christian love in that here you have a Samaritan with a corrupt religion who showed incredible sacrifice for the sake of another person, with no expectation of a return. There wasn't like a I'll do this for you, but you got to pay me back, you got to make me good on this, and so forth. That was his idea. You know, all of the examples on being free to serve are pretty, pretty sacrificial and, of course, the ultimate being Christ himself pretty sacrificial, and, of course, the ultimate being Christ himself.
Christa Potratz:Leslie KENDRICK, why do you think the world is so caught up with this idea of freedom, with being self-expression or autonomy? Why is there just so much of that in the worldly concept of freedom?
Jeff Samelson:RICK. Well, it fits with our sinful nature very well, I mean, that's what our sinful nature wants to hear. And so we latch on to this idea of liberty, that is, no chains on me, I can do whatever. And there are good things to that. We don't want to negate that idea, but like, oh, this means I can do what I want. Well, that's what I want. I want to be able to do whatever I want, and it's one of the sad things about the progress that we have made as a society, as a culture, as a civilization or whatever.
Jeff Samelson:We've got so many things that allow us to live free of restrictions. And I'm not just talking about well, now I'm free to be the woman that I was never born to be, because science and medicine have allowed you know all these things but just the idea that it used to be that you weren't free to always speak your mind in every situation because you had to live in a community and your reputation mattered, because if you destroyed your reputation, nobody would do business with you and you wouldn't be able to make a living. Or if you spoke your mind at work, you might lose your job and then your children would go hungry because there were restrictions that were just a reflection of life itself. In so many things, the more people feel well, I don't need to worry about that anymore. And the natural restrictions that tempered the idea of freedom have slowly drifted away, and that's made people more likely to just latch on to the most extreme idea of what freedom is.
Bob Fleischmann:And that's why, when I think of a single term to describe society, the word shallow comes to mind. People tend to not think through what they want. You know, when they define freedom, when they argue, proclaim, protest for freedom, they don't follow it all the way through. So they say people should be free to do what they want, or to live the way they wish, and so forth. Well, at some point there's going to have to be a line drawn. How do you intend to draw that line? On what basis do you intend to draw that line? If we call it the fullest expression of love, based on whose standard? What standard?
Bob Fleischmann:Society seems to want to dilute everything down to a bumper sticker, to a little plaque you can hang on the wall and, as a result, they have no depth, no thought about what it means. And when you look at the Galatians passage, you know. And it talks about being free to serve. Maybe you know and not. Maybe this is being facetious, but you know. But maybe there's something about serving. That is the ultimate freedom, instead of thinking it as slavery. Or am I my brother's keeper? You start with the premise I am my brother's keeper. Now, what are the free things I can do to serve?
Jeff Samelson:Part of your question was how does the world's idea of freedom fall short of the reality? How does the world's idea of freedom fall short of the reality? Political freedoms and social freedoms, if you want to call them that, are there for this life only. They really deal only with our outward behavior, our actions and things like that. But freedom in Christ is for eternity and it deals with our heart, mind and soul. Let me read a longer biblical passage going back to the root of this. This is from Romans 6.
Jeff Samelson:Thanks be to God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to the pattern of the teaching into which you were placed. After you were set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in a human way, because of the weakness of your flesh. Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. So what kind of fruit did you have then? They were things of which you are now ashamed. Yes, the final result of those things is death. But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God. You have your fruit, resulting in sanctification, and the final result is eternal life, for the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That alone is a huge difference between the sinful idea of freedom and the spiritual one.
Christa Potratz:It is this life versus eternity as Christians sometimes we at least I do sometimes wish like, oh man, just like lived on an island or in a bubble, or it would just be easier to be off by myself. But that isn't the way that we are. You know, we live in a culture, and so what are some of the cultural lies about freedom that Christians, specifically, are tempted to believe?
Bob Fleischmann:One is the idea that I can define freedom for myself. So, I think Christians have fallen into this, like the gay lifestyle is not for me, but to each their own.
Christa Potratz:Or God will decide yeah, right, and so we tend to want to step back.
Bob Fleischmann:But the problem is that when you step outside and I know I've used the analogy of a fence freedom within this fence, but when you step outside of the front fence, you're playing with rules that are not valid. You know, jeff talked about Christians. Remember that there is this secular way of looking at freedom and then there's the spiritual way of looking at freedom. We live in the world, but you can't live like the world or of the world. The world is going to grant freedoms and so forth that Christians will never be comfortable with or you shouldn't be comfortable with. But it's a surrender to the world to allow freedoms that are harmful to go on.
Bob Fleischmann:I remember being criticized because of something I had said that was critical of gender rights, of gay rights and so forth. And they said well, that doesn't sound very loving, it's not very Christian of you. And I said well, it's also not very Christian or very loving to allow people to live with the illusion that you can thumb your nose at God, that sometimes I love God and I love when God says we should all be loving and so forth, but when I differ with God, then God must be wrong and I'm right and I said I don't think it's very loving for Christians who know better, to allow that notion to stand Now I probably am deserving of criticism if I should have been more loving in the way I offered the criticism, but at the same time I think the mistake is that it's not loving to allow people to live with their mistaken notions of what freedom is people?
Jeff Samelson:to live with their mistaken notions of what freedom is, and Bob's doing a great job of outlining the idea that Christian freedom means we don't have to follow God's rules or pay any attention to them. Sometimes we even come across Christians I think particularly here in the United States who have this idea well, because I'm a Christian, none of society's rules apply to me either. I'm a Christian, I answer to a higher authority than you. So, yeah, that law that you made that doesn't apply to me either. I'm a Christian, I answer to a higher authority than you. So, yeah, that law that you made that doesn't apply to me. I don't have to follow that If I choose to. That's one thing, but otherwise I can just ignore it. And it's rarely quite so blatant as that. But I've come across a good number of Christians who just kind of have this idea. It's like, well, we're special, we don't really have to obey those rules because we've got God and so we have our own authority here.
Bob Fleischmann:And that's not the way God set things up and in a representative form of governing, which is what we have in the United States. It's also why you participate. You have a voice in what the rules are. Have a voice in what the rules are. I do not endorse this kind of sequestering ourselves away from that, because we are to be the yeast of society, permeating into society, and the challenge is to do that and not become like society.
Christa Potratz:So how does surrendering to Christ actually lead to more freedom rather than less?
Jeff Samelson:And I think we've kind of touched on this a little bit too, but oh, this is the opportunity to bring in some really good dogmatic theology or whatever. But state it very simply Before we were saved, before we came to Christ and had faith and were redeemed, the only freedom we had was freedom to sin. You know, some have expressed it as freedom only to choose your chains. You may have felt, oh yeah, I'm free to do whatever. Yeah, but whatever you do is going to be sinful and that sends you to hell. But after we have been saved, after we have been brought to faith, we have the freedom now to do what is good and right. But, yeah, we still also have the freedom to sin. But why would you want to? And that's a tremendous difference in what you are actually free to do.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, part of the problem too is when we think surrender again, we're thinking like in the world's terms. You surrender to an enemy, you surrender to people who want to make you or force you to do something you don't want to do, so you surrender. But the biblical concept of surrendering to God, surrendering to Christ, is probably a little bit like the analogy of a really great marriage. I deeply, deeply love my wife and so I surrender my convenience to her. I surrender other aspirations. I have just to work for her, to care for her, to watch over her.
Bob Fleischmann:The idea of surrendering to Christ let's not forget we're talking about perfect benevolence here. He's the one who did for you what nobody else could, not even the most faithful spouse could, and so you surrender to it. It's the deepest of all expressions of love is when you surrender to Christ and there is nothing about it. That is slavery in the negative sense. It's servitude with the greatest of pleasure. Well, and you know, kind of look at it this way when you're dating and you find out that the person you're dating really just loves Blue Moon ice cream, all of a sudden, even if you don't like Blue Moon ice cream, you, for their birthday, you buy them Blue Moon ice cream and you're surrendering what normally you would be pursuing for their benefit, because it's your way of honoring them. You know, if we get rid of the negativeness of surrender and find that there's exceptional beauty in it, all of a sudden it's like what can I do now to please you, god?
Bob Fleischmann:I always go back to that psalm that says you know, I rejoiced when they said to me let's come, let us go to the house of the Lord. When I was a kid I thought you've got to be kidding me. This is the most boring thing I do in my week is going to church singing songs. I don't like singing. Everything about it was negative. But when you grow in your faith, surrendering to Christ becomes your ambition in life. It becomes what you look for.
Christa Potratz:I loved that verse you read from Romans too, because it really kind of touched on a lot of that stuff and it just this kind of this idea that we're always like a slave to something right and we're always kind of chained to something and you know, even to I've heard just recently I was kind of like you know hearing people's testimonies with people that did not believe in God and then now that they do believe, they had a conversion.
Christa Potratz:And it's just really neat sometimes too, to hear people like that talk, because you see how they really were so absorbed in the ways of the world and how they really thought that they bought into all the lies that the world told them and they were so into trying to get success, trying to get money, trying to just indulge in all these things and they just there was something missing in their life and they just felt so empty inside.
Christa Potratz:And then the joy that they had in Christ and how they realized, man, you know, I was fighting so hard and thought all these other things were going to make me happy and bring me success, and now it's just so amazing to hear those people how much they love the Lord and how the Lord was the thing in their life that was missing and how they just feel so free now in what God has done for them. And so it's just I don't know, it's just like a really cool thing to think about and just this idea that that whole like when we think we're free, we're not free, but when we are free then we are. So we're going to keep going here. What role does the Holy Spirit play in helping us walk in freedom day by day?
Jeff Samelson:All the things that he does for us and everything else in life. He gives us guidance, he gives us wisdom, he gives us encouragement and, particularly, gives us strength. Strength and faith in particular, which then helps us to live free of guilt and fear and the control of sin and Satan, and then also then inspires and moves us forward towards all the good that we now really want to do.
Bob Fleischmann:Holy Spirit uses the means of grace, god's Word, the sacraments and so forth, and I think there's clearly a corollary between exposure to the Word and finding your freedom in doing the things of God, freedom to serve, to serve others. Because how else can you explain why, when you were less spiritual or less understanding of Scripture, were you also less inclined to find freedom in serving and sought freedom in the things that the world would offer? But as you became increasingly exposed to the Word of God, it really is a miraculous change that takes place, because the Bible hasn't changed From the time I was a child to the time I was an adult. The Bible is still the Bible, it just hasn't changed. And the preachers still read the scriptures, read the Bible readings, stuff in church, and it just felt like at times it didn't stick. But you see, through careful working of the Holy Spirit, change does occur. You begin to understand, you begin to pursue and there are things I understand now that I thought was nonsense when I was a child.
Bob Fleischmann:The psalmist says ask God to forgive him for the sins of the youth. And it's why, it's because the Holy Spirit is that maturing element in your life and so often we make the mistake of cutting ourselves off from that because we feel it's not doing anything for me, when Scripture says people are going to be looking for things to tell them what their itching ears want to hear. That's a lot of times what people do with church is that I want to be free to do this. I want to be free to think this way. I want to be free to participate in this kind of lifestyle. So I'm just going to look around and find the kind of church I just was reading last night. My wife has gotten hooked on Wheel of Fortune, which is painful for me, but hey, okay, we'll do it.
Bob Fleischmann:And Ryan Seacrest the comment came up that he's an ordained minister. And I thought Ryan Seacrest an ordained minister. So I did some digging around. He's from the Universal Life Church, which is they just ordain anybody who wants to be ordained for any reason at all, so he could do weddings, and that's what he is. You find what your itching ears want to hear, because I would suppose that that just suits him just fine, being like that. The point is is that freedom requires understanding.
Christa Potratz:The point is that freedom requires understanding and you're not going to understand by isolating yourself from the tool that the Holy Spirit uses to change you.
Jeff Samelson:How does true Christian freedom or how does true freedom in Christ affect our identity, relationships and purpose? A lot of people have the image of Christians. A lot of people outside the church have the image of Christians as being drudges. Yeah, they have no freedom. They have no fun never the life of any party or anything like that. It's like who would want a life like that?
Jeff Samelson:But we know the truth about who we are the great, great and famous thing that Jesus said in John 8, if you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth and the truth will set you free Again one of the things that the Holy Spirit does. Going back to the previous question or whatever, so we know that we don't have chains. We are free to move through the world and to do and to be the very things that Christ has called us to do and to be. We have identity in Christ. We are new creatures. We're completely different from everybody else, so we don't have to judge ourselves or be judged by the non-Christian standards of what freedom is. We know better and what we have is better than anything else that the world or our previous lives have to offer.
Bob Fleischmann:And along that same line, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter swiped off the guy's ear and Jesus said I could call on legions of angels and he didn't. He's hanging on the cross. He could have come down from the cross and he didn't. He's hanging on the cross. He could have come down from the cross but he didn't. One of the things that finding your freedom in Christ is. When you study the life of Christ, you have to ask yourself so what pushed him to be like that? What changed him? And you have to be willing to question. What the world force-feeds you to believe is freedom, especially when it challenges the way Christ describes it, the way scriptures describe it. So I think you're empowered that way by it, forces you, it gives you some grounding to question and challenge to question and challenge.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, when we talk about freedom and Christ and you talked a lot about how it empowers us to love and serve other people what are maybe some practical ways that we can show love and service to other people?
Bob Fleischmann:You take on the things that need to be done that seem less comfortable to you. Understanding God's love for us in Christ enables me to sacrifice in ways I've never sacrificed before. It makes me tolerate things I never would have tolerated before. It also sets you free from living up to the world's foolish standards for freedom.
Bob Fleischmann:There was a time when any criticism would send me into an airplane spin, and so what you can do is you know if I want to live in a contrary way. Today's solution is you blow off the world and you say I'll just do my own thing and you live with it. Nowadays, you find that your freedom is in Christ. He has set me free. I am not bound by sin anymore, and all of a sudden, you develop a little bit more of a Teflon coating to the criticisms of the world that are rooted in worldly standards and whether they are selfishness in the world whether they are—well, I think a lot of the criticisms are rooted in selfishness, really, if not all of them, in that they encourage you to be selfish, or somebody's practicing their selfishness, and you're not opening the door wide enough for them to be selfish.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I guess I will approach that by recognizing yes, this is, you know, this episode's airing close to American Independence Day. That's part of what inspired the topic today. And just comment on Christians as citizens have this tremendous opportunity to love and serve their fellow citizens through participating in our government, through supporting it and things like that. There is no particular Christian form of government. Christians can live and serve and thrive under all sorts of things, from the worst of dictatorships to the most free of societies or whatever. But Christianity and Christians are remarkably well-suited for democracy, because so many of the principles that make democracy work are things that we as Christians also value and hold to. We all see ourselves as equal because we recognize we're all sinners and we all have the same creator and responsible to the same. So the idea of setting aside the idea that some people are better than others or superior, that comes naturally to us. The idea that we're existing, we have these freedoms, but at the same time they're to serve.
Jeff Samelson:Also. Just a quote or two from one of the American founders who was far from a paragon of Christian thought and orthodoxy, john Adams. He said that public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics and our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. And what he's recognizing is what Christianity has always taught that freedom, the liberty that we have in a society, requires that it is entwined with responsibility and virtue to go with it, that you don't just have liberty all by itself. It has to go together with virtue, and of course that's what we have, particularly in Christianity.
Jeff Samelson:I'd like to say that's where he got the idea for it, and he wasn't the only one to ever say anything like that. But in 1 Peter 2, it starts off sounding almost anti-democratic. Of course, lord, whether to the king as the supreme authority, or to governors as those who have been sent by him to punish those who do what is wrong and to praise those who do what is right For this is God's will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good, and then do this as free people and do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but use it as servants of God Again, there's that oh yeah you've got freedom.
Jeff Samelson:You've got freedom, but it is to be used for good. It's not a trade-off, it's a both-and kind of situation and it's a wonderful gift and privilege and it's something that we particularly on a holiday like this, where we are thinking about freedom a lot we think well hey this is something I can use, then, to bless my fellow citizens. I have the opportunity because this is a free country to use my Christian freedom in a way that is going to be for everybody's good, and not just my own.
Christa Potratz:I am, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be blown away but by all the scripture references to this topic too, and it just really seems like this was talked about quite a bit and just you know this concept of freedom and just how we are just wired to think. I think as humans too, and so I mean I just have really enjoyed the scripture references in this episode today as well. But we hope everybody had a wonderful Fourth of July and thank you both for sharing this episode with us, and we look forward to all of our listeners joining us back next time.
Jeff Samelson:Even if you happen to be listening from outside the United States or as a non-American. We hope you enjoy your Fourth of July, which isn't a holiday for you.
Christa Potratz:So, yes, thank you all, and we'll see you back next time. Bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
