When Paul wrote that the civil ruler “is God’s servant for your good,” his readers in Rome had no say in who ruled them. The emperor was Nero. They could pray for him and honor his office. They could not vote the emperor in or out.
You can. That single difference should change how a Christian thinks about November. God has given you a share in deciding who will bear the sword, and what God entrusts, he expects us to steward.
A Sphere God Designed
Government and politics are part of the world God made. He created a world with structure and order, including families, work, worship, and the shared life of a people. The state is one of those God-given spheres, and scripture tells us its purpose.
Paul’s word for servant in Romans 13:4 is the same word the New Testament uses for a deacon. Government’s calling is to restrain evil and uphold justice. That calling is limited. The state has no business running the church, the family, or the marketplace. Within its own sphere, however, it serves God whether its officials acknowledge him or not.
Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian who became prime minister, put it memorably: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” That includes the voting booth.
Why Christians Vote
Why should Christians vote? Because authority in the political sphere still belongs to God. What has changed since Paul’s day is how its servants are chosen. In a constitutional republic such as the United States, that choice runs through citizens, which makes your vote a very important Christian stewardship. God has placed in your hands something that shapes the lives of your neighbors.
In the Bible, even exiles were given a public calling. When God’s people lived in pagan Babylon, he told them to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile” (Jer. 29:7). If exiles with no voice were called to seek Babylon’s good, how much more are we called to seek the good of a nation where we do have a voice?
Voting is also one concrete way to love our neighbor. Laws shape the world our neighbors live in. The unborn child, the confused teenager, the struggling family, and the persecuted believer all have a stake in what we do in November.
The Myth of Neutral Law
Some Americans object that Christians shouldn’t impose their morality on others. “You can’t legislate morality,” the saying goes.
In reality, no one can avoid it. Every law is undergirded by a moral claim. A law against theft declares that property deserves protection. A law against assault declares that the human body has dignity. The question isn’t whether morality will be legislated. It will be. The real question is whose morality will be legislated, and on what foundation.
To be clear, Christians shouldn’t want every biblical command written into law. For example, we shouldn’t legislate that people must worship Christ. The state cannot make anyone love God, and coerced faith is no faith at all. But the moral claims at stake this November aren’t sectarian rules. They belong to the created order, and Paul teaches that the work of God’s law is written on every human heart (Rom. 2:15).
When law loses that anchor, the state begins to define good and evil for itself. Isaiah warned against those “who call evil good and good evil” (Isa. 5:20). A government that answers to no one above it eventually answers only to power.
What Is at Stake
This November, several questions go to the heart of how God ordered his world.
Human life: “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27). Every human life, born and unborn, bears that image, and a just government protects the most vulnerable among us.
Gender and sexuality: The same verse continues, “male and female he created them.” Our bodies are gifts that tell us who we are. Law that treats them as raw material for self-invention harms the very people it claims to help.
The family: God gave children to parents and charged them to teach their children diligently (Deut. 6:7). Government should support that calling. It has no right to supplant it.
Religious freedom: Because Marxism makes the state into a “god,” Marxist regimes have consistently treated the church as a rival to be controlled. Any policy that gives the state the final word over conscience, children, or worship moves in the same direction. Religious liberty is a public confession that the state is not God.
Law and justice: Government must also do the job God gave it. A state that refuses to restrain evil fails its citizens as surely as one that oversteps its bounds. Many of the people who administer justice, including judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs, are elected. Christians often skip those lines on the ballot, yet they may be some of the most consequential votes we cast.
Stewards of the King
None of this means our ultimate hope rests on an American election. Isaiah foretold a child of whom it is written, “The government shall be upon his shoulder” (Isa. 9:6). That child now reigns at the Father’s right hand. Jesus won his kingdom by laying down his life and rising from the dead, and his throne does not depend on November in America.
That frees us to vote with conviction instead of fear. “It is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2). The outcome belongs to God, and the stewardship belongs to us. Paul’s first readers never held a ballot. We do. Use it for the glory of the King who placed it in your hands.
