Embryonic republics
Yes, the Kingdom of God was a system of faith which required hope and charity in love, not force.[1] In early Israel, as it was in the early Church, your tithing and free will offerings were given as a voluntary choice by individuals of every congregation. That contribution was given according to the service of their personal minister by choice, not by dictates of statutes or the imposed penalties of men.[2]
- “Some scholars regard the ancient confederation of Hebrew tribes that endured in Palestine from the 15th century BC until a monarchy was established about 1020 BC as an embryonic republic. That would make the ancient Israelite commonwealth the earliest republic in history....”[3]
Likewise, “The churches in New England were so many nurseries of freemen, training them in the principles of self-government and accustoming them to the feeling of independence. In these petty organizations were developed, in practice, the principles of individual and national freedom. Each church was a republic in embryo. The fiction became a fact, the abstraction a reality...”[4] In Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he praised “the union and discipline of the Christian republic.” He also pointed out that “it gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman Empire.”[5]
Both Israel and the early Church were called Republics by historians because of the titular nature of its leaders who served the people and the needs of society without exercising authority one over the other. The people retained their God given right of choice,[6] their original God given liberty,[7] because they exercised their responsibility to provide the service of government through faith, hope and community charity. Any government whose leaders are no longer titular is no longer a Republic.[8]
The Church in the Wilderness were the called out Levites who served the tents of the people much like the early Church appointed by Jesus who was the Christ. The people provided Breeches for these ancient ministers of a nation without rulers - no king. Those breeches of the Levites were symbolic of a covering which made them titular leaders of one of the earliest pure republics in recorded history.
How their government operated in a practical way will give you a better understanding of the Church and the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
As we have said, among the Levites there was a unique political structure with corporate elements to the formation of its society. Early Israel was classified in history as a Republic.
Were there parallels between the Church in the Wilderness and the Church called out and appointed by Christ to serve the people?
Jesus called His Church to be one form of government that did not Church legally defined, so that His followers would and could be free souls under God.
Edward Gibbons in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire identified the early Church as a "viable Republic" and early American churches were called "embryonic republics" by historians.
The Corban of that early Church was not like the Corban of the Pharisees. Nor is it like the Corban of the Modern Christian who depend far more on the Benefactors who exercise authority one over the other than upon ministers an congregations who live by faith, hope and charity through the perfect law of liberty.
- ↑ Matthew 11:12 “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”
- ↑ Numbers 7:5 "Take [it] of them, that they may be to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; and thou shalt give them unto the Levites, to every man according to his service."
- ↑ “Republic,” Microsoft ® Encarta. © 1994 Ms. Corp. and F & W Corp.
- ↑ Lives of Issac Heath and John Bowles, Elders of the Church and of John Eliot, Jr., preacher in the mid 1600’, written by J, Wingate Thorton. 1850
- ↑ Rousseau and Revolution, Will et Ariel Durant p.801. fn 83 Heiseler, 85.
- ↑ Judges 17:6 “In those days [there was] no king in Israel, [but] every man did [that which was] right in his own eyes.”
- ↑ Thy Kingdom Comes24 http://www.hisholychurch.org/media/books/THL/tableofcontents.php
- ↑ Chapter 7. of the book The Covenants of the gods Republic vs Democracy http://www.hisholychurch.org/study/gods/cog7rvd.php Audio http://keysofthekingdom.info/COG-07.mp3