Most Often Abused Bible Verses #2

It was the summer of 1993 and I was in Dallas for a discipleship project before my senior year of college.  That summer the 4th of July was on a Sunday and I had never experienced before what happened that day.  I had never been a part of a patriotic themed church service.  Instead of the traditional hymns that you usually sing, you sing the sort of patriotic/sort of Christian songs like, of course, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about it.  I loved America but at the same time, I was in this very intense discipleship project and I was wondering why we seemingly had abandoned Jesus as our primary topic for the day.

There was a theme verse for the day.  It was on the bulletin cover and prominently a part of the service and ultimately was also the primary passage of the sermon.  It was after the sermon that I knew for sure that I was not a fan of what was happening.

The Verse:

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14

What we think that it means:

If Christians in America will simply follow the clear pattern in this verse, humble yourselves, pray, seek God’s face and turn from wickedness, then God will bring healing to America.  This is not a call for all of America to repent, just those who are called by his name–the believers.  America is under judgment from God because we have turned from God.  If the church repents and turns to God, then God will forgive and heal America.

Why that is a bad interpretation:

It is abundantly clear to me that we have no idea how to interpret the Old Testament and so we wing it.  We take verses that we like completely out of context and apply them to whatever context we want to apply them.  We are not sure which OT commands apply to Christians, so we all, and I mean ALL, pick and choose based on what happens to fit our current desires best.  (Read about that more here.) When God makes a specific promise to Israel, we ask how do we apply it?  The answer is we don’t know but we like what it says, and so we wing it.

So what is going on in II Chronicles 7?  King Solomon has just dedicated the temple and God appears to him and tells the king that he has heard his prayer.  He then gives Solomon a warning and tells him that there will come a time when God will bring a plague or drought to the land, the literal land that God had long promised them and in which they now lived.  When such a thing happens, the people need to pray and humble themselves and repent.  Then God will bring literal healing to a cursed literal land.

So what does this have to do with America? Nothing. Israel was God’s chosen people with whom God made a covenant that involved land.  He promised this land to them, but some of his blessing is conditional on their obedience.  If they fail, they will be punished.  If they repent, God will bless them again.

America has no such arrangement with God.  America did not make a covenant with God and Americans are not his chosen people in any sense of any of those words.  America began in rebellion against Romans 13:1-6 and has no divine origin.  While it is true that some of the founders wanted to establish Christian ethics and devotion to God into the founding, that is a far cry from being God’s chosen people who were promised a land.

Israel never means America.  It is more likely to mean the church, but not America.  That’s what some people are trying to make this verse mean, in part, when they say that “those called by my name” isn’t talking to all Americans but the American church.  Ok, then let’s follow that through.  If God’s church will humble themselves and pray, then God will heal the church’s land that has been cursed.  What literal or metaphorical land does the church have that has been cursed and needs healing?  Whatever land may mean, the church has not been promised American land or any country.  God’s promises to the church are in the spiritual realm not in physical land.

What this verse means:

By all means, pray for your country.  Pray for your country’s leaders.  Pray that repentance and revival will break out in your country.  Pray that God will heal people, both individually and collectively, both physically and spiritually.  All of those are great things, but do not need to be confused with the bad theology of placing America as God’s replacement for his covenant people.  That is neither helpful nor true.

There are times in the New Testament where it would seem that because of sin, people are cursed in some way.  The passage in Corinthians about the Lord’s Supper indicates that.  If you believe that you or a group you are a part of is under judgment from God, then there are some amazing principles here for us to apply.

We need to be humble not proud.

We need to pray to God.

We need to seek his face, a relational connection with him.

We need to confess sin.

If we do those things, our relational connection with God will be restored.  For the individual and the church it is fellowship and blessing.  For the country of America, there are no promises of blessing that God has made to that country or any country apart from his chosen people, Israel.  Be excited about what God has promised you and the church.

Don’t get distracted by a false narrative about what your home country is or it’s special placement in the heart of God.  Be proud of where you are from but don’t allow it to cause you to study the Bible poorly or worse yet, divide your loyalty.