What should Christians do about President Biden?
I hear that question often, though perhaps in a less respectful form. It’s more like, “What about Biden?” or “Did you hear what Biden has done lately?”
Most of my friends are Christians like me who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. In conversations about politics I sometimes try to reframe, or perhaps enlarge the frame, of such conversations to include God’s plans for the church and the world and Christian responsibility within those plans.
What is that responsibility? What should Christians do about Biden? The biblical answer is that they should pray for him. The Bible commands all kinds of prayers for all kinds of rulers, good and bad.
I Timothy 2:1-2
Living a peaceful and Godly life is a blessing from God. This blessing is most obtained within a peaceful political and civil context in which religious liberty thrives. Disorder leads to violence and oppression of all types, including religious persecution.
If all the Trump supporting, evangelical Christians collectively stop praying for President Biden we are shooting ourselves in the foot by further withdrawing God’s favor from our nation and the church.
The Apostle Paul says we should pray for our leaders, “so WE may live a peaceful and quiet life.” We should pray for President Biden, Vice President Harris and the Administration in order to ask the Lord to keep us safe and free and so that the government would make wise decisions that will benefit our families and church. And thankfully, in 2021, we can still pray for the Lord to keep us free and allow the preaching of the Gospel in our country until Jesus returns.
God is able to sovereignly engineer rulers and circumstances to fulfill His will, “For dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations” (Ps. 22:28).
Regardless of political party, the leaders of our nation should be prayed for that they might lead with a spirit of humility, respect for one another, a spirit of understanding and a determination to cooperate for America’s common good.
Removing prayer for the current administration is a mistake that could bring further erosion and hardship on your family and the church at large.
Remember the unpleasant circumstances Paul was living under when he taught this. The Apostle wrote this to Timothy while sitting in prison, about to be martyred, under one of the most ungodly Roman governments in history. Nero was causing havoc persecuting the church and burning Christians for the fun of it. He was a cruel and vicious blasphemer but Paul says pray for our leaders!
You may not like the policies and ungodly standards of a particular party in power but God says we should pray for our leaders so we may live in peace. I want to live in peace don’t you? Of course. So we can’t afford to stop praying for our leaders.
That is why our political and civil leaders should be, if not at the top of our prayer lists, at least on our prayer lists.