You learn by doing
John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
The Greek word here for "know" is the same Greek word used saying that Joseph didn't know his wife until she had had Jesus. There is a difference between theoretical knowledge and experiential knowledge.
James 1:22 "Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves"
I learned this as a teacher. After my first year teaching I was shocked at how poorly my students did on the statewide exam. I looked at questions they got wrong and was saying "I covered this". The problem was they were merely hearers and not doers. I had deceived myself thinking that if I spoke about it they learned it and knew it. This is where I learned I would need to change up all my teaching so that the kids would learn by doing. Many years later my students were scoring at the very top of the city on the year end exam and kids were telling me I was the only teacher that didn't teach! This was almost true, I would minimize my teaching to a few minutes and then from then on the kids would have to work out the problems for themselves.
Now consider human government. We have had Pharoahs who claimed they were gods, emperors who claimed to be children of gods, kings who claimed they had the divine right to rule, military dictators who claimed they were dealing with corrupt rulers, Nazi dictators, and finally democratically elected officials. We have tried constitutional monarchy in England, parliamentary democracy like France, and a constitutional republic like the US. Ever since Noah we have learned about government by doing.
So then, what have we learned? We learned that the constitutional republic is the worst form of government except for all the other forms of government, which are worse. Since the US is the most promising form of government the world has seen in six thousand years, what have we learned about it? We have learned that a country of 360 million is ruled by 535 people and you only need half of them, say 270 to pass a law. Now imagine you have a law that benefits some, say 200 of these representatives so they will pass it. All you need to do is entice another 70 to vote for it. These 270 people control a budget of $7 trillion and yet $7 million is likely enough to entice another 70 to vote for this! That is 0.0001% of the money they control. This is called skimming and it is easy to think that no one will notice this. Imagine you are a cashier at a grocery store and you take in $10,000 a day. Will anyone miss one penny? That is a fair comparison. But we have learned something else, corruption is like leprosy, it spreads. One congressman sees you getting all kinds of perks by being corrupt and so he wants in on that. People see the corruption in congress and so they want to be congressmen, so they can partake of that. As it spreads you have two problems, those who partook before are now being blackmailed to partake again because if they don't they will be prosecuted and go to jail. Also, those who know about it are demanding to be given money to keep quiet. Soon you have to money launder billions of dollars through FTX to buy off all these congressmen, paying for them to get reelected. This in turn results in another problem, elections become more and more expensive because fat cats getting rich from the government programs are paying for people to get elected to help push through their pork. Think about the US we didn't even make it to 300 years before the corruption was completely off the rails, bankrupting the nation. It began by taking a penny, but now the US government spends $7 trillion and only takes in $4.5 trillion. Now it is like that person who started out taking $0.01 is now taking $5,000.00 a day. Why aren't the cashiers fired? Because they pay money to the manager. Why isn't he fired? Because he gives money to the accountant. Why isn't he fired? He gives money to the auditor. Why isn't the owner firing all of them? The owner is the taxpayer and they have been treated like idiots.
My point is not that Trump is going to clean up this mess. My point is that we have learned by doing that man is sinful and as long as you have sinful men you cannot have clean government that you can trust.
All of this should be pointing people to Jesus Christ, the king of kings and Lord of lords as the savior of the world.
John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
The Greek word here for "know" is the same Greek word used saying that Joseph didn't know his wife until she had had Jesus. There is a difference between theoretical knowledge and experiential knowledge.
James 1:22 "Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves"
I learned this as a teacher. After my first year teaching I was shocked at how poorly my students did on the statewide exam. I looked at questions they got wrong and was saying "I covered this". The problem was they were merely hearers and not doers. I had deceived myself thinking that if I spoke about it they learned it and knew it. This is where I learned I would need to change up all my teaching so that the kids would learn by doing. Many years later my students were scoring at the very top of the city on the year end exam and kids were telling me I was the only teacher that didn't teach! This was almost true, I would minimize my teaching to a few minutes and then from then on the kids would have to work out the problems for themselves.
Now consider human government. We have had Pharoahs who claimed they were gods, emperors who claimed to be children of gods, kings who claimed they had the divine right to rule, military dictators who claimed they were dealing with corrupt rulers, Nazi dictators, and finally democratically elected officials. We have tried constitutional monarchy in England, parliamentary democracy like France, and a constitutional republic like the US. Ever since Noah we have learned about government by doing.
So then, what have we learned? We learned that the constitutional republic is the worst form of government except for all the other forms of government, which are worse. Since the US is the most promising form of government the world has seen in six thousand years, what have we learned about it? We have learned that a country of 360 million is ruled by 535 people and you only need half of them, say 270 to pass a law. Now imagine you have a law that benefits some, say 200 of these representatives so they will pass it. All you need to do is entice another 70 to vote for it. These 270 people control a budget of $7 trillion and yet $7 million is likely enough to entice another 70 to vote for this! That is 0.0001% of the money they control. This is called skimming and it is easy to think that no one will notice this. Imagine you are a cashier at a grocery store and you take in $10,000 a day. Will anyone miss one penny? That is a fair comparison. But we have learned something else, corruption is like leprosy, it spreads. One congressman sees you getting all kinds of perks by being corrupt and so he wants in on that. People see the corruption in congress and so they want to be congressmen, so they can partake of that. As it spreads you have two problems, those who partook before are now being blackmailed to partake again because if they don't they will be prosecuted and go to jail. Also, those who know about it are demanding to be given money to keep quiet. Soon you have to money launder billions of dollars through FTX to buy off all these congressmen, paying for them to get reelected. This in turn results in another problem, elections become more and more expensive because fat cats getting rich from the government programs are paying for people to get elected to help push through their pork. Think about the US we didn't even make it to 300 years before the corruption was completely off the rails, bankrupting the nation. It began by taking a penny, but now the US government spends $7 trillion and only takes in $4.5 trillion. Now it is like that person who started out taking $0.01 is now taking $5,000.00 a day. Why aren't the cashiers fired? Because they pay money to the manager. Why isn't he fired? Because he gives money to the accountant. Why isn't he fired? He gives money to the auditor. Why isn't the owner firing all of them? The owner is the taxpayer and they have been treated like idiots.
My point is not that Trump is going to clean up this mess. My point is that we have learned by doing that man is sinful and as long as you have sinful men you cannot have clean government that you can trust.
All of this should be pointing people to Jesus Christ, the king of kings and Lord of lords as the savior of the world.