Well, if you watch international headlines, you know that vigilante killings are happening with some level of regularity in the Philippines. Names of drug suspects are put on a list that's made by the government, and reportedly now over 1 million suspects are on that list. And it's raising important questions about whether Christians in the country are complicit in the government's activity towards these suspects.

The question comes from a podcast listener named Hannah. "Dear Pastor John, I'm a listener to the podcast in the Philippines. I'm not sure what global news sources reveal about our current political situation, but there's plenty of local news about extrajudicial killings happening in our country, and a number of stories about young people being killed by policemen because they have supposedly been identified as drug dealers, though many witnesses reject those accusations.

These events have occurred and have become highly publicized since the President declared a war against drugs. My intent is not to ask for a political commentary. As a Christian, my concern is that many Christians here in the Philippines are supporters of our President and his agenda, and are thus perceived as supporters of this violent war against drugs and, by extension, implicit supporters of the killings.

Though it would not be fair to say that they approve of the killings outright, it does appear to us and other people who are against these political agendas that there seems to be a willful ignorance or a lack of discernment among these Christians who willingly declare their support for this leader without any qualification, and some who think that he has authority to do as he pleases so long as his methods solve the drug problem.

As a result, Christians here are starting to get a bad rap for being blind followers and supporters of the killings. How can we respond in wisdom to these circumstances? It's dangerous, of course, for me to speak too confidently about a situation so far from my own, but I do want to say something because I heard such an amazing analogy, at least, between the situation in the Philippines and what we face in America.

I mean, it's really fresh on my front burner because of what I saw in the paper this morning. There is a huge outcry here, throughout the nation really, about the number of people being killed by state officials who should not be killed. Just a few miles from my house, Justine Daymond was killed a while back by police, no apparent reason whatsoever.

We've not, as far as I know, we've not been given any explanation that comes close to warranting what happened there. And just yesterday, there was a meeting with the Hennepin County attorney and the neighborhood people and one of the neighborhood people, "Why is there this double standard between police and citizens while this police officer is walking around free?

And if any citizen did that, they'd be sitting in jail right now waiting for trial." And you know what the Hennepin County attorney said? He said, "I don't have an answer for that because I haven't thought in those terms." Wow. Well, that's our issue. And the analogy of our two countries, while not exact, is enough to make me want to say something anyway.

It sounds like your government is acting with a high hand in killing drug suspects without what we would call due process of law, and that some of the Church is either supportive or silent and therefore coming in for criticism for what appears to be complicity in such unjust practices, because we're supposed to be submissive to the government.

What can the Church do, we are asked here now in this question, what can we do to avoid that kind of tarnishing of Christ's reputation? So let me just say just four quick things. One, God is more passionate for His glory and His reputation than we are, and He will not suffer it indefinitely to be scorned.

Here's Isaiah 48.10, "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake I do it. How should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." So take heart. The vindication of God's name lies not mainly in our hands, but in God's, and He's more jealous for it than we are, so pray that He take action.

Number two, 1 Peter 2, verses 13 to 15, is extremely important in this regard because it gives us a warrant for prophetically confronting government with its acts of injustice. Here's what it says, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as set by him," now notice these next two clauses, "set by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good." And then verse 15, "For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." So, yes, the disposition of a Christian should be to support, be submissive to governments, local governments, national governments as part of God's will, but on the other hand, we should, both in writing and in speaking and in conversation, and I would include preaching in all of this, we should publicly confront governors and presidents who do not punish evil and do not praise good, and in fact reverse the pattern and start participating in the very evil they are supposed to punish.

The church has a warrant for prophetically denouncing such injustice. So if we believe our president is acting in ways that do not confront evil but practice or participate in evil and do not support good but hinder good, we have a biblical warrant for publicly and prophetically denouncing those behaviors and policies.

Number three, I think the reputation of the local church in the neighborhood, a local church in the neighborhood, and the reputation of an individual Christian as a neighbor is more effective in evangelism than the public reputation of this amorphous thing called the Christian church. If your local church is known for doing good, like 1 Peter 2:15 says, and you in particular are known by your colleagues at work, your fellow students, your neighbors, for being a gracious, kind, helpful, loving, sacrificial person, that is going to go much farther for the name of Christ among those with whom you live than anything they read in the press by way of criticism of the Christian church.

That's number three. And here's number four. The last thing I would say is that we must never think that public misrepresentations of the gospel, criticisms of the gospel, will necessarily stop the growth of the church. A bad rap given to the church by the world won't stop God's purposes.

And the reason I say that is not only because of what I just said in number three, namely that personal reputations are more effective in evangelism than public perceptions, but also what Acts 28:22 says about the early church. The situation is that Paul is addressing some Jewish people as he's in prison, and it's at the end of his life, and here's what they say.

"We desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against." That's incredible. We know that this Christianity that you came here promoting is a sect that is spoken against everywhere. And we know another fact. The church grew like wildfire for the first 300 years while it was being spoken against everywhere.

So woe to us if we get all crazy about thinking that the church has to have a good reputation in order to do what it's called to do. We should care about the church's reputation. But if some nominal believers are acting in unbiblical ways, and the press is making much of it, well, welcome to the first century, folks.

So don't lose heart. Speak for the cause of truth and justice. So speak, but mainly live. Live among real flesh and blood people the way Christ would live, and you will do a great service for the reputation of Jesus. Amen. Thank you, Pastor John. And Hannah, thank you for the incredibly clear and articulate question that you sent in to us.

Questions like this one are really the key to what we do. So please keep sending in those wonderfully worded, thoughtful questions. And listeners are pretty important too. So thank you for listening and making the podcast part of your week. And if you don't listen regularly, you can by subscribing to our audio feeds to get the brand new episodes pushed to your phone or to your tablet.

And you can search our past episodes in our archive, even reach us by email with a question you may be facing about something you see in your country or city that makes you wonder how you should respond as a Christian. Send those emails in to us. You can do that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

We are now going to break for the weekend, and when we return, we're going to look at Luke chapter 12, verses 47 and 48. And we're going to see if the rather harsh words that Jesus speaks there are directed at non-Christians or are they directed at Christians. That's next week on the podcast.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you on Monday. God bless. 1.3.1 DesiringGod.org Page 1 of 2