It seems a pastor was calling for violence against Elon for "stealing your Social Security check." He justified violence by quoting Jesus in Matthew 11:12, "...the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." What does this scripture actually mean?
Welcome to Politics by Faith.
I want to talk about this pastor in Chattanooga, who it seems is calling for violence against Ceylon and Doge and the whole conservative movement. We'll play the clip and maybe give him the benefit of the doubt. But I definitely want to take the opportunity to dive deeper into the scripture that I believe he takes very much out of context. We have a little background here.
We've been talking a ton about Doge and Elon on the Sirius XM show, because this is the conservative movement's fiscal dreams come true. We've been fighting for this, arguing for this for decades, and nothing's ever happened. We've had like Paul Ryan, like all the hope we had for Paul Ryan. And he didn't do squat and here it is finally happening all these cuts are
finally happening it's happening from Trump and Elon and it's absolutely incredible so part of me is like oh you know maybe we're talking a little bit too much about you know it's like no we cannot talk enough about doge and Elon and everything they're doing it's incredible now a lot of this still has to go through the legislative branch has to go through the house and then the Senate it's a little harder to get through the House.
It's amazing through the executive branch, and they can do a ton. It's still hard to get through the House right now. Everyone likes their own pet projects. A lot of this is gonna be really difficult to get through the Senate.
We still need, in a lot of these things, we need seven Democrats to vote for. But I have great hope that the negotiating tactics and power of President Trump and Elon, getting this stuff out to the American people and the pressure can be applied to these
Democratic senators to do the right thing. Is Slater calling for violence? No, no, no. Appropriate pressure, dealing with reason and common sense. Like maybe we shouldn't have $100 billion of fraud in our social security system.
I don't know, maybe if Elon roots out
and finds $100 billion of fraudulent social security payments, if you want to continue the social security system, if you want it to remain solvent this would be a good thing to root out that $100 billion of fraud. Wouldn't it? Doesn't everyone want to be on that team? Maybe not.
And this is it, this is the time. Elon said, this administration has one chance for major reform that may never come again. It's now or never. And he later said in another tweet, it's now or never. We are at a fork in the road of destiny. That's the mentality of Doge and Trump.
Trump got shot in the head the other day. If you remember that, it's now or never. There is a fervor. There is a zeal. There is a passion for doing what is right right now from Trump and his entire team.
So when a program is put in front of Elon and Trump, should we keep it or should we cut it? If there is any doubt, it's gone because it's now or never. And as we've said many times before, Elon, his entire mentality with business,
is you cut, cut, cut, and you know you cut enough when you have to add 10% back. That's the mentality they're gonna bring to government. We're gonna cut and cut and cut. When in doubt, cut, and if later you need to bring it back, great, you bring it back.
But you have to cut it now because it is now or never. Now, as they keep doing this, and they keep uncovering not only the waste, but more fraud and ultimately criminal behavior here shortly, soon, they're gonna face more and more resistance ultimately leading to Violence at first it was you know, they're young
Like the doge people to do guys are young. Who cares? James Monroe in 1776 was 18 Aaron Burr was 20 Alexander Hamilton was 21 James Madison who wrote the Constitution was 35 Thomas Jefferson was 33 John Adams was the ancient one in the group, he was 40. Or George Washington, he was the elder statesman, he was 44. Benjamin Rush, who was the doctor of the founding fathers,
the doctor, was 30. All right, he wouldn't even be out of med school today. So, young, whatever. The Manhattan Project guys, they were all in their 30s, a couple were in their 40s. Richard Feynman was 24.
Oh, let me see if I can find this quick.
Let's see, this is Elon, who started this. Okay, so, some guy, I don't know who this person is. Must commandos include guys who are 21, 23, 24, 25. One is 19 years old, his job title is, quote, expert. When you were 19, what were you an expert at? And Michael Dell said,
I started a company when I was 19. It's worked out pretty well so far. Founder of Dell Computers.
Great.
So the first thing, you're too young. Second thing is you don't have the experience. I love that one, experience. Where's experience gotten us? Not having government experience is the best thing about them.
Hillary Clinton tried that line, she wrote against the to the Secretary of Transportation. She said they have no relevant experience. Most of them aren't old enough to rent a car. Are you gonna let them mess with airline safety that's already deteriorated under your watch? I love under your watch. He's been the Secretary of Transportation for like a week. And he wrote back, Sean Duffy, he said, Madam Secretary, with all due respect, experienced Washington
bureaucrats are the reason that our nation's infrastructure is crumbling. You need to sit this one out. Then they tried unelected. Oh, Elon, he's unelected. Elon is the most elected non-elected government employee ever. So first of all, everyone in the executive branch is unelected,
except for the president and vice president. The secretary of defense is unelected. Like whatever, it doesn't mean anything. Trump, we elected Trump, Trump put his people in power to do his will, the will of the American people. End of story, that's the end of it.
But Elon was a package deal and everyone knew that Elon was a package deal with Trump. You voted for Trump, you knew you were getting Elon. So that's a ridiculous argument. Then they said, well, Elon's gonna steal my social security number?
We had a guy, Sean, from South Carolina call in the other day who literally said this. He said, I don't want Elon looking at my mother's Social Security number. I'm like, what do you think he's gonna do? What do you think he's gonna open up a checking account
in your mother's name or something? What are you talking about? So that's the concern. So none of this is going anywhere for them. So ultimately, it very well could resort to violence. Elon tweeted out a bunch of messages
that people put on the internet. We've got to kill these people, and we know where they live, and we know their names, and all this stuff. Ed Martin, chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote a letter to Elon saying that we will protect all Doge work and all Doge employees.
Quote, we will not act like the previous administration and look the other way, as the Antifa and BLM rioters as well as thugs with guns trashed our capital city. We will protect those and other workers no matter what. This right here is the most official call for violence that I've ever seen. There's some Congress people who are out there saying like we got to take to the streets stuff like that. I think this one is in the lead so
so far. This is Dr. Steve Caudill, CAUDLE from the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church
in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And from the pulpit. In this nation, I'm worried that we are on the verge of bloodshed. This is a an attempt to take us back to a day that we do not want to go and we So therefore, there will be conflict. I pray that the peace of God will win out and overcome the madness that is attempting to take over this nation. And I will say to you, beloved, no one likes violence, but sometimes violence is necessary.
When Elon Musk forces his way into the United States Treasury and threatens to steal your personal information and your Social Security check, there is a possibility of violence.
Okay, all right, all right. We got to go. We got to go back. We had a guy call in last week who said, so we're on channel 125 on SiriusXM. 126 is Urban View. So we had a guy call and he said that every once in a while, turn over to Urban View and just see what's going on over there. He said, it's crazy. They're absolutely freaking out and it's insane what they're worried about. Maybe this is what they're saying,
this is what people think.
So let's start, when Elon forces his way into the United States Treasury, what do you mean forces? Trump won the election, put Scott Besant in charge of the Treasury Department. Scott said, hey Elon, come on in.
There's no force, threatens to steal your personal information. Who's stealing your personal information? And stealing your social security check? What do you think, the richest man in the world wants your, you know, thousand dollar check or something? I don't even know what, what are you talking about?
So like, all of that is wrong. All of that is wrong. Okay. But, but then that leads to what?
And your social security check? There is a possibility of violence. Sometimes the devil will act so ugly that you have no other choice but to get violent and fight. Well someone might say, now Reverend, you know you shouldn't be talking about violence. This is the Christian thing to do. Well I will say, why not talk this way? Because Jesus did. Jesus said in this key verse, didn't He? The kingdom of heaven suffers what? Violence. And the who? The violent take it by force.
The kingdom of God is a war zone. It is a battlefield. You did know this, right?
Okay. So, let's chat about this. Let's do benefit of the doubt first. Would you get benefit of the doubt? thinks Elon is committing violence by stealing your social security check. And you, people in this church, you are going to be the victims of it because Elon is violent and violent people will steal your social security checks.
Maybe. Maybe that's what he meant.
I'm trying my best.
So I wanted to see if there's any more context here. I wanted to see if he's given any statements. So I searched up his church and I looked at his Facebook page. I thought maybe this church would have a nice Facebook page and they would say something.
So the first one I clicked on, it says, it's come to our attention that a message delivered on this time, blah, blah, blah, has led to misinterpretations and strong reactions from individuals across the country. And it's like, oh, I found it, found the church.
While we respect all houses of faith, we want to clarify that Second Missionary Baptist Church is a separate congregation and we're not affiliated with Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church. They're like, oh, okay, wait, wrong church. Wrong church. Okay, alright. So this is the Second Missionary Baptist Church and we're looking for the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga,
Tennessee. My bad, it's down the street. Okay, so they don't have a Facebook page. I didn't see any statement, but the local Chattanooga News did an interview with him, and in no way throughout the entire interview did he in any way say, oh, that was taken out of context. Here's what I really said.
We're a people of peace. I would never condone violence against Elon and Trump and conservatives. And in fact, I was saying that they're violent. Nothing, he didn't explain it in any way. He doubled down on everything he said. Okay. So let's take
this as an opportunity to talk about this verse and what this verse really means, what Jesus is really talking about. It's Matthew 11 12. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force. What does that mean from Jesus? What is Jesus saying? We actually talked about this verse a bit the other day. We referenced it the other day because it ends with,
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Anyway, the word violent here in Greek means strong and forceful and energetic. If you look at the original Greek, strong, forceful, and energetic. This is a tricky scripture so I went to a lot of commentaries to learn how this has been analyzed over the centuries. This is Myers New Testament
commentary from 1832. In this way is described that eager, irresistible, striving, and struggling after the approaching messianic kingdom. It is as though it were being taken by storm. That's not like a violent storm, right? Strong, forceful, energetic. Those of whom, the, and then the Greek word for violence, holds true, achieve a speedy success. And that while they press forward to join the ranks of my followers, they clutch at the approaching kingdom as though they were seizing spoils and make it their own. So eager and energetic no longer calm expectant is the interest in regard to the kingdom
the Greek word here is be a states it is translated as one who is forceful in eager pursuit in Jewish culture it was a zeal for God's law back to Myers New Testament commentary he says the be a states those who are forceful in their zeal, are believers struggling hard for its possession. Matthew Henry, 1706, his commentary, it shows us what fervency and zeal are required of all.
Self must be denied. The bent, the frame and temper of the mind must be altered. Those who have an interest in the great salvation will have it upon any terms, and not think them hard, nor quit their hold without a blessing." So I will do whatever it takes, and I'm not going to complain about it.
It won't be difficult because it's obvious that this is what I'm going to do. That's the forcefulness that I have, the zeal. Barnes' commentary from 1830. He says there was, this is Jesus, "'Was a great rush or a crowd
pressing to hear John the Baptist. Multitudes went out to hear him, as if they were about to take the kingdom of heaven by force. Jesus says that since the kingdom of heaven or the gospel has been preached there's been a rush to it. People have been earnest about it. They've come pressing to obtain the blessing as if they would take it by violence.
There's an allusion here to the manner in which cities were taken. Besiegers pressed upon them with violence and demolished the walls. With such earnestness and violence, he says, people had pressed around him and John since they began to preach. Vincent's Word Studies says this word means overpowered, taken by storm. Christ thus graphically portrays the intense excitement which followed John's ministry. The eager waiting, striving, and struggling of the multitude for the promised king. Real quick, just to be clear, this does not say that we should go kill Elon Musk because he's taken
away our Social Security check.
Pastor!
The word take by force means literally to snatch away, carry off. It's often used in the classics of plundering. Those who use violent efforts drag it to themselves. They that make violence pull it unto them. Christ speaks of believers, they seize upon the kingdom and make it their own." I love this ancient idea. The passage recalls the old Greek proverb quoted by Plato against the sophists who had
corrupted the Athenian youth by promising the easy attainment of wisdom. It was Plato and this old Greek proverb, good things are hard. Dante seized the idea. I'll translate this. This is one of Dante's poems. He said, this is the more modern translation, the kingdom of heaven is taken by storm, not through force, but through passionate love and a living hope so strong and aligns with God's will. It's not like how people overpower each other, but instead it triumphs because it wants to be won over. And in being one, it wins through
kindness and grace. John 6 15, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. That's the same idea by force like that shows the fervor that people had and it's the fervor we need again for Jesus and for the gospel not fervor against Elon finding a hundred billion dollars in the social security payments that are fraudulent like he has fervor for that. Elon that's good. Like Elon you go have a zeal for
that. We are called to have a zeal for Jesus and that pastor if I may should well pray about him. Let me end with Charles Spurgeon. He wrote frequently complaints are made and surprise expressed by individuals who have never found a blessing rest upon anything they have attempted to do in the service of God. They'll say, I have been a Sunday school teacher for years and I've never seen any of my girls or boys converted.
No, and the reason most likely is that you have never been violent about it. You have never been compelled by the divine spirit to make up your mind that converted they should be, and no stone should be left unturned until they were. You've never been brought by the Spirit to such a passion that you've said, I cannot live unless God bless me. I cannot exist unless I see some of these children saved. Then falling on your knees in agony of prayer and putting forth afterwards your trust with
the same intensity towards heaven, you would have never been disappointed, for the violent take it by force." That is what that scripture actually means. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website Mike Slater Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.
