Many have erroneously supposed that the Bible is a book that teaches submission to political authority, no matter how evil that authority has become. They base this belief on a few passages of scripture, pulled out of context. This mistaken interpretation cannot be further from the truth. Political movements that originate within the human mind always focus on external control and result in slavery. Those that originate with God are both liberating, and focus on individual, versus collective, change. Take the man out of the jungle, versus taking the jungle out of the man.
This very concept of individual self-government, versus external force, is at the very root of Biblical teachings. It has also consistently placed God's Prophets at odds with corrupt forms of government and their leaders.
Take Moses, for instance. The man was adopted into the Royal Family of Egypt and quite likely, the third most powerful man in the Egyptian empire. He was also a political dissident of the first order. In fact, his revolutionary activities resulted in the slaying of an Egyptian soldier that was beating a Hebrew slave.
Moses had a choice, he could live a life of ease in the courts of Pharoah, or he could oppose a Fascist political system that relied on slavery to build its monuments to oppression and misery. His political involvement led to his exile in a foreign country. When he returned to Egypt, as God's messenger, it was with the message of liberty. A message that placed him in direct conflict with his former beneficiaries.
This conflict culminated in a showdown that virtually destroyed the existing Fascist regime, ended Pharoah's life, and resulted in the total destruction of Egypt's political power and prestige. The beneficiaries of all this destruction were the Hebrew slaves, who were free to "Pursue Happiness" and "Liberty" according to the dictates of their own conscience.
Their new found freedom was short-lived, however. Eventually the Israelites requested a worldly monarch to provide them with military security from the numerous "terrorists" and enemies that surrounded them. God's Prophet, Samuel, responded to this request with a message from God:
"7 And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the avoice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
8 According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.
9 Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
10 ¶ And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
13 And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.
16 And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
17 He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry out in that day because of your aking which ye shall have bchosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day." (Source)
And so Samuel, the political dissident, tried to show the men of Israel that their request for "man-made" security, would result in a loss of their Liberty, and eventual decline into slavery.
Enter David. David was also a Prophet of God that had been elevated in the eyes of the people because of his military exploits. The people loudly proclaimed, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands." Saul, fearful of losing his popularity and kingdom, tried repeatedly to slay David.
Like Moses, David went into exile, along with others that had fallen out of favor with King Saul. He repeatedly objected to the tyranny of Israel's political leadership and was hunted like a wild dog by Israel's king. There was no place for political dissent in Saul's kingdom. Not even when that dissent came from God or His Prophets. Gold, not God, ruled over ancient Israel.
Next: More Political Dissidents of the Bible
