About this Episode
The Kingdom of God is at hand! Duncan Palmer joins Craig for a discussion of what the Good News entails and a key point that Christians are missing today: The Kingdom of God is here and now. Poor Bible translations go all the way back to Augustine, leading God’s people into confusion about their purpose. For example, ‘ecclesia’ is often rendered ‘church’ in modern translations, whereas a better translation refers to a gathering or assembly of people who managed the local city. The only God-ordained governance structure is the ecclesia, which happens when the church willingly submits to servant leadership and God’s laws alone.
Craig and Duncan discuss the historical points where the church went wrong, then turn to Duncan’s article “Tyrants be Gone: Say Hello to the New Boss”. There are no good guys in the fiefdoms of Satan; even your favorite candidate is nothing more than a tinpot tyrant playing with authority that does not belong to him. No human being is given authority to rule over another. Therefore, instead of participating in politics, Christians are to opt out, declare independence, and make worldly governments obsolete. When we do, we will usher in the Kingdom of God. We need to be creating things of value helping and encouraging each other, and trading amongst ourselves. Jesus invites us to live freely in this voluntary society. He welcomes us into the Kingdom of God! This is the missing part of the Good News!
Duncan’s Hive Blog Articles
Episode Timestamps:
2:25 – Introduce Duncan’s article
Well shared in the discussion group
Written so that people can get a glimpse of what the good news really is
3:33 – Who is Duncan Palmer?
Grew up in America in the 50s and 60s
Heard that America was the freest country in the world
Republican family background
Supported Ron Paul when he ran for office
In the 90s, Duncan realised he was being extorted for tax money
Not as free as he thought
Taxation is a fraudulent system
Learned from Larken Rose
Podcast: Outside the Cage
Not a believer but has a lot to say to Christians about neighbourly love and oppression
7: 11 – The importance of language
Duncan uses the label anarchist
Bad Bible translations are of the devil
The Bible is misquoted, mistranslated, and misread
Get back to the basic teachings of Christ
Duncan’s definition of anarchist:
No human rulers
God is the only legitimate ruler
He is a benevolent ruler
A Christ-archist or Thearchist
The enemy has taken the term ‘anarchist’ and perverted its definition
It doesn’t mean bomb throwing radicals out to destroy everything
Words ought to be our servants, not the other way around
Voluntaryist
The Kingdom of God is based on voluntary interactions
Radically different from the kingdoms of the world
The ‘kings’ of this world have no legitimate authority
The early church lived in a voluntary society
Anarchism and Christianity should be synonymous
14:16 – The church is in bed with the state
Learning the history of the church
Craig has become fascinated by church history
Prior to Constantine
This is how the church should behave today too
They had their own disagreements
Universally recognized Jesus as King
Tertullian believed in Eternal Conscious Torment
Tertullian was vocal about the state
Some of the early church writers were taught directly by the apostles
The church has gone in the opposite direction of these writings
Ecclesia – The gathering of people who managed the local city
Duncan is reading through the New Testament in Greek
Trying to get the whole picture
Major points:
Ecclesia – church is a poor translation
Gathering, assembly or congregation might be better options
The church should guide the local population rather than the worldly institutions
David Bently Hart
New Greek New Testament Translation of the Bible
Augustine translated the Bible from Latin not Greek
There are differences that change the meaning of the text
Mistranslations are being taught in the church
1 Corinthians 1:26 – Not too many bright believers verse
Complaints about poor Bible translations
22:20 – How Duncan became a Christian Anarchist
The state lies to everyone and imposing an illegal income tax
Recommended reading
Very thin
Made Duncan realise that the only law that we should respect is God’s law
More than 400 instances of the word ‘law’ in the Bible maybe only a dozen of them reference human made laws.
Man-made laws are always spoken of with disdain
Romans 13:1 refers to God’s law not human mandates
Christians are afraid of the other team, so they resort to using the state
26:52 - The church has gone wrong at a few historical points:
Constantine co-opted the church
The church is to replace and obviate the rule of Satan on earth
Replacing the commandments of God with the traditions of men
During the Reformation
The Reformation did not go far enough
Reformers divided the world into ecclesiastical governments and civil government
A better distinction is the Kingdom of God and Fiefdoms of Satan
Civil government is seen as legitimate and desirable
Throughout scripture those structures are Satan’s government systems
Evil and influenced by demons
The church should be separate from those structures
Jesus refused the authority that Satan tempted him with
The early church recognised this
The Empire of the United States is crumbling
Current trajectory is unsustainable
Christians need to be ready for this
It is going to be chaotic and scary
If we follow Jesus everything will be fine
Secular anarchists could learn from Christians
It’s too exhausting to keep wasting time arguing about going back to the Mises Caucus
32:02 - The church should act as God’s new governance structure
The Bible is a handbook for governance
The only authority God grants the church is directly going to our brother, or bringing others into an argument or bringing conflicts before the whole ecclesia from where they may be ejected
There is nowhere left to go when looking for somewhere where liberty can be found
Seasteading: the idea that people could build communities out in the ocean
Out of the fiefdoms of Satan
We are supposed to be denying territorial jurisdictions
We are to be a Holy nation from every tribe and nation
Our common ruler Jesus is to be our common ground
The good news of the Kingdom has been abandoned
John and Jesus preached it
There’s a new boss in town
We need to take power and authority to deny the tyrants around us
37:34 – Tyrant be Gone. Say hello to the New Boss
The church is misunderstood
What we have now is not what was supposed to be
There’s a new boss in town
We’ve done a marginal job of letting people know who King Jesus is
We’ve misdirected everyone sitting in pews into worshipping the state
Romans 13 is mistranslated
Use as a bludgeon on the head of believers
Teaching to do everything as the government says to do it
Let every soul be subject to the highest authorities, namely God and His Word
The only true authority
The government will be upon His shoulders
Is Afghanistan or China upheld by Jesus?
Christians seem to think that America is the good guy
Patently not true given all the overseas deaths caused by foreign policy
41:53 – There are no good guys at all in the fiefdoms of Satan
The sooner the church realises that Jesus is in the process of destroying those fiefdoms the better
The right number of Christians in office won’t make things better
George W Bush said God wanted him to run for office
9 months later the never-ending war began
Ambassadors do not participate in government
We are to be God’s ambassadors
The missing part of the good news of the Kingdom of God
The church pushes news of the Kingdom into some distant future
Whereas it should be here and now
America is not your friend
America is not a saviour
It is destruction
46:34 - Aren’t you sick and tired of tyrants?
Even your favourite candidate is a tyrant
Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results
People are scared of the Democrats or Republicans
So, they put libertarians in office
They are still putting someone in power over their brothers and sisters
Jesus didn’t say to do that
You see how the gentiles lord it over them? It should not be so among you
Satan likes to divide and conquer
Splitting people into camps to do battle with each other
The only power they have is to rob, hurt and enslave
God has not ordained or authorised the state to do that
This is a lie from the deepest pit of hell
Backed by demons
Christians need to walk away and follow Jesus
In light of Romans 13 how do you read Acts 5?
There are two different definitions of submission and obedience
There are a lot of poorly understood words
The Bible calls for leadership that we voluntarily follow rather than dictatorships
The only legitimate rules are God’s laws
These rules are written on our hearts
Respect the scriptures, but don’t slavishly check every move we make
Follow Jesus’ law of love
The calling as the assembly is to step out of the world, voluntarily submit to servant leadership in the church
We are not to participate in the failed kingdoms of this world
Even the US is based on satanic principles
Instead become a decentralized replacement governance system
Acknowledge King Jesus and deny allegiance to any other jurisdiction
People are not understanding this
How do we make people see that the state is evil, and we should abstain from it?
Comparison chart that shows principles that the state runs on versus what the ecclesia should be running on.
Libertarian philosophy states we should not initiate violence
The state runs on violence
Violence in defence might have legitimate value
When providing for one’s own household
No human being or group have legitimate rights to rule over other humans
Satan said in his heart that he would be like God
Ruling over people
Taking the place of God
People may rule over creation, but never other human beings
Only Jesus holds this right as creator
The state is committing the same crime as Satan
Asserting that they have the right to arbitrarily dictate to us what we must do
55:06 – Implementing God’s Kingdom
Entering God’s Kingdom means we leave the kingdoms of the world
Leave them in the dustbin
Establish something superior
Make them obsolete
This is what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God
Humanity will be drawn towards their true King when we do this
Opt out of the state
And everything else will be added to you
The church seems to have missed this important part of the good news the Kingdom of God
The assembly needs to stop viewing the assembly as purely spiritual
Ecclesia is not a spiritual social club
We need to be God’s Kingdom in this world
We need to be creators in this world
We reflect God when we create things of value
We need to encourage each other through our occupations
We need to help one another provide for our families
Trade with one another
We need solid ‘weights and measures’ like Bitcoin
We need our own economic system
We need to encourage each other’s endeavours, such as the Bad Roman Project
Helping to expand God’s Kingdom in the world
We need to encourage each other’s development in writing and the arts
We need to do these in the name of God
We need to help each other
There is no church/state separation where churches are 501 C3 corporations
The church becomes subservient to Satan himself
We need to declare our independence
Shelter our members from taxation and state depravations
We need to be encouraging entrepreneurism
Establishing enterprises
Bringing wealth into the Kingdom
Use the wealth to advance God’s Kingdom
We need to declare independence from territorial jurisdiction
Covid made it clear that the state is out to shut the church down
We need to push back
We need more Christian podcasters flooding the arena with this
Jesus’ generous offer is still available to us
Let those who are thirsty come
Take the water of life without cost
1:02:37 – 1 Timothy 6: 11-17
Paul says to Timothy:
Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love and steadfastness
He ties that good confession in with Jesus
Jesus confessed before Pontius Pilate that His Kingdom is not of this world
Jesus is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings
He dwells in unapproachable light
He holds a branch of peace to His enemies
He hasn’t crushed them under His feet yet
We need to be the assembly that draws people to Him
Jesus says we can come and be a part of this voluntary society
We can live totally free
Jesus the only worthy ruler
He continues to bless us
We just need to trust Jesus
We have an eternity of God’s kindness to look forward to
And an entire universe to explore
A childlike wonder about the vastness of God and His creation
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