{"id":809,"date":"2009-05-16T21:45:33","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T02:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/2009\/05\/16\/ill-be-a-democrat-in-heaven\/"},"modified":"2009-05-16T21:45:33","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T02:45:33","slug":"ill-be-a-democrat-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/16\/ill-be-a-democrat-in-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ll Be a Democrat in Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m having a grand old time reading through Chronicles &#8220;for the first time.&#8221;&#160; One of the major themes is that the people should obey the law of Moses.&#160; And another theme running throughout the book is that when the people obey, they rejoice.&#160; But I didn&#8217;t see this one coming:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>2 Chronicles 24:9-10 (ESV) &#8220;And proclamation was made throughout Judah and Jerusalem <strong>to bring in for the Lord the tax<\/strong> that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness. 10 And all the princes and <strong>all the people rejoiced<\/strong> and brought their tax and dropped it into the chest until they had finished.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t remember why, but yesterday I was actually wondering if we would pay taxes in heaven. I concluded &#8220;no.&#8221;&#160; Now I will revise my conclusion: if we pay taxes in heaven, we will do so joyfully (that is, with true joy; I mean, we &#8216;ll really be happy about it).&#160; <\/p>\n<p>This makes sense when we recognize that our attitude toward taxes is often due to our attitude about who gets the tax and how they use it.&#160; <\/p>\n<p>But imagine this: imagine living under a perfectly wise ruler, who knows all of the kingdom&#8217;s needs, uses the resources with 100% efficiency, and has already proven in the most astonishing way that he would give up that which is dearest to him for <em>your joy<\/em>.&#160; How much of your income would you be willing to pay in taxes to that ruler?&#160; And how would you feel about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m having a grand old time reading through Chronicles &#8220;for the first time.&#8221;&#160; One of the major themes is that the people should obey the law of Moses.&#160; And another theme running throughout the book is that when the people obey, they rejoice.&#160; But I didn&#8217;t see this one coming: 2 Chronicles 24:9-10 (ESV) &#8220;And\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/16\/ill-be-a-democrat-in-heaven\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}