Jesus First and Foremost: A Christian's Political Paradigm

Jesus' preeminence orients us to navigate the messiness of 2024.

A baseball player must step on first base before trying for second. A musician must practice individual strings before mastering chords. A gardener must plant a seed before gathering a harvest. 

In every area of life, something must come first—in sequence and preeminence. Likewise, an accurate sense of firstness is foundational for civic life.

To illustrate this, Jesus commanded his followers to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). The parables of the pearl of greatest price and the treasure buried in the field provoke us to determine if we truly do seek the kingdom of God before all else.  

N.T. Wright says that in Jesus’ politically-charged context, his message included “a political call, summoning Israel as a nation to abandon one set of agendas and embrace another.” Jesus was calling the people of God to decide: Will you first follow the violent impulses of the Zealots? Join the separatists in having nothing to do with civil life? Align with the political compromise of the Herodians? Or follow me?

Years later, the Apostle Paul put it like this:

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together…so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Colossians 1:15–20 

What does Jesus’ supremacy mean for political affiliations? They are permitted but need to be put in their place as a distant second to ultimate loyalty to Jesus and his kingdom-of-God agenda. Jesus transcends and thus evaluates every other form of human belonging. 

It’s Not About “Winning.”

As Christians, we have sworn allegiance to the Prince of Peace. If that is our first allegiance, on what basis do we rely on violence to get our way? Political leaders often urge us to allow violence for the sake of protecting our way of life or fixing something important. While some of these leaders have good intentions, they have not put Jesus’ ethical frame of reference first. They put first whatever it takes to win.

A classic illustration of this is Donald Trump, Jr., who said of Jesus’ teaching to turn the other cheek: “It’s gotten us nothing.” Who is the us privileged enough to contradict Jesus? Conservatives? Republicans? MAGA? Whoever us is, it is not the Jesus movement with its attending values. When us is defined as those loyal to Jesus and his kingdom agenda and values—not to any political ideology—turning the other cheek is a brilliant insight that when actualized, achieves a lot. Dallas Willard gets it right: 

“[Jesus’ teachings were] set forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person — one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays.”

Winning political wars might not be appealing to you. You may be more tempted to flee the impurities of society altogether. But neither option is the way to be present to humanity as kingdom-agents of healing and repair. Jesus’ single-minded, uncompromising presence is what gave him the ability to say, “I have done the work the Father has given me to do…I gave them the words the Father gave me” (John 17:4,8). 

When we commit to the preeminence of the Son in whom all the fullness—the love, wisdom, power and provision—of God dwells, it does not solve every problem or make every specific decision, but it is the orientation for navigating the messiness of 2024. It keeps us in God’s story, freeing us from politicians’ competing counter-narratives.