Justice and Power

I’ve been thinking lately about how often the Bible warns God’s people not about weakness—but about proximity to power.

In Daniel 7, the most terrifying image is not chaos, or poverty, or suffering. It is the beast of iron—strong, efficient, crushing, and utterly inhuman. A power that devours, tramples, and reshapes the world in its own image.

Daniel does not marvel at it. He recoils from it. In fact he writes that “his colour changed” as result of his vision.

The irony, of course, is that iron empires rarely look monstrous from the inside. They look orderly. Secure. Effective. Necessary. They promise safety, prosperity, influence, and relevance. And that is precisely what makes them dangerous.

The prophets of Israel were not primarily future-tellers. They were truth-tellers. Their job was to stand next to power—but never under it. To speak on behalf of God when God’s name was being used to justify exploitation, violence, or exclusion.

And this is where leadership becomes uncomfortable.

Because prophetic leadership does not ask, “How do we secure our influence?” It asks, “Who is being crushed beneath it?”

This is why Jesus was so unsettling.

Jesus did not seek proximity to empire. He did not bless it, baptize it, or borrow its symbols. He did not confuse empire authority with His own. In fact, he rejected His disciples’ plan to raise Him to political office.

Following His own baptism, Jesus countered Satan’s offer of empire reign with the truth of the Shema, God is One and you must choose whether you worship God or power as they are mutually exclusive. To choose power is to enslave oneself to Satan.

Jesus showed us a different path:

He lifted up the poor.
He dignified the overlooked.
He named injustice against the oppressed.
And he warned religious leaders—again and again—about how easily devotion can be corrupted when it aligns too closely with status, security, and control.

Jesus’ voice was not clamoring.
But it was unmistakably prophetic.

One of the quiet temptations of Christian leadership is mistaking access for security.

Access to decision-makers.
Access to platforms.
Access to cultural leaders.

None of those are inherently wrong.
But Scripture is clear: when the church borrows its security from empire, it loses its voice as a prophet.

Iron makes poor soil for compassion.

The Son of Man in Daniel’s vision does not defeat the beast with greater force. He outlasts it. He exposes it. He is vindicated after suffering, not before.

This should give Christian leaders pause.

If our leadership only works when power approves it…
If our convictions soften when influence is at stake…
If our voice becomes quiet where the vulnerable need us to speak…

Then we may be closer to the beast than we realize.

The call of Christian leadership has never been to manage empire well. It has been to bear faithful witness—even when that witness is costly.

To retain the voice of the prophet.
To refuse the illusion that righteousness should produce political strength.
To remember that the kingdom of God is not revealed through iron, but through truth, justice, mercy, and compassion.

That calling is not loud.
But it is enduring.

And in every age, it asks the same question:

Who do we sound like when we speak—and whose power do we depend on when we do?