Jesus isn’t on the ballot this coming November, but His truths and teachings should always inform how we vote.

Millions of Americans have already filled out their ballots, a nod to the morphing of “Election Day” into “Election Season.” As of today, there are just 17 days until all the polls officially close altogether and hopefully, the counting wraps up.

Traditionalists understandably scoff at the expansion of the voting timeline, concerned that it increases the chances of shenanigans. Those who dismiss the idea of fraudulent elections might want to read their history books.

Lyndon B. Johnson, who would eventually go on to become the nation’s 36^th president, illegally won his Senate seat in 1948. A Texas voting official who validated the fictitious ballots that propelled Johnson to victory in the Democrat primary finally came clean about it in 1977.

Elections haven’t always been on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. In fact, in the early days of the Republic, Americans voted across a 34-day span, right up until the first Wednesday in December. It was in 1845 when the United States Congress eventually passed a law declaring an official Election Day in November.

But why November and why a Tuesday?

Since 1800s America was largely an agrarian society, consideration was given to work around the planting and harvest seasons, hence November. Citizens often had to travel a distance to vote. Since most people were in church on Sunday, it would have been unheard of to expect anyone to travel on the Lord’s Day. Monday was seen as an adequate travel day – leaving Tuesday as the best of the rest.

But whether you vote early or on Election Day itself, how you vote is what’s most important of all. We read, see and hear a lot about deceptive campaign commercials. Many ballot initiatives are worded in a way to deceive the voter. We desperately need wisdom when we vote.

Whether approaching the ballot box, or your personal or professional life, we must devote considerable effort to cultivating critical thinking skills.

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it,” observed Henry Ford. The philosopher William James agreed. “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices,” he once quipped.

The apostle Paul didn’t use the term “critical thinking,” but writing to believers in Greece, he urged them to “test everything, hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).

Likewise, Christians should be testing candidates and weighing the pros and cons of other issues on the ballot.

At times, it seems like critical thinking is at an all-time low. How anyone can believe or buy the lies that are being traded by some candidates and special interest groups is beyond comprehension.  

Writing in The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis stated, “The heart never takes the place of the head, but it can and should obey it.”

We should be a thinking people.

Don’t be gullible. It was King Solomon who observed, “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps” (Proverbs 14:15).

Christians can vote with confidence and boldness. Urged Paul to Timothy, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything (2 Tim. 2:7).

Critical thinking will inevitably lead you to vote biblically.