Castlebar Christian Fellowship

The Christian’s response to Government!

Reading: Romans 13:1-7
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Forthere is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honour to whom honour is owed.

Introduction:

If by now no politician has knocked on your door canvassing for the election, you must live in a very remote area and you’re not on the register. (Or maybe you’ve turned up the T.V. and hid behind the sofa!)
Today’s reading challenges all Christians regarding their relationship to the government. What should our response be to the authority of the state and all its designated representatives, E.g. the Gardai and Revenue? How can we demonstrate the transformed life of worship in relationship to the ‘governing authorities’?

I think it’s very important to outline some historical background to this passage of scripture. Otherwise it’s a bit like overhearing somebody on the phone and you’re only getting one side of the conversation, which doesn’t necessarily make sense.

Background:

People have had difficulties with these verses throughout the generations and we’re told that “almost every interpretation of Romans 13 written since 1945 explicitly brings the situation of Hitler’s Germany into the discussion.” (Douglas Moo)
Paul’s teaching seems on the face of it to give unqualified and unreserved support to government.

In response some have said that Paul didn’t write these words and that they were inserted into the text at some later time by somebody else. However if you look at the previous verses in chapter 12:19-21, there is a continuity, for example, that takes the focus away from personal retaliation to the power of the state to punish offenders.

Also there is no reason whatsoever against the thought that after the general exhortations of chapter 12:9-21, it’s out of place to give teaching on our relationship to the state. He was after all addressing Christians in Rome, the very nerve centre of the Roman Empire! And don’t forget the Roman Empire was an authoritarian regime and not a modern western democracy.


Some think that Paul had a very idealised view of government! However it can also be pointed out that Paul in these verses is dealing with broader and general principles regarding the order and stability of society. It was also important for Paul to show to Roman inquirers that Christianity was not a threat to this stability.
No doubt Paul appreciated the Roman government and the dependability it provided, usually served to his and the gospels advantage, as Christianity spread throughout the Roman world.

In the first century, Judaism was afforded special status and protection by Rome and Christianity in its early days was seen as a group within Judaism. Paul’s Roman citizenship also gave him certain rights of which he availed when need be. It has been pointed out that, “at the time he was writing, the state was generally being very beneficent to those who proclaimed the gospel. Systematic persecution of Christians by the state had not yet begun.” Stuart Olyott.

However we know that Paul was not blind to the realities of human government, with its flaws and injustices. His very central message concerned Christ who was crucified; the terrible execution by torture, perfected by the Romans and reserved for non-citizens. You can’t say that he was naïve about the Roman government. Paul himself was unjustly treated by Roman authorities in Philippi and yet we find similar encouragements to be subject to government in his later writings, when to his knowledge his own execution was imminent.

It has also been pointed out that though the early Christian church came under the protective umbrella afforded to Judaism it also worked against them when Jews or Christians were accused by the authorities of sedition or rebellion. There were a number of Zealot type agitations (referred to in the book of Acts 5:36-37) that threatened the stability of society and no doubt some Jews and Christians would have sympathized with them. It would have been easy to accuse the early Christians with revolutionary tendencies and disloyalty to Rome. Remember the accusations that were made against them on one occasion, Acts 17:6-7 “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”

“There is good evidence that, at the time Paul wrote Romans (early A.D. 57), considerable hostility was mounting between Rome and the Jews. In A.D. 49 the emperor Claudius finally had to expel all the Jews from Rome due to the continual disturbances and riots caused by one Chrestus (scholars believe that is a reference to Christ).” Alan F. Johnson.

Remember Priscilla and Aquila expelled amongst others from Rome because of trouble amongst the Jews. Acts 18:1-2.

Why are these verses, in Romans 13, so pro government then? The text doesn’t find fault with government at any point and seems to encourage our unreserved submission to the governing authorities. It looks like Paul is trying to remedy any imbalance that might be bubbling not to far from the surface in Rome at the time. It looks like it would have been easy for Christians to have been drawn into political unrest during this period. There was lots of anti-government talk and feeling. There was “a growing discontent with the power of the government. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us that there was considerable resistance in the middle 50’s (first century!) to paying indirect taxes, culminating in a tax revolt in A.D. 58.

No doubt, Paul was directing these words to a particular context that required extra sensitivity. He is “deliberately focussing on only one side of the issue.” (Douglas Moo)

There is a broader perspective on government when you take the whole bible into consideration. Paul would be very aware of the history of his own people Israel and the times when resistance to government was needful. The Jews would have looked back and remembered with tremendous admiration the bravery of the Maccabees as they resisted the tyranny of Antiochus.

Paul’s respect for authority didn’t mean a blind unquestioning loyalty. Remember as he stood before the Sanhedrin his reaction to unjust treatment. Acts 23:1-5.
Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!”
Those who were standing near Paul said, “How dare you insult God’s high priest!”
Paul replied, “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.’*HYPERLINK "http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+23&version=NIV" \l "fen-NIV-27740a#fen-NIV-27740a" \o "See footnote a"