Submit

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves. – Romans 13.1-2

Now here is a tough one. It is a subject of great controversy which I am certainly not going to settle with one little blog post. The great question is 'what kind of relationship should the Christian have to secular government?'

The debate has raged through the centuries. How much obedience is due to the government? Do we have to obey all laws? Are there conditions on submission? What do we do when the government is cruel and oppressive? What do we do when the government is going totally against the way we think?

First I think we have to notice the context. There were no chapter or verse divisions when this was written. Paul has just been addressing how we are not to respond to evil with evil. He says that we are to overcome evil with good. It says we do good to our enemies.

A right after that we read 'let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. The powers that be are ordained of God. If we resist the authorities we resist God and we bring judgement on ourselves.'

I wish I had all the answers to all the details. We know from the previous few verses and from what we know of history what happened when God's people applied these principles in the first few centuries of the church. The early church trusted God. They submitted to one of the cruellest governmental regimes in the history of the world. And in the end they won. 

While I may not have all the answers I think it is clear from this passage and others that Christians are to abide by laws, even if we don’t like them. While we can’t always do that because we cannot obey laws that violate the scriptures, we have to be willing to suffer the consequences like Daniel did and like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah did when they chose to disobey.

No matter what the circumstances God’s people are not to be lawbreakers. It is our duty to obey the law unless it comes into absolute conflict with the word of God.