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Sunday 29 May 2016

Romans 13:2,3 - Rebelling against God

13:2
As said in my previous comments we need to take this in context, bearing in mind all that the Bible says. However, we must not have a rebellious attitude towards authority. Rebellion against authority is a symptom of our rebellion against God. Now does this mean we should never confront authority? No. The prophets in the Old Testament regularly confronted authority, Elijah being a prime example, and Daniel gives an excellent example on how we should confront, but there are many dangers that we need to be aware of. One is that while claiming to confront for the cause of justice we are really confronting for our own self-interest or to satisfy our own egos. Secondly, the prophets were concerned above all for the honour of the name of the Lord, we must not be purely political.

13:3
The instructions in this verse may seem to be at odds with what we see in the real world, but again Paul is giving the starting point. We need to understand the fundamental system of the world, and the foundation is that God has instituted authorities and they are there to uphold justice. Now they do this with varying degrees of perfection, and sometimes are utterly corrupt, but we start with the point that they are there to do good. We must obey good laws. In 1 Peter 2:11-24 Peter deals with the situation where governments do not do right, and suffering for the sake of Christ is the answer. We should also remember to ignore chapter headings! In 12:21 Paul told us to overcome evil with good, this applies on a personal level and in dealing with governments. We should also remember the situation they were in. The church was relatively small, leading a rebellion was not a practical proposition anyway!

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