For the past several years, I’ve made it a practice in my quiet times to go slowly through entire books of the Bible, meditating and journaling on what is usually no more than a paragraph or two each day. For many passages, it takes more than one day to get out everything that I can. My plan at this point is to continue this practice until I’ve gone through the entire Bible. This is obviously not the only way to spend time in the Scriptures, but it does offer some advantages. One of which is that it forces me to wrestle with passages that I would really prefer to skip over. Take, for example, Romans 13:1-5:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
This is, of course, the Scripture that is usually cited to explain why Christians should obey traffic laws, which is probably why it’s not a well loved passage. But going beyond that fairly trivial (and completely self-centered) dislike, I find that when I go deeper into this passage, it really challenges the way I, as a twenty-first century American, think about government.
Fear of the Government
The very first thing that stands out to me this passage is Paul’s claim that “rulers hold no terror for those who do right,” which he follows by saying that the way to live without fear of the ruler is simply to do what is right. But how can he say that? History is overflowing with examples of governments oppressing, imprisoning, torturing, and even murdering, their own citizens. And it’s not just modern history. By the time this letter was written, Paul himself had been imprisoned and beaten by local government authorities more than once. (See Acts 16:22-24 for one example.) The emperor of Rome at the time this was written was Nero. Even if Paul didn’t know about the intense persecution Nero would soon launch against Roman Christians, the Holy Spirit certainly knew. So how can he say that rulers “hold no terror” for those who do right? Is he completely ignorant?
But then I look more closely. Paul is not promising that persecution will not happen, he’s saying there’s no cause for fear. Those are not the same thing. In fact, one of the themes that’s found throughout the New Testament is that we must not respond to persecution with fear, but rather with boldness. As Peter writes:
Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” (1 Peter 3:13-14)
As long as I’m doing what is right, there is no cause for me to fear. Even if I am persecuted and suffer for doing right, I know that I will be vindicated in the end by Christ. But God will not support me if I’m doing wrong. If that’s the case, I ought to fear.
God’s Rebellious Servants
According to this passage, the governing authorities, at any level, are God’s servants. They have been given authority from God to do good to the righteous and punish the wicked. Rulers, then, do have legitimate authority, but the civil government is never the highest authority. God’s word radically undermines any claim of governments to ultimate authority. What sounds at first like a simple affirmation of the government’s authority, also stands as a limit to that authority and as an implicit denunciation of rulers who rebel against God. Presidents, kings national leaders of every kind, along with everyone in authority under them, are servants of God. But what do I do if those governing authorities are not faithful to God?
Every passage of Scripture has a context, and part of that context is always the rest of the Bible. Because of that, I know that what this passage says about obeying the authorities is not absolute; there are commands of the ruler that must be disobeyed (Acts 4:18-20). The ruler is, like me, under God’s authority. He cannot countermand his Lord. If he tries, my obligation remains what it always was: to obey God. Even if obedience leads to persecution and death at the hands of a rebellious ruler. But there is a difference between being unable to obey one specific command and denying that the ruler is the legitimate authority who must, generally speaking, be obeyed.
That’s not an easy message for an American to accept. In particular, I don’t like the idea that elected officials are servants of God and not, primarily, of the people who elected them. I also don’t like what it might suggest about the American Revolution.
Nevertheless, the Scripture is clear; rulers are God’s servants, whether they act like it or not. (And before anyone says that things are different in a democracy, the Roman Empire in the first century was only a dictatorship at the top. City governments mostly retained the form they had when Rome was a republic, which usually meant an elected assembly and an elected magistrate.) If one of the governing authorities is a poor servant, or even an openly rebellious one, it’s God’s job to rebuke them (Romans 14:4). It’s not my job, unless I’ve been chosen by the Holy Spirit to speak as God’s messenger. Now, of course, I am still free to respectfully express my own opinion, as only so long as I recognize that my opinion is just that: my opinion. The leaders may well listen, but they have no particular obligation to pay attention to just my opinion.
And then my mind immediately pivots to ask: What about Pol Pot? Or what about Hitler? Was German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrong to participate in a plot to assassinate Hitler? Did the fact that Bonhoeffer was a German citizen make him different from the citizens of other countries, who were defending their homes, and the homes of their allies, from German invasion? And I honestly have to say that I don’t know. More precisely, I know what my natural instinct says, but I’m not one hundred percent certain that God agrees with my natural instinct.
Perhaps God did tell Bonhoeffer to make the attempt (a failed attempt, I should add, although that fact alone is not enough to prove it was not God’s will that the attempt be made). I have no special insight into that. And there’s really no reason why I should. If somebody were to ask, “what is it to you what God did or didn’t tell Dietrich Bonhoeffer?” I would have no answer.
What I do know is that Hitler is not my problem. Nor is he anybody else’s (or earth, anyway). Hitler has gone to where he belongs (Acts 1:25). Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, King George III, and most of the other examples that my mind comes up with are not my problems either. I really have no grounds to complain if God hasn’t given me the wisdom to know how to deal with a situation that I’m not facing. It’s enough that I have the wisdom to deal with my own situation. For me, then, the question, “what about Hitler” is nothing but a deflection. The unstated implication is that, unless I know what God requires in every possible situation, I don’t have to obey what I know he’s telling me to do in my situation. That’s clearly nonsense.
Knowing My Responsibility
Undeniably, there are still evil governments and evil rulers in the world today, so I can’t entirely escape the question of what to do. And sometimes – not always, but more often than I’d like – the answer is, nothing at all. Knowing that a problem exists does not automatically make it my problem.
It is my responsibility to act justly (Micah 6:8), but it is not my responsibility to establish justice on the earth. That’s God’s responsibility. And while it is true that God generally uses his servants to carry out his will, he is the one who directs them, giving to each person their own specific tasks as part of the greater whole.
It’s my responsibility to act with love toward my neighbors. It’s my responsibility to be both a witness to Christ and a servant of my brothers and sisters. It’s not my responsibility to govern the country with justice, because it’s not my responsibility to govern the country at all. This does not at all mean a withdrawal from civic duties, but rather the exact opposite. It means working even harder to advance God’s kingdom on earth, by working at the tasks I have specifically been given to do.
It’s right to grieve over injustice in the world, and it’s right to pray about it. More than right, in fact; we are actually taught in Matthew 6:10 to pray that:
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
But the way we work to advance God’s kingdom is by each of us acting justly, and with mercy, in our own sphere of influence, as we wait for Christ to return and do what we cannot.
This applies at every level. If I were in Congress, I would have a mandate from God to try to establish just laws for the nation. That would be within my sphere of influence. If I were the mayor, I would have a mandate to use the authority of the mayor’s office to govern the city justly. God unquestionably does call some of his children to act in the political realm, and establishes them in office for just that purpose. Just as he calls others of his children to serve in different ways.
My responsibility, then, is to do the job God has placed in front of me and trust that he has other servants to do other work. To believe that each person he calls is placed exactly where they need to be. Part of walking by faith, in other words, is trusting that our Father knows what he’s doing, and that he has everything under control. Even when it doesn’t look like it.
This is hard, precisely because I want to do good. There are many burning issues that we, as a country and as a planet, face. Many problems that cry out for solution, because people are hurting. I can’t in any way minimize this. What do we do about abortion? About human trafficking? About terrorism? About Israel? Ukraine? Immigration? Prison reform? Religious liberty? Violent crime? Sexual exploitation of children? People who have never heard the gospel? If I try to do everything, I won’t have the time or resources to do anything. Even keeping fully informed on all these issues, to say nothing of the myriads that I haven’t mentioned, would be impossible – I read fast, but not that fast.
So it’s necessary for me to focus on doing what God has given me to do. That might include working through the political or legal system. Or it might not. Doing what God has placed in front of me requires faith to believe that the problems I’m not dealing with are, nevertheless, being dealt with. To trust that I’m not God’s only servant. And to remember that, whatever happens, no matter who succeeds and who fails in dealing with this world’s problems, in the end, there will be justice on earth. The message of God’s coming judgment is a warning to those who do evil, but it is the hope of those who are trying to do what is right.
A lot of Christians today don’t like to preach, or even think very much, about God’s judgment. I think that’s a loss. The message that Christ is coming to judge the world is not just important as a warning to those who would do evil, it’s even more important as a restraint on those whose desire to do good might otherwise lead them to do more than they ought to.
As a follower of Jesus, and as a child of God, I must not fall into the trap of thinking that if I don’t make sure justice is done, then it won’t be done. Earlier in this same letter Paul wrote, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19) The knowledge of God’s judgment is also the reason why we are not to pass judgment on our brothers and sisters. (Romans 14:12-13) And I think that it has to impact the way we interact with government authorities who are abusive or corrupt. That’s a matter for God to address. And (somewhat ironically) one of the most common ways he does that is through the people he has placed in government (Romans 13:4).
A Higher Calling
But there is one more aspect of this question that I think needs to be addressed. In the very next chapter, Romans 14, Paul deals with the question of whether Christians are free to eat meat. Since much of the meat sold in Rome came from animals that had been sacrificed to pagan gods, some believers were concerned that eating it might be a participation in idolatry. Paul’s response in verses 20-21 was, “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” The real issue, in other words, wasn’t the food they ate, or didn’t eat, but showing love for one another.
Interestingly, there’s nothing in the entire chapter about the effect eating and drinking, might have on unbelievers who see it. Paul’s concern is entirely on how our behavior affects our brothers and sisters. And that goes far beyond the foods that were controversial in Paul’s time. With regard to the political realm, this same principle means that my freedom to take a stand on political issues needs to be exercised in such a way that it doesn’t cause another Christian to stumble. Building up my brothers and sisters in love and living in peace with them takes precedence over supporting political candidates or policies. Even those candidates and policies that have strong moral implications. Dividing over which political candidate to support (every one of whom has both good and bad points), is doing the work of the enemy.
God is more concerned with me loving my brother than with how either of us voted. That doesn’t mean I’m not to vote, but it does mean I’m not to quarrel about how to vote. It also means I’m not to look down on my brother or sister, or judge them, because of how they voted. Now, I just know somebody reading this is going to ask, “what if every Christian put fellowship ahead of pushing for the best candidate to be elected?” To which I answer that if every follower of Jesus acted this way, the church would much more effectively and visibly manifest the kingdom of God. And God, who is omnipotent, would still have as much control as ever over the outcome of the election.
I don’t deny that I have a responsibility to vote, in line with as much light as I have been given. I also have a responsibility to love my brothers and sisters in Christ by serving and encouraging them, whether they agree with my vote or not. But I am not the one responsible for making sure that the right candidates are elected, or that the right ballot measures are enacted
And another thought occurs to me. At the risk of scandalizing everyone who lives in a modern democracy, what if God sometimes leads some people to vote differently than others? Not because he’s divided over what he wants for the nation, but because he’s working in different, specific ways in each person’s heart?
Every candidate has pros, as well as cons, that must be weighed against each other according to the issues that each of us thinks are most important. If, for example, the most important issues for me are ending abortion and protecting religious freedom, in that order, and if you support the same issues, but in the opposite order, (that is, you feel that freedom to worship is the highest priority), then you and I are sometimes going to support different candidates for office. Does that mean that one of us is wrong? I don’t believe it necessarily does.
Doesn’t God have the right, if he chooses, to lead me to focus on one particular set of issue as especially important while leading somebody else to focus primarily on a different set? What if the reason I voted differently than my brother or sister is simply that God is softening my heart in different ways than he is their heart, reflecting our different needs for growth? That’s a tough concept to wrap my mind around, but if our Father really does consider his children to be a higher priority than the nation, which I think Scripture teaches, then I have to start thinking about it that way. In humility, I have to consider the possibility that my brother may have been obedient to God even if he voted differently than I did.
So that’s where meditating on this passage of Scripture has brought me; from being annoyed that I can’t drive as fast as I want when the police aren’t watching, all the way to the possibility that when Christians vote differently than I do, we might have both been obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit. As an American, I find some of what I’ve written here is a challenge to accept. But I also remember that I have dual citizenship: in heaven and in the United States (Philippians 3:20). And if I believe that “All authority in heaven and on earth” belongs to Jesus, (Matthew 28:18) then my first loyalty has to be to him and his kingdom. Which means that how I love and serve my brothers and sisters matters more than who I vote for. It’s not our politics, but our love, that advances Christ’s kingdom. On earth, as it is in heaven.