Obeying Governing Authorities
I was reading in Romans this morning and came across the 13th chapter. It has been a much-quoted passage of late and got me to thinking. It is true that the letter was written to the church in Rome during the time either during or just before Nero, that famous fiddler. Some say that even though he was a despot, Paul was telling the Roman Christians that they should submit to their governing authorities in everything, just as he said,
“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 judgment on themselves” (13:1–2).
Peter said something similar in his first letter,
“Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.” (1 Pet 2:13–14)
Then it occurred to me that both Paul and Peter were imprisoned and eventually executed for not obeying the governing authorities. So, what gives? Were they just horrible hypocrites? Or was there something else going on?
Further on in Romans 13, Paul said, “Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor” (13:7), which reminded me of Jesus when he said something similar, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21).
The context of Matthew tells us that Jesus said that the Pharisees were trying to trap him and to get him in trouble with the Roman law. They said, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Mt. 22:17). And this was Jesus’ reply. “You render due to whom it is due and if it is in Caesar’s realm you obey and pay his taxes. If it belongs to God, you render what is owed to him.” Of course, the point was that God has given Caesar the right to govern using the money, but people belong to God over Caesar.
Without reference to Romans or 1 Peter, it appears to me that Jesus is saying that God trumps human desires, but if the king wants something from you that God has given him authority over, you need to cheerfully obey the king. But when the governing authority wants you to do something that goes against what God has not given you permission to do, you must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).
If we take that back to Romans and 1 Peter, there isn’t anything there that would disagree. Paul not only knows about Matthew’s account, he quotes it after all, but he is simply going the next step in saying that in order to “get along” in a pagan world, we need to do what the governing authorities ask of us.
But, Paul, by his own example, would never let the governing authorities trump what God owns and the allegiance we owe to God. After all, Jesus said, “render to God the things that are God’s.”
In other words, what Paul (and Peter) are saying should be read in the light of and the context of Jesus being Lord of all. So, when the king tells the Christians that they must worship Caesar and only him, the Christian must kindly refuse to submit.
Then I got to thinking, our government is not asking us to serve or worship any gods at all. We don’t live in a polytheistic culture and so this kind of talk seems just goofy. On the other hand, the Bible tells us that we are a worshipping people. God created us to worship and that’s what we will do. Over the years, I’ve read books like Idols for Destruction, Loving the Body, We Become Like What We Worship, and more. What all these books are saying is that even though we don’t worship things, we still worship. Our culture is totally caught up in being popular, celebrity, wealth, shaming, avoiding shaming, political stuff, psychology, evolution, wokeness, BLM, identity theory, and on and on. Even though we don’t recognize these things as idols, like Dagon who kept falling over when they put the Ark of the Covenant next to it (1 Sam 5), these things are still idols—false gods. And our culture and society worship them with all their might.
And if you doubt this take a look at Psalm 115, especially v. 8. It says that everyone who makes them is like them and so is everyone who trusts along with those who create them. Now look around at our culture and notice where everything is headed and is heading. Ask yourself where progress, according to the progressives, is headed. Are they pushing everything to be more holy and godly, more loving and kind? Or are things headed in another direction altogether?
Another thing popped into my head as I was thinking about these things. What about those four guys in the book of Daniel? What was going on with them? How did their situation jive with what Paul and Peter said? Well, let’s look it up. You can find it in the first 6 chapters of Daniel.
The first thing to notice is that all four gents were held in high esteem by their Babylonian captors (if you don’t remember what’s going on, you should read the chapters). In fact, we know Shadrach, Meshach, and abed-Nego by the names the Babylonians gave them. Most of us don’t even know their Hebrew names. This goes a long way to show that they were doing a great job of submitting to their governing authorities. In addition, the text says, Nebuchadnezzar had put these three over the affairs of the province of Babylon. That is, they were governing over the whole nation. So, in terms of rendering to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, these guys were exemplary.
But then, Nebuchadnezzar created a statue of himself that he wanted everyone in his realm to bow down and worship. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego refused to bow down. As a result, they were going to be thrown into a lit furnace. When they were given one last chance to bow their knees, the text said,
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up”” (Dan 3:16–18).
While they were happy to serve the Babylonians as a way to serve the God of all the earth, they were not willing to serve the gods of the Babylonians as God. And so, they were thrown into the furnace.
Later, Daniel was confronted with a similar situation. Again, he was one of the Jews who served in the presence of the king and was highly regarded by the king. In 6:3 it says, “Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm” (Dan 6:3).
Then the folks got a wild idea, no doubt to get everyone to go along and be like them, under them. They wanted the king to make a decree that said everyone needed to stop talking to their gods for 30 days and only make petitions to the king—or be thrown into the lions’ den. And the king signed the decree.
Just an aside, a rabbit trail, a wandering. I can’t help noticing the similarity between what these guys asked their king and how our own government is making everyone wear useless masks and do silly things to stop a real or imagined virus. Amazingly similar. The thing is, in the book of Daniel, it seems like Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, were the only Jews living in Babylon who were “punished” for not toeing the line and bowing the knee to the emperor.
Okay, back.
In response to the king’s edict, Daniel went home, opened his window, faced Jerusalem, and prayed to the God of all the earth—as was his custom (Dan. 6:10). We should be hearing wild cheers right about now. Instead, we hear that Daniel was thrown to the lions. When he came out without a scratch, he said, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you”” (Dan 6:21–22). The text goes on to say that the king was “exceedingly glad for him” and threw a big party.
Notice that in both cases (the three gents and Daniel) the king said who the people were to worship and by extension, how they were to worship. “You must bow down and worship the king.” “You must not bow down and worship any other gods.” And for most of the people, this was fine. What’s another god among the many we’re already worshipping? But for the people of God, they couldn’t worship any other gods. God was above all earthly gods.
Along the same lines, the people of God weren’t allowed to let non-believers tell them how to worship God. “We want you to worship your God the way we worship our gods.” “We want you to look like us when you do what you do.” “It isn’t about gods, it is about not making a ruckus, even though everyone was doing fine until we made the new rules about what is and what isn’t a ruckus.”
I mentioned gods and idols earlier. In our culture, there aren’t any gods or physical idols. Ideas and practice are the idols and gods. So, when we live like the world around us, we are participating in worship with them and worshipping what they worship. We are caught up in the world, the flesh, and the devil (Eph 2:2-3a). And when the Christian Church does this, we are going back to what we thought we left. Eph 2:2 says, “You once walked, following the course of this world…” What does that mean if it doesn’t mean going along with and joining in with the worship of those who don’t know God.
One final thing needs to be pointed out. In Daniel’s last comment said that he “had done no wrong before you.” He had disobeyed the royal command. But because he had obeyed God, he “had done no wrong.” I would say that we need to get it through our heads and into our hearts that when we disobey the governing authorities because we are obeying the King of the Universe instead, we are “doing no wrong.”
Image by Rohit Bhusan from Pixabay