Romans 13 Means Christians Have to Obey Only Good Government?
Jonathan Rowe on Aug 31st 2007
For those Christians who want to weasel out of Romans 13’s sometimes difficult command to live up to, they often claim Romans 13 means Christians have to obey only good government. The problem is Paul doesn’t say this in Romans 13. And the leader whom Paul admonished believers to obey — Nero — was not a godly leader and did not have a “good” government. He was an unelected tyrant who never sought sought consent to rule over believers. If Nero’s government qualified as “good,” that’s a pretty low standard for tyrannical leaders to meet.
Plain and simple, the Bible tells believers, in no uncertain terms, to obey government as it commands children to obey their parents. The Bible doesn’t say children obey only “good” parents. And indeed, for over fifteen hundred years after Christ that’s the exact analogy Christians literally interpreting their Bibles would use to describe the proper relationship between man and government: Men have no more rightful control over who their civil leaders are than children do over who their parents are.
The notion of republican self-government is extra-biblical. It’s not necessarily inconsistent with the Bible, but it certainly does not derive from the good book. Republican self government, especially the metaphysical justifications for such, derives from the Enlightenment. It is an a-biblical, not necessarily an anti-biblical concept.
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Plain and simple, the Bible tells believers, in no uncertain terms, to obey government as it commands children to obey their parents.
No it does not. You may get that from Romans 13, or 1 Peter for that matter, but those same apostles disobeyed their governments throughout the book of Acts by preaching the Gospel at the risk of arrest and death. Peter himself in Acts said, “we must obey God rather than men.”
Your overall point that republican self-government is extra-biblical is no doubt correct, but you are extremely oversimplifying by focusing only on Romans 13. There is a whole wealth of Christian writings from various perspectives–Reformed, Catholic, Lutheran–on church/state relations. This post commits the same sin bad Christian writers do all the time– the sin of proof-texting.
Thanks. You may be right that I am overstating things from Romans 13. And I certainly agree that the Bible tells believers to obey God and not men.
I think though my analogy between obeying parents and government may be proper. That is, even though the Bible instructs children to obey their parents, it also qualifies such text with language suggesting the rule applies as long as parents don’t instruct children to sin. At that point, I think, the Bible would allow children to disobey their parents. Ditto with government; clearly if government instructs a believer to sin, a believer could disobey. But that’s still a big difference from asserting believers have to obey government (or parents for that matter) only as long as such governments are “good.”
While good leaders may have authority over the lives of Christians, not all leaders are good. When someone quotes Romans 13 to me, I tell them to read Hosea 8:4 and Isaiah 1:23:
“They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not.” (Hosea 8:4, ASV)
“Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves.” (Isaiah 1:23, ASV)
Are we bound to obey “authorities” who God does not recognize? Are we bound to obey “authorities” who are rebels and companions of thieves? I say that we are not. We are, however, bound to “Depart from evil, and do good.” (Psalms 34:14, ASV) If I have to disobey “authorities” in order to “Depart from evil, and do good” so be it.
To make speeding a simple black and white issue is very wrong. Let me put this in perspective for you:
God law is supreme. It never changes and it is never OK to break it. It is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
To place fallible man made law on the same level as God’s law is laughable. Man’s law changes with a majority vote and circumstances. These are the same “men” that passed both the abortion law and the law to take prayer out of school and I don’t think God would approve of either. Besides, we agree that it is OK to speed to the hospital so that proves it isn’t as high as God’s law.
Let me go deeper on man made law for you. If you place traffic laws on the same level as the bible, then you better get you state traffic book and study it like the bible! I promise your probably breaking at least three laws and don’t even know it. And by the way, we are held accountable for sin whether we do it knowingly or not.
Here’s an example, here in Alabama, we have a law where you have to blow your horn when going around a blind curve. 99.9% of the people have never heard of the law and do not do it. Are they sinning by not doing it? Don’t you see the legalism of making man’s laws as high as God’s?…..And even if you go the speed limit, do you make a complete stop at every stop sign? Is your tag light working? Do you always use a blinker, etc, etc……
The reason the laws were made is to make our roads an orderly and safe place where we could all drive. There are two problems with this. The people that passed the laws were probably city council people who didn’t know three hoots about traffic laws. They were just good people who wanted the streets safe and the city not to get sued for any reason. So they had to make the laws according to the lowest common denominator. That means a speed that will fit all drivers in most conditions. Some people are good enough drivers they can go over the speed limit safely, and others probably can’t safely go the limit:>)
In some cities they simply make the speed 55 because they know people are going to go 75. And if they made the speed limit 65, people would go 85. I know some people are going to say “well that don’t make it right”. But look, remember that ol’ term “In Rome, do as the Romans do?” Well, that applies in traffic laws as well. The counselmen who passed the law probably doesn’t abide by it either. In Germany the Audobon used to let you go as fast as you wanted. Were they sinning because we thought that was too fast in this country and over there they didn’t? Here in Alabama everyone commonly goes 10-15 over. Are we less Christian because we see things a little differently than where you live?
Here is the bottom line. We don’t need to be so concerned about following man made laws perfectly. We need to make sure we are following them in PRINCIPAL, which is the real heart of any law.. Take for instance a stop sign. A stop sign is there to regulate traffic and keep people safe. But lets say you roll through a stop sign at 1 MPH at 2:30AM in the morning, in the middle of nowhere, with no other cars within 20 miles of you, after you made sure it was safe to do so. Does it really matter? Was the regulation of traffic kept and safety maintained? If so, I don’t think God really cares. Without going into a million scenarios, I think you get the point. God just wants us to be orderly and safe with each other. He wants us to show love for him and others as we drive and that is the whole biblical law summed up. If we do that, I don’t think He wants us to gets legalistic about it.
Hosea 8:4 and Romans 13 are examples of contradictory passages that prove the bible to be fallible and inconsistent.
The latter claims explicitly that ALL rulers are rulers because god made them so; “No one rules unless god has given them the power to rule…”
Hosea implies that it is possible for people who do not obey god to choose their own leaders; leaders that god does not even know.
All of this means that it is up to each individual to decide what they think is the correct stance on the issue. Therefore, none of you will ever be able to settle your disagreements. What then, is the point of upholding the bible as a guidebook, and how can anyone claim that it is the infallible word of god?
Geez, Louise! My interpretation of Rom 13:1-2 is that Christians are like unicorns–impossible, make believe creatures. Count the number of bumper stickers whizzing on the highways in excess of the posted speed limit. I loose count there are so many. Pro-life and speeding! Ha!
We all know Christians are hypocrites by the stench of their filth. (You may quote me on that one gratis.)