I’m puzzled recently by something that dawned on me.

Where do we as Christians assume the right to disobey governmental authorities? I know I’m opening up a can of worms, but seriously, I was pondering on some scriptures and began a search of all mentions of government submission in the bible.

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

1 Peter 2:13-17

Relating to taxes:

27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

Matthew 17:27

20 And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

Matthew 22:2o-22

In general:

13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Romans 13:1-7

3:1 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work,

Titus 3:1

I’m confused. I’m not willing to take a loose translation of the text, my readers. I’m not willing to compromise and say “well.. there are some rules we should obey and some not…” simply on the premise that we don’t like the rules. We as Christians seem to do that a lot with scriptures we don’t like or we don’t fine relevant today, i.e. a passage might say ‘babies are sinful’ and we might say ‘how could they be sinful?! They’re so cute and innocent! Surely it’s wrong!” So I’m not inclined to throw out the book just because I don’t like it or because it goes against my or our culture’s grain. But what about a political dictator and madman like Hitler? Is a disobedience to him a disobedience to God?

Using simply logic and the scriptures and eliminating all my personal opinion, logic would say yes.

So where is the line? I don’t want to be legalistic, but when can human judgement say “this man is not fit to follow” and decide not to abide by the scriptures I’ve cited? My dad and I have discussed this before some as well. I’m going to be honest, I’m at a difficult place here. On one side are the scriptures saying ‘all governments are instituted by God and are instruments of the wrath of God’ and the other side is saying ‘some of these people are insane.’ Were 6 million Jewish deaths the result of the mighty sword of God?

Again, using logic and scripture, logic says yes. But our culture, ideology, and even some of my own personal convictions want to say otherwise.

Heck, even our own nation was founded on the principles of John Locke’s political philosophies, which, at face value, appear to directly contradict scripture.

Thoughts? Opinions? I’ll tell you one thing, it definitely sheds a whole different light on obeying those speed limit signs… :-P

-Riley