How to Relate to the Government: 13:1-7

Background and Recap

Welcome to Episode 4 in Series 4 in our study of the book of Romans. Each series has had a very different theme. Series 1 spoke about the gospel, Series 2 about how to live the Christian life and in Series 3, Paul dealt with the important question of the place of the Jews in God’s purposes. Series 4 is very practical. His focus here is the life of the church in Rome. He is thinking of the health of that church community and he gives much useful advice and guidance.

We have already looked at some remarkable themes: How as individuals we should give our lives as a whole sacrifice to God, every part of our lives available to him on the basis of thankfulness for his mercy to us. Paul has also spoken about how to build up the local church community and how to make it a strong community so that it can carry out its mission effectively.

In the last episode Paul spoke about how to deal with hostility in the community, because most places where Christians live, where the gospel is proclaimed, there is opposition. It varies enormously in different cultures and nations, but there is opposition.

Now Paul moves to a related theme. He talks about government, the authorities that rule over us. At the very beginning he says, ‘Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities.’ This topic is going to be tremendously important as we all live in very different countries, with very different types of government. I have lived in countries with three types of government. As a young , lived in the country of Pakistan and it was a military government throughout the time that my family lived in that country. I can vividly remember military officers talking to my father, who was working in a school, and watching over what he was doing. He was answerable to the army. They watched over his activities and the whole country was controlled by the military authority. Some of you who listen to this will have similar experiences of living in a military dictatorship. As a young person I worked in South Africa during the period of apartheid where it was a minority government, where the minority white population controlled the government and excluded most of the citizens of the country from the vote. The black majority, the coloured community, the South African Indian community and all the other non-white people in the country, were excluded. This was a very unjust government, and created huge challenges for the church that I was working with during that time. I have lived most of my life in the western world, in the UK, in a democratic country, where everyone can vote, and everyone can participate. Most of us in this country can communicate with our political representative, which we call a ‘Member of Parliament’. I can sit down with my Member of Parliament, as I did about two or three weeks ago, when I spent an hour in an office with him and his associate talking about political issues. This is an incredible privilege which we don’t all have. Some of us may live in communist countries, one-party states. So, all of our experiences of government are totally different. Paul lived in the Roman Empire where power was held by very few people at the centre, based around the Emperor himself and his main officials.

We have to keep our experience in mind as we come to this text. We all face different issues as Christians working with government. Sometimes it is corruption; we know that decisions are made by money, by secret deals, and we have no access to them. Sometimes the issue is whether our churches can be registered with the government and become legally protected. For some of you, you will know that that is something you don’t experience in your country. You are unregistered, or a house church. For some of us, freedom of religion is the issue. For some of us, the corruption of the police, or the judges, the judiciary, may be the main issue we have with the government and for others it may be that there is civil unrest, armed conflict, within the country, and the government seems unable to control such armed conflict, as is the case in many countries around the world as I speak to you today.

With all these thoughts in mind, we come to this incredibly important passage of Paul’s writing. He is writing from the point of view of the Christian community that, generally speaking, does not have any privileges or protections in Roman society. He makes some remarkable statements as he advises the Roman church how to respond to the Roman authorities.

The Roman Church and Government

“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 judgments 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.”

Romans 13:1-3, NIV

Why does Paul introduce this subject? It is because he is thinking about the issue of the protection of the church against hostile people in their society and what is their appropriate response? In the last episode, he already spoke about that in terms of our individual relationships in community. He has told the Christians not to retaliate in personal conflicts but to leave God to judge their opponents. Now the question arises, ‘Where does the state fit in? Where does the government fit in? Where does the regional government or the local government or the local police fit into this pattern?’

In Rome, there was no democracy or voting for ordinary people, in the Roman Empire. Power was held by a few people under the authority of the Emperor. So, the Christians had no ability to directly influence the rules and regulations of how life went on in the city of Rome, and in the surrounding area. One of the big political issues for them was high taxation. It is known that, at the time, taxation levels were very high and this created unrest and often rioting. A question would quickly arise, ‘Should the Christians join in with the riots?’ That is the sort of question that the people reading this book in Rome would be thinking about as they read the words of Paul. Tax collectors in Rome were as unpopular as tax collectors were in the Gospels, in the time of Jesus. They had the ability to vary the level of taxation and take a lot of money from people in direct and indirect taxes. There were riots against the Emperor, who was ruling at this time; from time to time there were riots against the Emperor, Nero. That is the context.

Government – God’s Plan

Paul makes the remarkable statement that the institution of government was God’s plan. God always wanted society to be managed by government authorities in different nations and regions. ‘There’s no authority set up without God allowing it to come into being, and allowing it to be established’. How governments come to be is a very complex process. They are very rarely good. There is much corruption and evil in governments. But the fundamental idea that we need governments to run societies comes from God himself, according to Paul, The governments may be bad, they may be good, but government is necessary and it is a right thing to have. This is a very important principle for Christian living. When you think about your own country, you will have many questions about your government. You may have many criticisms of what your government has done, or is doing. You may even have questions about how your nation came into being. Paul says that God sovereignly oversaw that process, even though it is a complicated and difficult process. Your nation may have come into being with its current boundaries out of civil war, or a military conflict against another nation, or the actions of a colonial ruler in a previous generation. Your tribal group may be situated partly in one country and partly in another and that creates difficulty. But nevertheless, God sovereignly oversaw that process. Paul says that he wants us to accept that the situation we are in is the one that God has allowed us to be in: the nation we are in, the way it is structured, the way it is governed, and who is governing us.

Paul argues against rebellion by force by Christians. Our role in society is not to try and overthrow or forcefully, violently, change the government. It is a great temptation to do that, and many Christians have tried to do that in different ways. Peaceful, legal interventions are one thing. Paul is talking here about force, rioting, violence.

The Purpose of Government

“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 wrong doer.”

Romans 13:4, NIV

It is a remarkable idea that Paul introduces here. The government is actually serving God. This is the case whether they acknowledge God or not. The alternative to having governments in each nation and region, is having civil conflicts and lack of government, and that always leads to chaos, violence, death and great suffering. God raises people up into positions of power, even though, for the most part they don’t believe in him, and don’t follow his ways, in order to protect members of society from other people in the society, who do evil things. They bring justice. They bring order. They bring the force of the state to bear on people who do wrong. That is God’s intention for the government of your country and my country. Of course, this doesn’t always happen, but that is God’s intention.

It is remarkable to describe these people as God’s servants when they are not believers. Yet we find in the Bible that this is an interesting fact that is revealed through the stories of rulers. We find that Pharaoh, in the case of the Israelites in Egypt, is used as God’s servant. God shapes his actions in such a way as he then releases the Israelites to come out from Egypt. We find that the ruler in the Old Testament by the name of Cyrus, who allowed the Jews from Babylon, to return to their land suddenly, is spoken of as God’s servant, even though he was an unbeliever. It seems that Paul is saying that God is sovereign over the rulers that we have in our countries. For Christians, our job is to look beyond the ruler, to the sovereignty of God and then work within the situation that we have, not using force to try and overthrow the government.

Reasons to Obey Government

“Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time, to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them; if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.”

Romans 13:5-7, NIV

There are two reasons to obey the government that Paul outlines here. Firstly, to avoid punishment. We don’t want to be breaking the civil law in our country as Christians. This gives a bad witness and also, will create situations where we could be punished. But he says also, we should obey the government due to conscience. That our inner sense, from this teaching, and from the teaching of the Holy Spirit to us, is that we should obey the government, to work with the government the best way that we can, even though there are problems in doing that, and that that is in accordance with our conscience. That is good Christian living.

Two Debts to Government

We owe our government two debts, according to Paul. First is financial. Notice here he says, pay your taxes and pay your revenues. The taxes are the taxes on you as a person, as an individual or a household that your government might impose on you. Some kind of income tax or similar. Revenues are the taxes that the government gets from society through things like trading, buying and selling, or through moving goods from place to place, customs. That is what Paul means by revenues. He is encouraging us to pay the taxes that we are asked to pay, even if we consider them to be very high. In those days it was easier to avoid paying tax than in a modern society and so, he is encouraging us to be honest financially, and to pay the taxes and revenues that we are asked to pay, bearing in mind that in Rome those taxes were often high, and sometimes there were riots against the tax collectors, and against the government officials.

Not only do we owe money to our governments but we owe a positive attitude, respect and honour. These are remarkable statements and they sound easy, but they are very difficult to live out in reality. Between writing this letter and arriving in Rome, Paul was unjustly imprisoned by these same Roman authorities for two years in the city of Caesarea in Israel, according to the book of Acts. He wasn’t formally charged with any crime; he wasn’t convicted of any crime by a judge, he was just waiting for a decision. Legally speaking, he should have been released, and he spent two years in prison. Yet even here, he would say that it was his responsibility to show respect and honour to the authorities, even though they were unjust to him, and it cost him two years of his life. This is the tension within this text. It is not easy. When Paul did appear before the Roman governor, twice, two different governors during that period, recorded in the book of Acts, he used terms of respect to address the Roman governor, even though he was unjustly being imprisoned. This is the tension that Christians live under all over the world. It is very easy when we feel crushed by the government to turn into rebels, to want to use violence and force to change the situation. Paul says, we should not do that. We will sometimes be unjustly treated. He himself was unjustly treated on several occasions yet he says let us show them respect and honour.

For the last 25 years, I have been following this teaching, and thinking about it in terms of relating, person to person, to the local political representative in my community, who we call a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. I have sought personal meetings. Sometimes, I have invited them to my home, frequently I have visited them in their offices, and occasionally in the Parliament building, as a deliberate strategy to show honour and respect while discussing difficult issues, and often disagreeing with their actions. During that time, there have been three different people holding that position, and in each case I followed the same strategy, always thinking that honour and respect are important. I have been able, therefore, to sit down with them, having established a relationship, and debate difficult issues, disagree on difficult issues, but never violating Paul’s principles of honour and respect. Sometimes it has been very fruitful and has led to very deep conversations. Occasionally it has led to the changing of this representative’s mind in voting on particular issues that are directly related to those conversations. But we come into those relationships with those in authority humbly as Christians. God has placed people in authority. We may not like them. We may not agree with them. They may do things that are a great problem for us. But we come humbly, knowing, in our heart of hearts, that God himself allowed that person to be there at this particular time, and seeking to engage with them. That might be a political representative, a police chief, a taxation officer, a local, regional or national government officer, or in your immediate community. Paul is offering a remarkable strategy here. Rather than joining in the general hostility and criticism, to engage, to relate, to show honour, respect and indeed to offer to pray for those in authority.

Thinking about this issue, how did Jesus deal with those in authority? He paid his taxes. We have an interesting story of Jesus paying a particular tax, known as the Temple tax; it is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel and associated with a miracle. He was quite willing to pay his taxes and show respect to the authorities, even when they were working against him, even to kill him. Likewise, the apostles showed respect for the authorities in Jerusalem in the early chapters of Acts, even though the authorities were totally against the Church. Jesus and the apostles also show us that no political leader or religious leader has the authority to prevent us witnessing for Christ, sharing the gospel. Paul is not implying here that we should stop doing that, far from it. But he is asking us to be respectful of those in authority.

Reflections

Some final reflections as we bring this important episode to a conclusion. Undoubtedly it will raise challenging issues for many of us. But the Scripture is here to help us, to give us a wider perspective, to shape our discipleship in all sorts of areas of our life, and in this case in the important area of how we relate to those in civic authority.

My first reflection is that, in general, we should make every effort to respect and obey the government and its laws. The exception that we find in the Scripture, is when the government asks us to do something that directly contradicts our faith, or prevents us sharing our faith. In this case we respectfully continue sharing our faith, but show honour to the government at the same time. We can disagree with those in authority and challenge them. Nothing in what Paul says here suggests otherwise, but we should do so without threats, or violence and rioting and civil conflict.

Let us remember finally, that Paul also, in another place, gave a very specific instruction to the Church concerning those in authority, in 1 Timothy chapter 2. At the very beginning he says,

“I urge then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

1 Timothy 2:1-2, NIV

Here we end our episode with a very important insight from Paul’s other teaching, which is the benefit of good government. Where there is peace in a country, it enables us to live in all godliness and holiness; in other words, for the Church to flourish, to witness and to function effectively because there is not civil conflict, rioting, violence, murder and economic chaos going on in that country. He encourages us, not only to honour the government, not only to respect the government, not only to pay our financial dues to the government, but also, to pray for those in authority, that they may have wisdom and skill, to govern well.

So, thank you for listening to what is a very challenging episode. I look forward to welcoming you back to our next episode.