No Authority except from God

Romans 13:1-7

I grew-up being taught to show respect to anyone who was an adult, and it better be yes sir or yes mam, and you were never to show disrespect to any adult or person of authority.  In fact, any mother on Liberty, Victory, or Dover streets had the right to correct me and if needed give me a whipping and send me home and I’m not embellishing that one bit.  That would not work today, but let me tell you, it worked, and it worked very well.  Teachers were the authority at school, police were not at the school but were in the community as law enforcers and they had authority not because they had a gun, but because they had been given authority to keep the laws of our city and state.  In my home if you had a death wish then show mother disrespect and dad was going to make you wish you had never been born. 

So that is how I was raised, so why is Romans 13:1-7 such a challenge?  Maybe we could begin in verse six and work backward, in that I’ve always paid taxes, now I must confess it is often not with the right heart attitude, but with a desire to stay out of jail.  This is not working out, maybe I should have began at the beginning, for verse six states; “For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.”   I never thought of the I.R.S. as ministers of God, they seem closer to mobsters than ministers, so rain on my opinion and adopt what the Scripture has stated. 

In that I’ve tried to back into this, shall we move on to verse seven, “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.”  Verse seven sends me back in time to my basic training in the Army, Captain Melton was our Captain, and he was a rascal, he made each of us give blood.  It was not a request but a demand, all 250 of us had to give him a dollar so he could bribe the guys at the shooting range to make sure we had the highest scores, and all of that was so he could get the honor for having the best company.  It became clear to this solider it was not the man but the title, the uniform, the rank we were honoring.

So let’s go back to verse 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.”  That seems to cover all of us, and no wiggle room about who we are to be subject to, and the reason is clearly stated all authority exist because God instituted it.  Verse 2, “Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”  Be very careful my fellow believer in Jesus Christ, for the Father is a promise keeper, and maybe, just maybe we are incurring judgment at this moment for our past resistance to the authorities God has put over us.

Verse 3-5, reads this way; “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, 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. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.”

Have you noticed how often you hit the brake while driving when you see a police car?  I also do that and the reason is we are lawbreakers.  If our goal was always to obey the speed limit there would be no need of braking, but you and I do not have a clear conscience in this area so we fear authority.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice