Romans 13 - Should A Christian Obey Their Government?

Click Here to Read or Listen to Romans 13

We often hear some say, “He or she has a problem with authority”.

One issue facing the Christians in Rome was should they submit to the Roman government, who was oppressing them. This has a topic which has been debated in the church for years. Should a Christian always and unequivocally obey the earthly governing authorities?

Paul answers this in chapter 13 by saying all authorities have been established by God and therefore the answer is “yes”. Paul goes as far as to say that if someone resists authority they are resisting God and will face consequences.

Just because you may not agree with everything an authority does, it is no an option to submit to their directives. It’s sort of like you may not have agreed with everything your parents said or did, but it didn’t give you the right to do whatever you wanted.

Paul says if you do the right thing you don’t have to live in fear of the authorities. Importantly he adds that authorities are agents of God’s justice. Martin Luther called this "the power of the sword", or the "kingdom on the left". 

Ideally the laws the authorities enforce are the same if not very close to God’s laws as summed up in the Ten Commandments. The ten commandments have been the moral foundation in our Judeo-Christian culture, though some argue the whole idea of our culture being based on Judeo-Christian values is all but gone. 

Paul uses the practical example of paying taxes. He also adds paying and respect and honoring those who deserve respect. There are examples were Christians resisted governments like in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer resisting Hitler and Nazi Germany in their annihilation of the Jewish population. This would be an example of where what the government is asking or doing is so clearly immoral that Christians need to resist peacefully. I.e. The wholesale annihilation of an ethnic group is not what Paul had in mind here. 

Paul then turns to how we are to treat others in society. He uses the Ten Commandments again as the litmus test as to what it means to love one’s neighbor as one’s one self. This is the Law of love.

So these are the two major practical applications Paul gives the Christians in Rome. First, obey the governing authorities out of submission to God. Second, use the Ten Commandments as the basis for loving others as you want them to love you. The perfect law is summed up by the phrase, "Love your neighbors as yourself." 

Notice how relevant Paul's admonitions are for us today. In our country if we don’t like how the government is ruling, we have the freedom and responsibility to vote those in authority out of office. There is no way to measure the effect Christians can have in society if we love our neighbors as ourselves in concert with Spirit of the Law of Moses.

Passages like this remind us we can’t do things like cheat our taxes by rationalizing we don’t agree with the governing authorities. Even if we don’t like a particular governing authority, like President Biden or former President Trump, we are still to respect in submission to God. Whether we agree with them or not they too have been appointed by God!