| Teacher: Rusty Kennedy Series: Romans (Acts) |
Rusty's Notes | |
- We jumped from taking care of each other in Chapter 12 to our obligations to the government.
- Why is that? What was the issue at hand?
Romans 13:1-14
1 Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are instituted by God.
- This is one of those passages where our tendency is to spend most of our time trying to figure out what the text doesn’t say rather than what it does say.
- Pretty self-explanatory.
- Is this referring to specific people or the actual position of authority?
- Paul is saying authorities are given the right by God on earth to exert punishment for wrongdoing.[1]
- Paul clearly here is teaching that government is something God has established in using for the well-ordering of His creation.[2]
- Where on earth is there not a form of government? Then chaos rules.
- Anarchy - is often negatively used as a synonym of chaos or societal collapse
- God is a god of order.
- Submission is in effect.
- We submit to government (President > police, IRS, employers, parents and eventually our own kids).
- Our society is demanding equality and as it does that, it demands equality in roles and places of authority… to a point where submission is intolerable.
- Then chaos reigns.
- In verse 1 and in verse 5 Paul says, “Be subject (or submit yourselves) to the authorities.”
- Clearly that’s the main point Paul makes, repeating it to make sure we understand how important it is.
- But I do think as we read more broadly and more fundamentally biblically across the Bible, we recognize that there must be exceptions to what Paul is saying here, that there are those times when government can turn demonic.
- Government can be ordering us to do that which is contrary to the will of God, and then we have to emulate Peter and Paul in obeying God rather than man.[3]
- Video from Deron Spoo
- We know from secular historians that in Rome at about this period of time there was what we might call a “popular tax revolt.”
- The Roman emperors had begun taxing the population so heavily to pay for their opulent lifestyles and for their wars that the people were beginning to rebel against taxes.
- In other words, Paul might here be addressing a very specific local problem in Rome that had begun to creep into the Church at this point in time, and he would be telling the Christians, in effect, “Don’t get involved in that revolt.
- You owe taxes to the governing authorities because of who they are in relationship to your Christian faith.”
- Another point of confusion is Paul teaching their freedom in Christ.
- So it might be that some in the Roman Christian church were viewing their faith in Christ as a reason to avoid the government altogether, to live lives separate from it, to ignore it, disobey it, and just treat it as if it didn’t exist.
- That could be part of the problem here as well.
- It is well known, I think, that when Jesus has the opportunity to comment on the relationship of God and government, it’s taxes that are the context in which he makes his pronouncement, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
- Is it possible then that Paul once again here is reflecting the teaching of Jesus that he draws on in giving his own instruction to the church at Rome?[4]
- Then all of a sudden Paul makes the leap back to love.
8 Do not owe anyone anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
- The one debt Paul says that we’ll never be able to fully pay is our obligation to love each other.
- That is an obligation that will remain forever open.
- There will always be new ways for us to fulfill our obligation to love one another sincerely and from the heart.[5]
- Leviticus 19:18 - Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.[6]
- Matthew 19:19 - Jesus answered: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; 19 honor your father and your mother; and love your neighbor as yourself.[7]
- Is this in reference to other believers or everyone?
- But they don’t think like I do.
- They don’t have the same morals or values that I do.
- My life is like a rolling magnet, picking up nails.
- Sometimes I have to clean off the magnet.
PUT ON CHRIST
11 Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
- Yes, today you are one day closer to seeing Jesus face to face.
- Paul believed that Jesus was going to return any day.
- Paul clearly uses “day” in contrast to “the night” to talk about our ethical obligations.[8]
- It is still the battle between walking by the Spirit and living in our flesh.
[1] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[2] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[3] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[4] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[5] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[6] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Le 19:18). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[7] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Mt 19:18–19). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[8] Moo, D. J. (2014). NT331 Book Study: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
[9] Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Ro 13:1–14). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
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