Romans 13:1-8
“”Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.
For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.
Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.””
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Have you ever been beat over the head with those verses because you don’t show “proper respect” for the authority in this secular world? Yeah me too. Keep in mind the authorities that be in the US are also subject to authorities and are not supposedly above the authority. In other words, we don’t have Kings or Queens with absolute authoritative dictators. King Nebuchadnezzar for example had absolute authority and the only power above him was God Almighty Himself. Daniel referred to him as “king of kings”, Daniel 2:37. Daniel was subject to the authority of the king. Like Nebuchadnezzar Daniel was foremost subject to the authority of God Almighty. There are instances where Daniel and his kin, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (renamed by Nebuchadnezzar) obeyed God rather than Nebuchadnezzar the king of kings. Things like what food they would eat to who they worshipped and who they prayed to and when they prayed.
Daniel is one of those Biblical characters that the scriptures have nothing negative to say about him. When he and his friends disobeyed the king of kings, they didn’t post it on Facebook or Twitter first and call him demented or an “Orange Man Bad”. They simply obeyed God and His commandments first, then showed respect to their Babylonian king while in captivity. But they refused to obey laws that violated the Law of Moses which was given by God.
Having respect for the authority is not the same thing as having equal respect for the person in the authority. Nebuchadnezzar was king and at that time his earthly authority was absolute. So how could Daniel disobey king Nebuchadnezzar while showing respect for him at the same time? Obeying God first is the respect of the powers that be, whoever or whatever the authority is. Remember the very first commandment? “You shall have no other gods before Me.” If we obey our earthly authority’s laws that violate God’s law we are imposing another “god” before Him.
So when verse 2 says this, “Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” We know by example and command that there are exceptions and we also know the person is NOT necessarily the authority. For example, we in the US have a Representative Republic with Representatives chosen by the people. King Nebuchadnezzar ascended his throne by the death of his father Nabopolassar and became king of kings through military conquest. Adolf Hitler became Fuehrer or “Guide” in German which we know as Dictator through revolution, violence, intimidation, and some non-choice voting. We may not know the “Why of God allowing Hitler to rise to power” but we know Nazism was the law or the authority of Germany with Hitler as supreme leader. Was Nazism not to be resisted in order to obey God? What about Nazism is ungodly or against God’s laws? Before you answer, the Holocaust was not all that came out of Nazism. The Volkswagen, the Autobahn (Interstate system) and socialism in general sprang out of Nazism. Nazism is translated as National Socialism. In Germany it was “Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei”. Most people today want to distance themselves from Nazism (German) but then run to any other group of Socialists such as most (Democrats) or “Socialist Democrats” in the US today. If you look into it, Nazism is much the same as a state sanctioned Workers Union. The Jew hate and all that evil behavior came from a few men like Hitler blaming the Jews for their troubles. The evils of the KKK came out of our nations Democrat Party btw. There’s no sin in being a Socialist but I don’t want anything to do with Socialism. Myself I prefer Capitalism with Individualism.
Whatever we are drawn to, Green Party, Democrat, Republican, Communist, etc, in the US we have a say and we vote for what we have. And when we read “those who resist the authority resist the authority of God” we need to use our Bibles to know what exactly that means to “resist the authority”. Adolf Hitler’s people did not resist him and millions upon millions died in the 2nd world war as a result. Resist evil, put on the whole armor of God, as Ephesians 6 tells us.
When we have laws and authorities dedicated to the approval and condoning of immorality and outright abominations and war profiteering, and lying to those of us who chose them to be the authority we are told not to resist, we caused a lot of the troubles we have brought on ourselves.
Our form of government in the US allows us to speak up and make our voices heard. Right now we have a president who obviously does not know where he is half the time. Saying so is not “resisting” our authorities. January 6 could be called “Resisting Authority” and that was wrong. I get a little irritated at people who tell me or send me messages that I shouldn’t be resisting the authority and show them respect. It basically shows their ignorance, not mine. Do I get carried away sometimes? Naaahhh…well, Yes I do. With me it’s mostly in jest and yet some people only seem to have a sense of humor in private.
We have two very immoral people running for President of the US this year. Personally, I have decided to sit this one out. Both of these men have been President at least once and I do know which one supported the most moral judges and the most moral laws. We have one man and his party dedicated and has priorities set to Socialism, LGBTQ gender “rights”, abortion, sex changes for children. The other man has been a supporter of a more moral judicial system as I see it, over turning Roe/Wade, and promises to at least attempt to put an end to our nation supporting perpetual wars all over the world. But I really don’t know what he’ll do.
I’m sick of this phrase “Lesser of two evils”. Personally I don’t want to give my vote for “evil” period. I will simply voice my opinion for what it’s worth and at my age I really don’t care what a lot of my colleagues brethren think of my political opinions. We don’t have a lot to choose from these days and that says more about what “we the people” done to our nation that it says about our current choices.
I taught my girls to obey the laws and respect the authorities and expect the same out of them.
Having gotten off of Romans 13 and into this rant, I’ll end it with this. Romans 13:1-8 is applied a whole lot differently than most people think. I respect the authority and office of President of the United States. The office is approved of God or it wouldn’t be there. I loathe the immoral man who is in the seat and I loathe the party he represents. I loathe his family who need God in the worst way. Pray for them? We pray for ALL people but not their lifestyle of sin and debauchery. I pray they might be granted repentance and that they turn to God, but I do not pray for his platform of ungodly sins. And before you point it out Yes I know the other man is immoral too. I mean any man who could say I can “grab ‘em by the …..” referring to women, it doesn’t get much worse. Pray for that? No, pray he may repent. God blessed us with this form of government and look what we chose to do to it. Pointing out its evil ways is NOT resisting the authority. Obeying our laws, respecting authority is how we do not resist. Unless those law are against God we obey them and that way we do not have to fear the sword of the authority. Again, that’s in general terms too. We depend on the authority to obey the laws, such as our Constitution, just like we do. As Adolf Hitler has shown by the murder of 6 million Jews, sometimes our authorities deserve the headshot they get.
So what about 1:Peter 2:17?
"Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king."
:Honor" is defined in Google dictionary as
1. high respect; great esteem
2. adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct:
"The King" is the office, the high authority. While Nero was emperor, it is the office and laws coming from that office Peter is talking about. Did the early Christians during the time of Peter's writings hold Nero is high respect and great esteem as he was using them to light the streets of Rome in order to obey God? No, I don't think so. Nero was the emperor of the Roman Empire at that time. When he gave orders to light them up, did Christians hold him in high respect and great esteem? Of course not.
Paul wrote Romans 13 like most of the Proverbs are written, in generalities. When Paul said "do what is good and you shall have praise from the same", we know that wasn't absolute because Christians were being set on fire, crucified, fed to the lions and imprisoned while obeying the laws and doing good.
If we have a license to perform marriages and it is against the law to refuse a gay couple, do we honor the king and perform the ritual or dishonor the king and refuse? Some of this is simple common sense folks. What in the scriptures command Christians to hold in high esteem a man who would enforce a law and imprison an old lady for protesting abortion?
We obey the laws and as a result live a peaceable life as God said. But as I pointed out, that's "In General" not an absolute! The riots of 2020 prove it, the chaos that affected all of us after those riots and the riots of January 6 prove it.
In the US we live in a nation who's laws allow petitioning and protesting our government. Sometimes the honor and high esteem goes out the window. For another example we'll use Peter himself.
1 Peter2:13 Peter writes "Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme,"
Notice he said Every ordinance of man.
Now let's go to Acts 5:29 "But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men."
So we see showing "high respect and great esteem" only goes so far. We can see, honor the king is not an absolute and neither is obeying every ordinance of man and absolute. The second definition applies to Christians and not necessarily the first. Those verses governing laws and ordinances of men are not to be used out of context and without explanation. They require a little bit of study.