Tag: Christians and Government

Woman voting at a polling booth with multiple negative campaign signs

Summer Reruns: Thinking About Government Properly

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This will be the last post for this week as well as our final summer rerun before getting back to our journey through Proverbs next Tuesday, so let’s take a bit deeper of a dive for a Wednesday than we normally do. Today’s rerun is a sermon from a couple of years ago. This one falls toward the middle of a series called Who Do You Want to Be? Inspired by a question Peter asked late in his second letter, the series invited us to consider the kind of people we want to be in light of the fact that this world won’t last forever. This third part of the series took a look at the question of our relationship with the government as followers of Jesus. I wrote this message in the waning months leading up to a deeply divided, heavily partisan election season…and look where we are once again two years later. The message is still timely. Also, this happens to be Mark’s version of the passage in Matthew’s Gospel that we are going to be talking about in one week when our Wednesday night Bible study time returns. All in all, this felt like a worthwhile post to look at with fresh eyes today. Enjoy!

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Morning Musing: Romans 13:6-7

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***Well, this piece should have gone live yesterday. In the busyness of the morning, although I managed to get it written, I forgot to actually make it live. So, today, you get a two-for-one deal. Enjoy!***

“And for this reason you pay taxes, since the authorities are God’s servants, continually attending to these tasks. Pay your obligations to everyone: taxes to those you owe taxes, tolls to those you owe tolls, respect to those you owe respect, and honor to those you owe honor.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Benjamin Franklin is famous for many things. He was a regular Da Vinci of his age. One of the statements he immortalized is that nothing is certain except death and taxes. If you are operating from a basically secular worldview framework, he’s not wrong in his assessment, which isn’t all that encouraging because we’re generally not all that much a fan of either. Death we can’t do much about. But taxes seem like we should. We can at least rebel against them. Paul, though, rather irritatingly says we shouldn’t. In fact, we should pay all of our obligations. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Romans 13:3-4

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“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority? Do what is good, and you will have its approval. For it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For it is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is the government for? That’s a much bigger question than we are going to try to answer today, but in thinking about our role with respect to the government as followers of Jesus, it is an important question to answer. While Paul doesn’t give us anything like a thorough answer to the question here, he does give us some insight on one of its primary duties. Let’s talk about what he has to say.

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