Digging in Deeper: Romans 13:4

“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)

Romans 13 is one of the more challenging passages the apostle Paul wrote. Understanding exactly how we are to apply and obey it is tricky and often is inextricably intertwined with our particular political perspective. When the party in power happens to be the party we support, we agree with Paul heartily. When it’s not, we’re quicker to find exceptions and reasons Paul missed some things. Occasionally we’ll remember that Paul wrote this under the authority of an aggressively anti-Christian government. I don’t want to get into all of that today. Instead, I want to focus on just this part of the whole, and to do so through the lens of an experience I had recently.

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Digging in Deeper: John 15:12-13

“This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Our world is broken. There is darkness everywhere we turn. It manifests itself in many different forms, sometimes masquerading as light, but it is always darkness. As the prophet Jeremiah wrote about 2600 years ago, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable – who can understand it?” No human culture has ever been exempt from this. If all people were saints there would be no need for laws. But we aren’t. So there is. That’s not the end of the story, though. Having laws in place is meaningless unless people follow them. But we aren’t saints. Thus we are not going to follow laws meant to restrain our behavior unless we are motivated to do so by the threat of a consequence that is more inconvenient to us than our desire to have whatever the law has forbidden. Even these consequences, though, are meaningless unless there are people who are committed to upholding the law and enforcing the consequences for violating it. In other words, we need law enforcement officers. That is, we need police officers. Let’s talk today about what a blessing they are.

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