Romans 13:1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
There is a tradition in the United States where the winning team of the various professional sporting organizations is honored by appearing at the White House with the President. Years ago, one player on the National Hockey League winning team refused to go to the White House, in an apparent stand against new policies the President’s administration had implemented. I later heard that this player was a Christian.
Looking into policies he had concerns with, I echo those concerns, but I feel he made an error in judgment and dishonored his leader. Romans 13 has some difficult instructions about honoring our leaders, including the difficult-to-understand statement that there is “no authority except that which God has established” (vs 1). Paul’s letter goes even further to say: “Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” (vs 2).
The word “established” or “appointed” that Paul used was the Greek word tasso which means “to arrange in an orderly manner; to assign or dispose to a certain position or lot; to appoint, determine, ordain, set”. That same word tasso is used in one other verse in the New Testament in Acts 13:48: “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed (tasso’d) for eternal life believed.”
This is admittedly a very difficult concept to understand. Maybe Paul was living in a different time and the leaders then were more worthy of honor? If you’ve studied any Roman history you know this isn’t the case. In the years around when Paul wrote this letter (A.D. 57) Claudius had his wife (and her lover) killed, and he had Jewish Christians expelled because they were followers of Christ. His new wife Agrippina (his niece) had Claudius poisoned so her son Nero could have power. While it was seven years after the writing of this letter, Nero proved to be the worst of them all, setting a fire to Rome that destroyed three quarters of the city and then blamed the Christians. Nero then arrested and tortured many Christians in Rome.
It was in this context that Paul encouraged the Christians in Rome to “be subject to the governing authorities”. There may be a few of you, as Christian Athletes, who will one day have the extreme privilege of representing your country in sports. My prayer is that you honor those in authority, no matter how their views may differ from yours. And even if you never represent your country in athletics, I pray that you will all honor your leaders and not rebel against what God has instituted.
Are there times where we can’t obey the government? Yes, there are 3 clear scriptural examples: 1) When they tell us we can no longer preach the Word of God (Acts 4: 19-20, Acts 5:29); 2) When we are told to go against God’s explicit laws, such as the midwives being told to kill the Hebrew boys (Exodus 1:16-17); 3) When we are told to worship anything or anyone other than God (Daniel 3). Sadly, many examples I have seen of Christians dishonoring those in authority have nothing to do with these, so sadly they are choosing to rebel against the “authority that God has established”, and in that place there is no blessing.
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