Obey Authorities for God’s Sake
2 I say, “Keep the king’s commandment for the sake of your oath to God. 3 Do not be hasty to go from his presence. Do not take your stand for an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him.”
4 Where the word of a king is, there is power;
And who may say to him, “What are you doing?”
5 He who keeps his command will experience nothing harmful;
And a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment,
6 Because for every matter there is a time and judgment,
Though the misery of man increases greatly.
7 For he does not know what will happen;
So who can tell him when it will occur?
8 No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit,
And no one has power in the day of death.
There is no release from that war,
And wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it.
9 All this I have seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.
Ecclesiastes 8:2-9 NKJV
Submit to Government
13 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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 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. 4 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. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.
Romans 13:1-5 NKJV
There are professing Christians in the public sphere who claim their Christianity is the reason why they “resist”. They use their platform to sow seeds of division instead of cooperation. These very same people fail to realize that the One whom they claim to be a follower of was led like a sheep to the slaughter because He submitted to the authorities and did not resist.
How can one claim to love God – the Supreme king, when one won’t submit to the authorities God ordained here on Earth?
[Image Credit: Creative Commons CC via pixabay user: johnhain]
1 Peter 2:13-15
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.
It is interesting to note, continuing with your theme, that at the time that 1 Peter was written 54-64AD, Nero was Rome’s Emperor. Nero killed and massacred the Christians by blaming them for the fire that almost destroyed Rome which most likely Nero started, according to Tacitus, “Tacitus wrote that Nero accused Christians of starting the fire to remove suspicion from himself. According to this account, many Christians were arrested and brutally executed by “being thrown to the beasts, crucified, and being burned alive”.
1 Peter 2 is saying that we must respect by submitting to those who God has allowed to rule, how much more our President who is trying to help the Christians as well as the other religions.
Amen, and thank you for that.
There are times where we absolutely must take our stand but if that very move sets us up as disobeying God’s order of things, we must reassess. As you can see on the image, there is no positive or peaceful act in it.
You are saying something that needs to be said. Thank you for that. J.
You’re welcome J and thank you for the encouragement. 🙂
Thank you for this post. This is something that definitely needs to be said. I’m re-blogging this. God bless you Caeli .
Reblogged this on Eternal Blood and commented:
TRUTH