Romans 13 - The Unintended Weapon

“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. 2 Consequently…”

Sometimes humans take things too seriously and therefore not seriously enough. I think the Church has been reading this chapter incorrectly for a very long time.

This single chapter has prevented Christians from following the words of Christ for thousands of years. It is used as the premiere reasoning for siding with the government and “keeping your head low.”

Let’s go with that traditional reading for a minute.

The first statement is a logical truism. It’s akin to saying that “everything is everything.” There can be no “consequently” derived from it. That is a logical fallacy—from Paul, a master of logic.

In the biblical story, God has established everything, just as He has created everything. Therefore, one cannot logically draw any useful conclusion from that regarding the value of any one of those things as apart from another. It is tantamount to saying, “God made the water flow in the stream, so whoever disturbs a stream by drinking from it goes against the will of God.” I dare you to try following that line of thinking.

So lets look past that. In a different direction, the governing authorities in many places throughout history required you to worship other gods. ‘Not to worship other gods’ is a central commandment for both Jesus and Paul. There are foundational stories of resistance to these authorities littered throughout the Hebrew scriptures. Paul references these same texts elsewhere.

To put it more succinctly, if Paul believed his statements to be true, he must also have believed that the Israelites gravely sinned by leaving Egypt and closing the Red Sea behind them. He must also have believed that Mary sinned by not allowing her son to be murdered by Herod—she should have offered him up.

(To give some credit here, there are other, more subtle versions of this reading where “be subject to” is not equivalent to obey, though they are not predominant.)

These statements of Paul are patently misguided if taken as the Church has taken them. I have a hard time with Paul sometimes, but even I give him more credit than that. I refuse to believe that he would defend these claims if you got him sitting with you in a pub. He would laugh. One cannot in good conscience use this chapter to defend any position in the Christian faith or Church.

This letter was to the church in Rome. Most of Paul’s enemies were in Rome. If you were sending a letter to some folks in a hostile territory via a friend…I mean c’mon. Can a man not be a little coy?

The Church uses this chapter to abdicate resistance and responsibility. As Paul says at the end of the chapter, it’s time to wake up.

And then, to put a bow on it, maybe he sneaks in a little side eye that nobody would notice…

“And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come…The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”

“The present time” is an interesting choice of words, even if it is just an English translation. 😉