1) Important: To be clear…I am not, nor have I never been a navy seal, a ranger, delta force, a member of army nor was I one of Oceans 11, 12 or 13.

2) More important: This situation is really sad on a number of levels.

3) Most Important: What does this say about what we’ve done to the position or the idea of the pastor? Why would this man feel the need to do this if he were a shepherd of sheep?

Read it all @ Jesus Needs New PR

Repeat after me, please:

Romans 13 was not written to me.
Romans 13 was not written to me.
Romans 13 was not written to me.

And nor was any other book of the Bible yet we use the words of letters, histories, narratives, poems and apocalypses as if they were. None of us would take an email written to a good friend by his wife which expressed her love, trust and desire for her husband and read it as if it were written to us. Yet we continually do this with the Bible. We have a really really bad habit of it.

Reading the scriptures in context is a must; reading it out of context, grabbing verses to prove our point simply twists the scriptures. We end up with common or well known situations like…

Jeremiah 29v11: People think, pray, wait  decide based on this very poster friendly verse but it is a verse written to a nation of people – not to an individual. It is not God speaking to a certain individual nor to you or I; it is not promising personal provision.

Or how about this one?

Psalm 46v10: Verses 1-9 role forward like a tidal wave. God is refuge, strength, protector, thunderer & melter of earth; come and see his glorious works! Yet when we get to verse 10 <pause for silence> Be still and know… <awkward pause> and I wil be exalted in the heavens. I will be exalted on the earth.
Another poster friendly line that is twisted & miss used. I actually love when people read this whole Psalm aloud because they generally get into the flow of it and have an awkward moment at vs. 10…it just doesn’t fit our common reading. Verse 10 rolls on with the rest of the Psalm – mighty, strong, victorious. “You, reader of this Psalm – BE STILL and know that I AM GOD!” (emphasis mine) and by inference you & I are not. God will be honored not us. This verse is forceful! God is mighty and strong. I love the intent of 46v10 but this isn’t the place to prove that point.

I could go on & on with these but hopefully you get the idea.

Over the past few days, well years, this happens with Romans 13. Mainly verses 1-7 when just a bit of contextual work will quickly reveal what’s going on here. A few thoughts…

1) Romans was written to Roman believers by Paul. It was a letter that preceded his attempt to visit them. It was not written to us or any other group and we cannot read it like an email received by an acquaintance, a friend or a spiritual mentor.

Think: Who wrote this letter? Who was he writing to? What were the circumstances? What would the readers hear?

2) Romans 13 follows Romans 12. (Thank you very much! I’m here all week.)

But seriously, Romans 12 speaks of living sacrificially & clearly echos jesus teachings in Matthewe 5/6.
We get gems like…

be eager to practice hospitality (v.13)
Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. (v.14)
Live in harmony with each other (v.15)
Never payback evil with more evil. (v.17)
Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.(v.18)

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that righteous anger of God.(v.19)
“Instead “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.”
Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. (v. 20-21)

3) Paul’s letter to the Romans as written didn’t have chapters. It is constant flow. It didn’t have the subheadings that now subtly dictate to us what the passage is really about. Paul didn’t write the pericope headings that your Bible probably has “Respect for Authority” and “Love Fulfills God’s Requirements” (both in Chapter 13).

4) Now we tend to read this section with full appreciation of Chapter 12 and Chapters 13v8-14. We read verses 1-7 like Paul is ADD and just interjects a random thought that can be used on it’s on, but it is in the flow of Paul’s intent – sandwiched between “Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.” and “Owe nothing to anyone – except for your obligation to love one another.

5) Now verses 1-7 most often show up in conversations about Christians and the use of force/violence and conversations about capital punishment.

So…the intent.

We live in the wake of Luther & Calvin who both taught that the sword was the focal point of this passage and the governments right to use violent force to punish; I do not agree with this reading. Both of these historical figures lived in worlds whether the church was deeply intertwined with the state. Calvin being involved in both worlds.

So…Why pull out 1-7 from the flow of the rest of Paul’s writing? To use the sword as the focal point is to basically disregard Chapter 12 and verses 8-14 of Chapter 13.

So is the intent..Paul allowing for government intervention through mortal means or is something else there?

Do verses 1-7 in the flow of Paul’s writing deal with our owing nothing but love to our enemies, and in this time the Roman empire was the enemy of Christianity. The Roman Christians were to live at peace with them. And I believe it is indeed a reach to take this passage and use it as a blanket statement that we should support and submit everything that governments do. If this position were so, then you can kiss the American Civil Rights movement good bye. Do we really believe that?

German theologians Friedrich, Pohlmann and Stuhlmacher lay out the contextual situation well and make a compelling case in their work of Romans 13 that…(paraphrase of their research)

Paul wants to go to Rome.
He wants Roman Christians to submit and pay their taxes.

Why?

Previously Christians had participated in a tax rebellion.
Christians had been expelled from Rome. This included Priscilla and Aquila (companions of Paul’s)
He doesn’t want this to happen again as Nero is imposing new taxes.
And…another insurrection is brewing. Paul wants to be able to get to them w/o strife.

Machaira (the mentioned sword in 13v4) refers to the weapon carried by Roman police who accompanied tax collectors. It is not the offensive weapon of war or the executioners broadsword.

Paul urges them to make peace; pay the tax; do not rebel.

Paul is arguing against violent response not for it!

The context of the letter does not give us carte blanche privilige to be a part of and support government activity that could stand against the character of Christ. It is the opposite. It is a letter from a spiritual giant to friends he hasn’t met yet. He asks them to keep their cool so that he may come to them in peace.

Now.  This is miles; I mean miles a way from the interpretation that most of us have been taught of this passage. I will let you work through the implications.

Summary:

Romans 13 isn’t about the government’s authority to take life.
Romans 13 isn’t about our duty to just mindlessly obey governments. Just in the past century this reading has lent its aid to apartheid in South Africa and the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The Kairos Document from South Africa calls this out as the Churches slide to a “state theology.”

Romans 13 is about Paul (a respected apostle…late in his life) asking a group of insurgents (as the Christians were in this culture) to keep their cool. Live at peace. Owe only love…I’m on the way & can’t wait to meet you. He speaks from a specific situation to a specific situation and this passage is not a unilateral manifesto on church-state relations.

Over & over I’ve seen this verse beaten up and abused. I saw it a number of times on Monday and Tuesday. It was used to lend support to the killing of Osama Bin Laden or if not support to the killing at least to support the government. It seems to often be used to suit our own need to win and take revenge. We have treated it with as little respect as Ike gave to Tina or Chris gave to Rihanna.

I’m not sure where the problem lies. I do know that if I handled my wife & kids the way the evangelical church has handled this passage, I would have nothing of a marriage or family left. I also think we as teachers of the scriptures have got to do better. We are much more students of the cool and trendy than we are of the scriptures and our story or our history.

We must, must do better than this.

Peace ~

William

Suggested Resources:

Free Bible Commentary and Resources (Utley…Don’t let the suit & tie fool you. Great, great teaching here. Grounded in history.)