How Christians should interact with civil government is a deep topic, which I don’t plan to comprehensively address here. But I do want to talk about one passage, Romans 13:1-7.

13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God’s appointment, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 13:2 So the person who resists such authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur judgment 13:3 (for rulers cause no fear for good conduct but for bad). Do you desire not to fear authority? Do good and you will receive its commendation, 13:4 for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be in fear, for it does not bear the sword in vain. It is God’s servant to administer retribution on the wrongdoer. 13:5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath of the authorities but also because of your conscience. 13:6 For this reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants devoted to governing. 13:7 Pay everyone what is owed: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

This passage is often understood to mean that all authorities everywhere are put in place by God. There is certainly a degree to which that is true, in that God has the power to remove any authorities and is choosing not to in many cases. But the idea that God specifically selects all civil rulers is not found in this passage. Let me explain.

In this passage, Paul says that the authorities that exist have been appointed by God. We tend to assume that he is making a universal statement about all authorities in every context. Here’s the problem: he also says that the authorities will commend you if you do what is good. To be consistent in our reading, we would have to assume that that is also a statement about all authorities in every context. Agreed?

But that simply cannot be! Paul himself has been assaulted by authorities for doing good. Paul has been the authority that assaults others for doing good. The entire gospel Paul preaches is that of a man who was crucified by the authorities despite having done no wrong! There is no way Paul could ever say “all authorities everywhere will commend you if you do good.”

So what is happening here?

Our mistake is in universalizing this passage. We hear Paul say “the authorities that exist” and assume he’s referring to all authorities in all places in times. In fact, Paul is writing to Christians in Rome around 56 AD. Perhaps everything Paul says about those authorities is true: they were appointed by God, and would reward those who do right. We have no evidence of any empire-wide Roman persecution of Christians until after that point. In fact, not long after writing Romans Paul travels to Jerusalem and the temple authorities try to have him killed, while it’s the Roman authorities that keep Paul alive! Clearly Paul doesn’t see Rome as a force necessarily working against Christ and his Church at this point in history.

There’s every chance Paul wouldn’t say the same about the authorities in Rome a few years later, since they had him executed.

So what can we learn from this? Well, apparently some authorities are appointed by God, but not necessarily all. Which ones? Presumably the ones that reward the good and punish the wrong. The authorities appointed by God are God’s servants, even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re doing. Authorities that do not serve God, on the other hand, authorities that work against God, Paul says nothing about in this passage. We have to look elsewhere for guidance on dealing with them. Perhaps that’s for another post.