Monday, October 7, 2013

Submitting to the government

Romans 13:1
Daniel 4:32-37
Law
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I may not always agree with the laws made by my government, (nor would I with any government), but I do need to obey those laws anyways. The government itself is imperfect and the laws made by imperfect people. Yet generally speaking, without excellent reasons not to, I should live as if those laws came from Christ Himself. That might be easy when the law forbids murder or burglary, but it's rather more challenging when the speed limit is considerably slower than the speed it would be safe to drive on a particular road, or the building permit seems like nothing more than an excuse to tax me (again!), or the insistence on pasteurizing all milk compromises the integrity of a natural food. Even if the government doesn't have good reasons for those laws (young children live on that street who might run in front of a car; homeowners might not realize they're compromising the integrity of their home; bad bacteria in milk is even worse than the horrors of pasteurization), I need to obey them.
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It helps to remember that the Lord is perfectly capable of destroying any government or ruler which refuses to acknowledge His sovereignty. He does use humans to overthrow the corrupt more frequently than His method with King Nebuchadnezzar, but our default position should be to submit to the government's authority over us. There are also times to defy the laws passed (Dn 3), but again our default position should be to obey whenever possible.

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