Question for Christians: Romans 13

[H Roark]

Has Ron Paul ever addressed Romans 13? I would love to hear what he has to say about this. I remember he was interviewed by a "Christian" organization early on, but I don't know if the guy ever touched on this.

 

[pcosmar]

I would say it is up to each to person, to come to a decision. It is a question of Faith and conscious.
For myself, I am having trouble recognizing the present Government as legitimate.

I see them and an occupying enemy rather than a rightful authority.
The "Rightful" authority is "WE THE PEOPLE".

 

[rmodel65]

to the OP
the way i see it our "governing authority" is set up to be able to be questioned so we are fully submitted to it. But yet we also are able to question and oppose the "GA" without going against the word as long as it is lawful.

 

[dawnbt]

A civil magistrate has authority in civil matters, but his authority is limited and defined. Romans Chapter 13 clearly limits the authority of civil government by strictly defining its purpose: "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil . . . For he is the minister of God to thee for good . . . for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

Notice that civil government must not be a "terror to good works." It has no power or authority to terrorize good works or good people. God never gave it that authority. And any government that oversteps that divine boundary has no divine authority or protection.

So, even in the midst of telling Christians to submit to civil authority, Romans Chapter 13 limits the power and reach of civil authority.

Did Moses violate God's principle of submission to authority when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster in defense of his fellow Hebrew?

Did David violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to surrender to Saul's troops?

Did John the Baptist violate God's principle of submission to authority when he publicly scolded King Herod for his infidelity?

Did Simon Peter and the other Apostles violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to stop preaching on the streets of Jerusalem?

So, even the great prophets, apostles, and writers of the Bible (including the writer of Romans Chapter 13) understood that human authority--even civil authority--is limited.

Beyond that, we in the United States of America do not live under a monarchy. We have no king. There is no single governing official in this country. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with any man or any group of men. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with the President, the Congress, or even the Supreme Court. In America, the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land." Under our laws, every governing official publicly promises to submit to the Constitution of the United States.

 

[constituent]

that this letter was written in a time when letters were liable to be intercepted and read and Christians were persecuted;.

I have my opinions about Paul. Some are good, some aren't. A lot of what he says isn't based on Jesus teachings. This is one of those instances to me.

acp makes a good point, though, and one that I hadn't really thought of before.

so, what does this say for the bible as a whole?

what does "inspired word of God" actually mean?

 

[LittleLightShining]

so, what does this say for the bible as a whole?

what does "inspired word of God" actually mean?

That's a good question and I'm not sure if I have an answer that would be acceptable to you or anyone else for that matter. As I have said before I am really conflicted about Paul and that generally gets me into trouble with Christians which is a big part of the reason I don't go to church. It seems to me that most church teaching is based on Paul's writings, someone who never knew Jesus and who up until his sudden, blinding transformation was intent on massacring Christians.

Jesus came to atone for our sins. He removed the old law and gave us a new one. Paul took that message and set up churches with rules that Jesus never advocated. Jesus' message was one of freedom. Paul's teachings subject the believer to arbitrary rules based on his own interpretation of how a Christian ought to live. Jesus told Peter that HIS church would be built upon Peter, the Rock, not some future apostle. Jesus also tells us that there will be many who come in His name but are not of Him.

The only book in the Bible which comes with an express warning not to change the text or risk damnation is Revelation. I know it opens a can of worms that I'm not sure if I can put the lid back on, and I'm always open to other perspectives.

This is my interpretation, I'm not sure I answered your question, but this is specifically my feelings about the validity of Paul's teaching.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

The primary Civil Purpose should be held supreme over secondary legal precedents

A civil magistrate has authority in civil matters, but his authority is limited and defined. Romans Chapter 13 clearly limits the authority of civil government by strictly defining its purpose: "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil . . . For he is the minister of God to thee for good . . . for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

The word "civil" has purpose when compared to the word "legal." While Civil Purpose reduces itself down to concrete Dna, legal precedents are necessary evils for the dispensing of the Civil Purpose dynamically to the people. When "legal precedence" is claimed as concrete, it is an attempt to distract people from Civil Purpose.
The Civil Purpose deals with the Social Contract theory of bringing the master and the slave to sit at the same dinner table (I don't like using the word "Social Contract" for political reasons so I use the term Civil Purpose). The implementation of this type of "positive" government is in contrast with the primitive types of governments which sat the master and slave at different dinner tables.
A way to see this clearly is by understanding how the servant teacher Socrates --he fashioned himself as a midwife philosopher to the poor -- was able to help the soul of a poor slave boy "recollect" the knowledge that had been scattered from him during the trauma of birth. As the philosopher emulated his mother who served also as a midwife to poor pregnent women, Socrates contrasted sharply with the prior way in which teachers taught in a caste system. We can see the prior methodology in how Aristotle later trained Alexander the Great to take his rightful place on his father's throne.
The Civil Purpose of our constitutional government in the United States is to have the master and the slave sit at the same dinner table. While the master is king and has been granted authority as such, the people themselves have been granted ownership of the dinner table.
This Democratic relationship is not necessarily a peaceful one in that it gives people a face of authority at the table. In fact, at times in American history, it has become necessary for the nation to shrewdly regulate liberty by binding the master and freeing the slave so that the Civil Purpose could be maintained.

Notice that civil government must not be a "terror to good works." It has no power or authority to terrorize good works or good people. God never gave it that authority. And any government that oversteps that divine boundary has no divine authority or protection.

Great! So, if we can trust that our government hasn't been blessed the capacity beyond that of terrorizing evil works or evil people to terrorize good works or good people, then we have been freed or granted the grace to tend to our contentment. If government can be trusted in such a fashion, then our problems aren't with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers. This notion would help drop the veils which shield our authority so that we can rule more responsibly together at the dinner table.

So, even in the midst of telling Christians to submit to civil authority, Romans Chapter 13 limits the power and reach of civil authority.

Did Moses violate God's principle of submission to authority when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster in defense of his fellow Hebrew?

Did David violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to surrender to Saul's troops?

Did John the Baptist violate God's principle of submission to authority when he publicly scolded King Herod for his infidelity?

Did Simon Peter and the other Apostles violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to stop preaching on the streets of Jerusalem?

So, even the great prophets, apostles, and writers of the Bible (including the writer of Romans Chapter 13) understood that human authority--even civil authority--is limited.

It isn't that we shouldn't rebel but that we should put our faith in Christ who has already defied death by entering into darkness to resurrect Himself as a marriage of authority in paradise. It is Christ who has already removed the veil from our dark faces so that we can sit with the king at the dinner table.

Beyond that, we in the United States of America do not live under a monarchy. We have no king. There is no single governing official in this country. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with any man or any group of men. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with the President, the Congress, or even the Supreme Court. In America, the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land." Under our laws, every governing official publicly promises to submit to the Constitution of the United States.

The administrative president was supposed to be a strong kingly position. It has been said that the greatest contribution by George Washington as a founding father was the way he chose to set a kind legal precedent for the position. In other words, George Washington administered the position of the president willfully while later presidents emulated him as a set legal precedent.

I would like to point out that "supreme Law of the Land" has no legal purpose. Legality in itself has no purpose other than it can be noted rightfully or wrongfully as a legal precedent. This was the burden of our founding fathers who knew that Civil Purpose has a natural tendency to erode to tyranny. Not only is it natural for the master class to feel that the slave class shouldn't be sitting at the same dinner table as they, but the discouraged slave class will feel so likewise.
In order to keep the master and slave sitting at the same dinner table together, it is necessary to bind the master to do so and free the slave to do likewise. In order to maintain this vision, we must work to keep the primary Civil Purpose as supreme over secondary legal precedents.

 

[acptulsa]

In order to maintain this vision, we must work to keep the primary Civil Purpose as supreme over secondary legal precedents.

As soon as you start parsing the Bible looking for a dogma loophole that lets you into Heaven no matter what crap you pull in this world, you've gone off on the wrong track. The Bible covers a massive time frame and a massive host of different conditions. Even the people that Paul wrote letters to were enjoying or suffering a wide variety of situations.

Any law that refuses to take circumstances into account is, in Dickens' words, "a ass". One would assume God's law isn't.

Lessons are lessons and laws are laws, and Peter's words, good a man as he may have been, aren't God's words. Take the wisdom of the Bible as it fits your circumstances, and if the parable in question doesn't fit the circumstances you're in when you need guidance, look elsewhere and look harder. Right?

 

[SevenEyedJeff]

Well the authority that God allowed to be set up in the United States is the Constitution.

Therefore if certain evil people threaten that Constitution, do we not have an obligation to rise up and protect it???

If we allow that evil to reign and destroy our Constitution, do we not deserve the government that forms as a result?

 

[constituent]

This is my interpretation, I'm not sure I answered your question, but this is specifically my feelings about the validity of Paul's teaching.

yes, quite well. thanks.

 

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

I did refer to the Greeks and Socrates

As soon as you start parsing the Bible looking for a dogma loophole that lets you into Heaven no matter what crap you pull in this world, you've gone off on the wrong track. The Bible covers a massive time frame and a massive host of different conditions. Even the people that Paul wrote letters to were enjoying or suffering a wide variety of situations.

Any law that refuses to take circumstances into account is, in Dickens' words, "a ass". One would assume God's law isn't.

Lessons are lessons and laws are laws, and Peter's words, good a man as he may have been, aren't God's words. Take the wisdom of the Bible as it fits your circumstances, and if the parable in question doesn't fit the circumstances you're in when you need guidance, look elsewhere and look harder. Right?

I feel when mentioning Socrates that he is correctly referred to as the pivotal point in history when the primitive government during that ancient time contrasted with the idea of a more modern kind of "positive" government that we now have in the United States. This modern government with a self evident Civil Purpose attempts to ideally sit the master with the slave at the same dinner table even to the point that in history our nation has had to bind the the master class and free the slave class.
As I tried pointing out in a prior post, while law is divided up into legal and civil terms, the term "legal" itself has no purpose. Legality in itself has no purpose other than it can be rightfully or wrongfully judged as a legal precedent. We don't suffer from the corruption of power when these right or wrong legal precedents get judged concrete over Civil Purpose; but, rather, we suffer from the corruption of power when secondary legal precedents distract us from the primary importance of the Civil Purpose.
It was Friedrich Nietzsche who warned that we shouldn't look at the morality of the structure in government but the morality of the people necessary for its function -- God [morality] is dead. Still, we can't blame flesh and blood even in this situation but the way people become filthy, morally speaking, when they get themselves lost in legal precedents rather than they have a clear vision of the overall Civil Purpose. When we work against the pressure to erode to tyranny, we work to maintain the Civil Purpose of our positive government.