Before we dive into the oft-quoted Romans 13 let's pause and take a moment to explore the overall context of the passage.
Remember, everything from chapter 12 through 15:13 is discussing what looks like to "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice" and to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind". This is based on God's mercies which Paul has discussed at length in the previous 11 chapters, primarily in chapters 9-11.
As we saw last week living as a sacrifice to God means living humbly in community with one another and the broader community. Really from 12:3-13:10 is all one section where Paul is articulating how a Christian should think and behave in community with one another (ie. the church) as well as in the larger community (ie. Rome). This is where the chapter divisions in our Bible can be unhelpful. Beginning with "Bless those who persecute you..." in 12:14, and extending to 13:10 Paul seems to be primarily concerned with how the Jesus community interacts with the broader community of Rome.
So Romans 13:1-7, which is the longest and most specific teaching in the NT on how Christians ought to interact with the state is not an isolated thesis on the church's relationship to the state. It is in the broader context of how Christians should interact with the culture they live in—which is characterized by peacemaking (12:14-21) and love (13:8-10).
The general structure of this text is as follows.
- General call to bless, be humble and pursue peace (12:14-21)
- Be subject to governing authorities and pay taxes (13:1-7)
- Only owe one another love because it is the fulfillment of the law (13:8-10)
With this in mind let's read Romans 12:14-13:10:
Romans 12:14–13:10
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Additional Content
Quote from Reading Romans Backwards by Scot McKnight
Two readings of this passage dominate Christian discussion. The first is a conservative approach that affirms divine providence in governments, including Rome in the early reign of Nero, but often this conservative approach attempts to contextualize the passage. That is, our passage is about Nero’s early years, about a marginal number of Christians (perhaps one hundred), and about the Strong learning to embrace the Weak. It is not about twenty-first-century American political engagement, or Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviets, or Afghani or North Korean or Iranian or Iraqi leaders oppressing Christians. The conservative contextualizers continue: Paul is exhorting the hotheads of Rome not to turn to resistance or revolution out of enthusiasm over Jesus as Lord, the kingdom’s presence, or the Spirit’s power to overcome. Or perhaps Paul is simply offering a cooler-headed, pragmatic, and psychologically subtle approach to difficult days for the churches in Rome. Or perhaps Paul has mission uppermost in his mind: if we get out of hand, he is saying, the churches will be extinguished, what we have gained will be eradicated, and the Lord will be shamed in public—so stay out of trouble, keep your heads down, be good citizens (cf. 1 Pet 2:10-17). But many conservative approaches fail to read our passage in light of what precedes and what follows.
Others, taking a second approach, think Paul’s words are at least suggestive of revolution. Though words like “subject to the governing authorities” can give an impression of endorsing all governments, the New Testament itself and Paul’s life do not confirm such an approach.4 Inherent to the Bible’s story and to Judaism’s story is a routine respect for government as part of God’s own providential sovereignty over all creation and all authorities.5 Yes, Jews were nonetheless unafraid of withering critique of paganism’s idolatries and authorities, and, therefore, they lived out the necessity of subverting false gods and unjust rulers. This at times was accompanied by a refusal to obey pagan leaders when they required disobedience to the Torah. That refusal was punctuated with memories of suffering for obeying God. For Paul, inherent to this very common Jewish story is a denial of the zealotry option and instead the explicit conscious intention to strike back with the blessings of love and peacemaking. This is one instance of Christoformity. One can see this larger posture toward pagan authorities in the New Testament from Jesus (Matt 4; 21:21) to Revelation. In the Old Testament, read Daniel.
Subjection, we contend, expresses Paul’s four strategies of blessing, empathizing, peacemaking, and love. Of these four, peacemaking is to the fore. One might instead call the subjection of 13:1-7 a fifth strategy. The zealotry temptation of the Weak is why Paul appeals to the strategy of nonvengeance as the Christoform way of life. In such a context, subjection and the divine ordering of government can be both affirmed and not sanctioned. There are too many times when the divine ordering of government is corrupted by evil people. Rulers, Paul is saying, are designed by God to be God’s servants (13:4) and so are to do good and to establish justice (13:2-5). Which is not to say they always do. Paul says it is the God of the Bible, not the Roman gods and emperors, who ordains government. Above the Roman “governing authorities,” then, are not the gods of Rome but the God of the crucified, raised, and ruling Messiah—King Jesus.
Paying taxes, like subjection to the governing authorities, is a second expression of the fifth strategy. Here, Paul asks the Weak—some of whom, as recently arrived emigrants, were suffering under increased burdens of taxation—to baptize their economic condition into Christoformity and to pay taxes6 for the sake of the gospel and the safety of the churches in Rome. The suggestion, then, is that Paul’s strategy is pragmatic but in an entirely new Christoform key. Some of these believers know the way of violence and retaliation; they have seen it work for liberation in the days of the Maccabees. But Paul knows the way of the cross: the followers of Jesus in Rome are to pay taxes and submit to those dedicated authorities as a way of blessing, peacemaking, and loving one’s enemies into neighbors.
Reflection
Do you have a tendency to divorce your political engagement from your Christian living? How much does your Christian principles play into your engagement in politics? Do you treat people with opposing political views with the principles Paul calls us to here: blessing, not taking revenge, and Christian love? Commit to living out these principles in all areas of your life, including the political sphere.