It’s crucial that the Christian is obedient to the state, right? After all it has been appointed by God and has received its power and authority from him. Being obedient to the state is, therefore, synonymous with obedience to God. Well possibly.

A couple of things drew me to Romans 13 last week. The first was the whole rioting incident in English cities and the second was a comment made on my post on capital punishment. Traditionally the passage has been interpreted as Paul telling us to obey the governmental powers of the day and I’ve been quite willing to accept that view for most of my Christian life.

A new interpretation?
But I have to admit that I now find myself asking whether this is the right way (or maybe ‘the only way’ would be a better expression) of reading this passage. Verse 3 in particular poses some difficult questions: ‘For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behaviour, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.’ Well tell that to Jesus! For doing no wrong whatsoever – a fact acknowledged by Pilate during his trial – Jesus was executed by the state. His fellow Jews were also quite mercilessly persecuted for periods by the Roman Empire for no more than being Jews. So much for living without fear of the state.

Was Paul wrong?
This poses a serious question – did Paul get it wrong? Was he not aware of what happened to his compatriots? Unlikely. He certainly knew what happened to Jesus and was surely aware that the cross he preached with such passion about was the Empire’s preferred mode of execution of those who threatened the state. It seems then that Paul got it spectacularly wrong in Romans13:3-4.

Alternative view
But maybe there is another explanation. Maybe we are the ones who have got our interpretation wrong of what Paul was saying to 1st century Christians in Rome. After all it is very difficult indeed to imagine ourselves sitting in a draughty Roman church hearing an elder reading Paul’s letter to us and get the original meaning and then apply that to our 21st century world.

Some have tried, however, and here are a couple of links you may wish to follow:

Do they fully satisfy? Maybe not. But they take us forward and offer an alternative to a text that has bound us to a state far too closely in this post-Christendom age.


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