Governing Authorities

Pastor Ty Neal

Romans 13:1a

Christians, respectfully submit to the governing authorities.

Romans 13:1
Judges 21:25
Romans 13:2-5

“Conscience is a powerful reinforcement of the outward directions to submit to the state. But once conscience is brought in, there is a limit: what is against conscience cannot be done … Conscience at one and the same time obliges us to be obedient and sets a limit to that obedience.”

Leon Morris

1 Peter 2:13-15
Romans 12:1-2
1 Peter 2:16

“The Lord gives democracies the government they deserve.”

Jim Talent, Former U.S. Senator

Acts 5:27-28
Daniel 3:16-18
Romans 11:36

Christians, respectfully submit to the governing authorities.
Christians, respectfully do not submit to the governing authorities.

Romans 13:6-7
Mark 12:13-17
1 Peter 2:17

“May I suggest to pastors that in the quietness of your study you do this? Imagine that America collapses. First anarchy, then tyranny — from the right or the left. Imagine that religious freedom is gone. What remains for Christians is fines, prison, exile, and martyrdom. Then ask yourself this: Has my preaching been developing real, radical Christians? Christians who can sing on the scaffold:

Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still;
His kingdom is forever.

Christians who will act like the believers in Hebrews 10:34: “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” Christians who will face hate and reviling and exclusion for Christ’s sake and yet “rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, [their] reward is great in heaven”.

Have you been cultivating real Christians who see the beauty and the worth of the Son of God? Have you faithfully unfolded and heralded “the unsearchable riches of Christ”? Are you raising up generations of those who say with Paul, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”? Have you shown them that they are “sojourners and exiles”, and that their “citizenship is in heaven,” from which they “await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ”? Do they feel in their bones that “to live is Christ, and to die is gain”?

Or have you neglected these greatest of all realities and repeatedly diverted their attention onto the strategies of politics? Have you inadvertently created the mindset that the greatest issue in life is saving America and its earthly benefits? Or have you shown your people that the greatest issue is exalting Christ with or without America? Have you shown them that the people who do the most good for the greatest number for the longest time (including America!) are people who have the aroma of another world with another King?” 

John Piper (excerpt from Desiring God Blog)

Proverbs 21:1
1 Timothy 2:1-6

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