Politics

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50 questions about Romans 13 in our modern world-

I recently heard one of my favorite podcasting, teaching pastors invoke Romans 13 in his sermon/teaching. This dismayed me greatly. As to the why this is, I will elaborate.

To my lay view, these oft cited verses of Paul's, seem to only assume an authority that is Godly, or operates under God's law. (With the resultant stated expectation that these kind of authoritarian leaders are THEN, always divinely owed something... Like our blind allegiance.) But, did Jesus even maybe disavow God's ownership and divination of ALL "wordly",or Godless authority, when He said, "Pay to Caesar what is Caesar's, and pay to God what is God's"?

But this got me to asking many more questions about this often cited part of Romans 13:

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. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 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, 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. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 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.
Romans 13:1‭-‬7 ESV


Do we Christians, often have a faulty or wrongly applied interpretation of these verses? (Pastors Chuck and Timothy Baldwin authored a great book entitled, "Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission", that gives great reason as to why this misappropriation might be.)

The second half of Romans chapter 13, seems to strongly suggest that a blind submission to authority is not what God requires. For the sake of trying to keep this as brief as I can, I'll only point out this part of it:

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:12 ESV

What does Paul mean by, "casting off the works of darkness"?

As I will elaborate, the following will tell us what God expects from us, and predicts to us, about the coming darkness.

Here are some serious questions that these passages raise for me:

1) Is our current misappropriation of these verses in the opening of Romans 13, anathema to God's Character?

2) Is it in God's character to put into power, and put us subject to, forces that are anathema to His attributes?

3) Would God condone murderers, thiefs, pedophiles, and liars?

4) Would this misappropriation even make a mockery of, or at least invalidate, much of God's Word?

5) Is not God's Word filled with stories of His people heeding His command to rebel against and often defeat tyrannical leaders, and especially the ones who thought they were, or intended to set themselves up as a replacement "god" over His people?

6) Was it God, and not the man, who moved in ALL of these instances?

7) Is God still moving in this way?

I understand the theological teaching and conceptual idea that says : Since Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross, "political" fighting, or rebellion to the "worldly" powers isn't necessary. But, is this idea really Biblical?

8) Why did Jesus say?,
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Matthew 10:34‭-‬35 ESV

9) Has not History proven this across- the- board, mindless submission to authority, over and over again, not to be wise? (Or, not at all productive towards building His Kingdom... Hasn't even martyrdom always involved a rebellion to something? )

10) Are God's people NOT still working at partnering with Him in the building of God's Kingdom?

11) Does God EVER desire for us to give up our Free will? (Sure, we are to voluntarily make ourselves, "Slaves to Christ", as Paul says. But is that the same thing? Isn't that more US, free- willingly deciding to Love Him?)

12) Does love even exist without free will?

13) Will free will always continue, on this current rendition of earth?

14) What if mankind loses, or gives away their free will?

15) What if the last free willed choice a man could make, in our quickly oncoming world, is to give himself over to the Beast?

16) What happens to a man, that chooses NOT to do that?

17) Is it not the Remnant Christians who are the workers in The Kingdom of God, and the ones exposing the evil in this world?

18) Is it their exposing of all of the evil works of The Powers That Be, in this modern world, that is forcing TPTB's evil hand, to come out and declare to the world, all of their master's (Satan's) evil intentions, for all of mankind to plainly and undeniably see?

19) Is this "disclosure", to let mankind then have the free will to decide if they want to choose to be a part of it all?

20) Aren't many people, right now, for many reasons, finding this evil plan quite enticing?

21) Why do many of them no longer find the Gospel message at all enticing?

Are the following, some of the questions that Satan's "Beast system", is right now, in essence, starting to clearly pose up for all of mankind to consider? :

22) Do you want to live in our Newly ordered world?

23) Do you want peace and security? (There's a Biblical warning there : 1 Thes. 5:3)

24) Do you love our monolithically controled and censored disseminated news?

25) Do you want us to protect you from our created pandemic and all other future, nasty, life threatening, biological weapons by taking our untested vaccines? (And whatever else we might offer.)

26) Do you like your new normal?

27) Will you love your new normal?

28) Do you really care anymore about the sanctity of life?

29) Do you like our new form of justice?

30) Do you want to be tracked and traced?

31) Do you even care that our vaccine might kill or severely damage a large percentage of you?

32) Do you want to be a "marked man"?

33) Do you have an allegiance to our newly posed order?

34) Do you want to join in with our technology that mutates your God given DNA? ("As it was in the days of Noah...", Jesus warned.)

35) Do you want to live forever in our virtual, digital world that we have been bathing (baptising?) you in?

36) Do you want to evolve into the new "Trans-man"?

37) Will most of the people that, free willingly decide to take on the Beast state, really even stay alive to "enjoy" the following, implicitly beastly questions?

38) Don't you want to give up being an "obsolete" man?

39) Does the uploaded brain of trans-man even contain a real mind any more?

40) Does it have a free will any more?

41) Does it have a soul any more? (If not, where did it go?)

42) Did I mention that Satan lies, Kills and destroys?

43) Wouldn't trans-man, quite obviously, not have faith?

44) Is all of this obvious exposure and disclosure that we are witnessing (And going to continue to witness), the final days' literal manifestation of the wheat and the tares, that JESUS spoke of in Matthew 13: 24-30. Where mankind , that had been perverted, by the enemy, in front of sleeping servants (The church?) awaits being separated and either destroyed by fire, or harvested into God's barn?

45) What does that mean?

46) Isn't it quite odd that
Jesus would ask if He will even find faith on the earth when the Son of man returns? (At the end of His, "Persistent widow crying for justice from the unjust judge", parable.)

47) What did Jesus know that we still don't know?

48) Could this "lack of faith on the earth", be another clue of Trans- man at the end of the age?

49) Who might this widow be, whose Bridegroom is dead to her?

50) And who is this unjust judge at the end of the age? Just a little interesting conjecture on my part. If Jesus conflated the two ideas together in His Story,(the persistent widow, and the coming of the Son of man) maybe we should do it as well.???

But here's that particular Bible verse:

Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:2‭-‬8 KJV

These are ALL very interesting questions, in my view. (I put numbers to them, if anyone feels compelled to discuss any of the answers. There is a reason why pwo0le say that Truth is stranger than fiction. I would love and welcome the opportunity to dialogue with anyone, and supply doçumentation/proof on any of this. )

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