Politics and Biblical Authority
My wife and I are currently reading the book Family Driven Faith by Dr. Voddie Baucham, Jr. Some friends of ours are fans of Dr. Baucham, and the book has, so far, been outstanding. (We've made it to chapter 4.)
In doing research on Dr. Baucham and his ministry, I learned that he is the current pastor of Grace Family Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and I also found the church's sermon feed on SermonAudio.com. I've been listening for the past several weeks, as he and Elder Stephen Bratton have been preaching a series on Romans. (That alone is cool to me; I've never seen two people share a series before.) When they arrived to Romans 13:1-7, they started a 4-sermon mini-series within their larger Romans series. Let's look at these seven verses.
1Let 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. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For 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, 4for 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. 5Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7Pay 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)
One of the things that blew me away is that, reading this, realizing that this was written about the Roman empire under Nero. Wow.
Other highlights from this series:
- Christians should not be so quick to skip past the “submit” part.
- If we choose to defy authority because we believe they are asking us to do something contrary to God, we must be willing to deal with the consequences of defying authority.
- Government should not be used to push theology.
- All laws are moral laws; the only question is whose morality will be enforced.
- We must support our government, and we must be involved.
There is much, much more in these sermons, and nearly 4 hours of listening. I'd recommend loading these up on your mobile music player and walking while listening; shape up physically while you shape up spiritually. With the elections coming up next year, I would categorize this as required listening; we as Christians must know what is expected of us, and must make decisions based on our ultimate citizenship.
A note - Dr. Baucham, in his three sermons in this series, made some pretty bold statements, but he backs them up; don't hear him say something and cut off the message.
Part 1 – Politics, Government, and Politics: Part 1 by Dr. Voddie Baucham, 57 minutes
Part 2 – Politics and Biblical Authority Part 2: On Submission by Dr. Voddie Baucham, 67 minutes
Part 3 – Politics and Biblical Authority Part 3: On Exercise of Authority by Dr. Voddie Baucham, 56 minutes
Part 4 – Politics and Biblical Authority Part 4: On Support of Authority by Stephen Bratton, 45 minutes