Topic: Authority (I Peter 2:9-17)
I am not sure if you noticed this, but we are always living under some kind of authority in life.
As children, we live under the authority of our parents. In schools, our teachers. At work, our superiors. In church, pastors and leaders. As citizens, our government. None of these authorities are perfect. They are fallible and do make mistakes, but God has designed life to be governed by some structure of authority.
Peter gives a hard call to submit yourself to every man-made ordinance. In Peter’s day, the Emperor Nero was a true monster of a human being. His mother had killed Claudius so that she could rule through the underage Nero. Nero did not want his mother ruling over him, so he had her killed so that he could reign without her interference. He was a morally derelict man. He forced his tutor Seneca to commit suicide when Seneca tried to straighten him out. A short time after this letter, he arrested Christians, wrongfully accusing them of starting the great fire in Rome in 64 AD. Christians were rounded up and soaked in wax, put on crosses and lit as torches for sporting events. They were sown in animal skins and thrown to the dogs. It was dangerous to be a Christian. Some Roman laws could not be obeyed without denying Christ. What was the Christian to do? The answer to “submit to every man-made ordinance” seems hard.
Acts 17 tells us that it is God who sets up and takes down nations and rulers. All earthly kings rule by the permission of God. These rulers shall one day give account for their rule. Kings can be good or bad. The Christian is to respect the authority of the king as being supreme. There is a practical side to this. If the Christians were to rise up against the tyranny of Rome under Nero, would they have fared any better than the Jewish nation which was about to rebel against Nero’s Rome? The Jewish revolt of 66-73 AD ended in total disaster for the Jews. The same would be true if the Christians had risen up. The principal reason to be in submission to secular authority is that God has ordained it.
But do not use your freedom as a cloak to do evil. Being royalty has its privileges. but it also has its responsibilities as well. Nero was well-known for his perverted behavior. He is not the only royal to have abused his privilege to victimize others. The Christian has responsibilities not to abuse their new status as God’s children. We may be princes, but we need to reflect the honor and glory of God who has given us this privilege. A prince who acts wickedly casts a shadow upon the one who is the monarch. We dare not dishonor God. God is not the author of evil, so His children are not to do evil either.
In this context, doing evil could be seen as avenging one’s self on those who have mistreated the Christian. However, the Bible specifically prohibits the believer from taking revenge (Romans 12:19). We must put away the temptation to be wrathful, even when those who oppose us have deserved it. Instead, we need to look to God to avenge us (See Psalm 94:1).
See you Sunday,
Dr. Scott Kallem