I’m presently making my way through I Peter and was cruising along til I got to 2:13.  Peter certainly had no idea the evil that 21st century Christians would be facing in terms of authority when he wrote this.

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.  For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.I Peter 2:13-15

Or did he understand far better than we imagine?

Let’s first remember the culture in which this letter was written.  The crazed despot Nero has just burned a large portion of Rome down because of an insatiable craving to build, but nowhere to do so.  This made the citizens none to happy.  Looking for a scapegoat he found one in the bothersome Christians.  Thus began a great persecution and cleansing.  The ancient historian Tacitus records:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Tacitus, Annals XV.44

Thus began the great dispersion (διασπορά) Peter refers to the opening verses of his letter. Believers were driven out of the empire and beyond.  They were under immenent fear of their lives from the king.  So it is into this environment that Peter tells his readers to “submit themselves” to human government.

Submission (ὑποτάσσω) means to put one’s self under subjection to another.  It is a Greek military term denoting the alignment of troops under their commander. There are numberless amounts of dictates and edicts from the local, state and federal level to obey.  So I’ve got a few questions in light of that:

• Is it proper for Christians to protest against our duly elected and, more important, sovereignly determined government?
• I often hear Jesus’ designation of us as “salt of the earth” as a “proof verse” for social and political activism.  Is this really the proper understanding of that passage?
• Should we be striving to be policy makers and captains of industry to effect culture?

I’m perfectly aware of the idea that when the government tries to force a Christian to do what is against the law of God explicitly stated in Scripture, he should refuse to submit (cf. Acts 4:18–20; 5:28,29; Titus 1:6; 3:1,2).  But how often is that the case?  Do I like confiscatory tax rates?  No way!  They will prove economically disastrous and I believe them to be immoral.  Am I looking forward to being forced into a gov’t run health care system.  Not in the least.  But where does responsible citizenship end and usurpation begin?

I understand the pragmatic approach of “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.  But when did the “chosen generation…royal priesthood…holy nation” of God start taking our marching orders from Edmund Burke?

Is our calling higher and greater than this?