Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. 1 Peter 2:13-17

As we continue with this theme about being in a “New Exodus” in Christ, this brings up alot of questions for practical reasons. How do we live as Christians in a evil nation? What is the role and responsibility of a Christian in a worldly nation? This topic is actually talked about alot in the Bible!

Jesus spoke on this topic saying “Render to Caesar what is Ceasors, and Render to God what is Gods” (Matthew 22) Jesus is simply instructing us to pay our taxes that are owed to the government and pay the tithe that we owe to God. Just because we are Christians, and are set apart from the world, doesn’t mean we live in rebellion to the world. We as Christians need to represent Christ to the world, we are not going to disobey all laws or refuse to pay what we owe to the government, we are to be good citizens. 

Now of course the question comes up, what if the Law of the land disagrees with the Law of God. Well as the Apostle Peter once said “We obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29) As the Apostle Paul said “We strive to live in peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18) As Christians were not looking for trouble, were not looking to riot and burn cities down, however we also are not going to conform to the evil ways of the world, there is a fine line we must walk as Christians

Going back to what the Apostle Peter is saying “Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake” Why do we submit to the government?  Because we submit to The Lord first, how we live our lives represents Christ. So how do we submit to authorities? The basics that all citizens would do, we pay our taxes, we follow simple laws, we love our neighbors! 

The Apostle Peter makes a great statement here “Live as Free people, but don’t use your freedom as excuse to do evil” We are free in Christ, we are set apart and we are citizens of Gods Kingdom (Philippians 3:20) However this doesn’t mean we disregard all laws placed by a nation or government. Within reason, we try to be good citizens and maintain law and order, again if something is immoral we won’t comply, but for most basic laws , we will comply to keep the peace

Why do you think the world has be so threatened by Christians since the beginning? Because we are under the rule of a different King, the Lord of Lords, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and every knee only bows to his name and no other, Amen!