Another sphere that the Bible speaks about is the civil government. Every society needs a form of civil governance to ensure that there are proper boundaries, so that everyone can live in peace and protection from external harm. If we keep the right priorities in self governance, family governance, and church governance, there will be fewer reasons to look to civil government to legislate multitude of laws for the various ailments in society. Below are a couple of scriptures in regards to civil government.
“Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men— as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.” 1Peter 2:13-17
Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Timothy 2:1-4
These letters were penned when the Jewish people were under the Roman empire, and the new Christians were being persecuted unjustly in the hands of the religious and governmental leaders. The scriptures show that the role of civil government is to be just and fair. It has a responsibility to punish the violators (evildoers) in order to protect the innocent from harm. It is our job to make it a priority to pray for our governmental leaders, so we can live peaceful lives. The power of civil government should be constrained, but when all the other spheres of government are weak, sadly, people look to government to seek solutions for those failures.
In the above scripture, Peter calls the Christians to honor the king. It also speaks about not using our freedom as a cloak for vice. Unfortunately, some Christians have fallen in the carnal trap of believing that they are free to choose when to give honor. The world has two main messages about honoring those who lead: First, leaders only deserve honor if they like them or agree with them; second, since they live in a democracy, they have the right to criticize, demean, or label the leaders in order to bring awareness to the problems at hand. In truth those who operate in this manner, may have a pattern of dishonor towards parents, spouses, bosses, and pastors. This is not about who is in power, but it is about our trust in God and knowing that God allows people come to power.
Furthermore, democracy gives the opportunity for each person to vote, but once someone is in the office, we should all pray for them, honor them, and support their efforts to make our nation better regardless of how we feel about them. We should also be fair in acknowledging those actions/policies that have been beneficial to the country. When/if we don’t agree with certain policies, we have avenues such as protesting, writing to our elected leaders, or joining a civic organization to do something about the bad policies.
As believers, our hope is not in civil government, but we understand its necessity. A good government allows us to have liberty and peace, so we can freely make decisions for ourselves and our families. Keeping the right perspective of civil government will allow us not to get sucked in by the chaos present in the political arena. We should always remind ourselves that the civil government is carnal and while it is necessary, it cannot take the place of our allegiance to Jesus and our Godly response in the midst of division and chaos.
