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RE: Can a Christian be an Anarchist Without Rejecting Paul? (Christian Anarchy - Part 5)
We read Paul's Letter to the Romans as scripture for us. Paul wrote it to the church in Rome, where there had been enough civil disturbance within the Jewish community that they were evicted from Rome.
Could Paul have been encouraging the church there to really stay legal and avoid rocking any boats at such an uneasy time as Jews were being allowed to return to Rome?
I think there may be some value to what you're saying, but I don't think Paul's message is specific to the church in Rome. What he writes is consistent with the message of other Biblical writers in other contexts.
Thanks for commenting!
I am not saying that it was only relevant to Rome, but I do believe that the context is more relevant than many readers think.
We tend to apply passages universally, unless they seem too extreme, like, "Go, sell everything you have, and give it . . ."
There are themes that run through Pauls writing; I do not see this passage as a principal theme in Paul. I do think that the Roman situation was complicated. The church in Rome seems to have been predominantly Jewish, without Roman citizenship, and as such would have been on shaky ground. I think today we have churches and missionaries in similar situations.
When we live in a foreign country, we respect the government there, but we do not act traitorously with respect to our native country. We tend to forget that our citizenship in the New Jerusalem is the one that counts, and here, whatever nation "here" might be, we are at most resident aliens. As such, we need to live respectfully and keep our noses clean.