Respect Authority

Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters. Fear God, and respect the king.

1 Peter 2:17, NLT

Over the course of the past few years there was been a strict identification with political affiliation. It seems that in the same of liberty, the liberals want to give all free reign to everyone for everything. Meanwhile, the conservatives call it conserving but they really want to restrict everyone’s rights. While neither is actually true, the country is more polarized than any time since the Civil War. I recently saw the movie Game Change, a behind the scenes look at the 2008 McCain/Palin campaign. Towards the end of the campaign, in a desperate move the Republican party did a fair share of mudslinging and negative talk towards the more popular Obama campaign. That has not ended since the Obama campaign became the Obama administration. In fact, this year (2015) two Presidential hopefuls (Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush) announced they were running at my very own Liberty University. It seems that the Republican Party, whether Christian or not, is trying to advertise that to go against them is to go against God. But God does not take sides. And HE certainly does not favor defaming someone in His name. In the Epistle to the Church at Rome, Paul reminds us that all authority has been put in place by God (Romans 13:1.) To go against the authorities is to go against God unless you are firm in your belief that they are attacking your own faith. Calling the president or any authoritative figure Satan, the Antichrist, or anything less than their title or office demands, is to insult God. We are called to question whether authority is acting in accordance with God’s Law. God wants you to vote in line with your belief. But, when the church board, council, or any secular authority decides not to act in accordance within our beliefs we are not to use a bitter tongue against them. We are not to stir up anger and dissention against them.  Like He (through the prophet Isaiah) told Ahaz we are to test everything and see God’s hand at work (Isaiah 7.) We are to build and encourage each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11), that seems much more difficult when we are causing opposition amongst ourselves.