Arguing about Romans 13

Romans 13, Governmental Authority, and the Limits of Obedience

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today we're going to be looking at Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13 has become a point of contention with a lot of Christians, especially regarding the fact of the recent coronavirus issue that has affected our nation.

Churches have been closed in many areas by the rule of law. They have forced them shut. Some areas the churches have suggested closings but weren't demanded. And it has caused a lot of consternation with believers regarding the question of when and how should the church listen to the government.

And I want to right now go ahead and say that just two weeks ago on Sunday morning at Sovereign Grace, I actually preached on Romans 13 1 through 7 and I want you to go and listen to it. If you have not listened to the message, because in that sermon I explain that as Christians we are called to be obedient to authority.

However, as Christians we are also called to recognize that there is one authority which goes above all other authorities and that is the of God. And when we are called to obey God or man, we have to obey God rather than men.

And I explain that in the sermon. But one of the things that I didn't get a chance to really talk about in that sermon because of time and because it wasn't really the focus is the fact that there is some nuance that really needs to be understood and I think it's being lost in a lot of the conversations.

Nuance, Context, and the Role of Elders in Local Church Decisions

It seems like there's two wild extremes when we have this conversation. There are those who take the position that because God has ordained government and that he has ordained the state that we have there's no time where we would ever disobey the government except in the most extreme situations.

And then the other extreme would say that you know that we always have the right to question and always have the right to buck the authorities. And so there just seems to be these two wild extremes and I think that there's an important nuance that needs to be understood.

And I wrote down a few thoughts today as I was as I was coming in. Had a great lunch with a fellow pastor by the name of Aaron Bell. He's a pastor of Redeemer Church in Yulee. We had a wonderful lunch and a wonderful conversation about these things and I kind of wanted to share.

I told him I was going to talk about this. I kind of wanted to share some of what he and I talked about. The first thing was that most of the people who are talking about this are not really considering the nuances and the fact that there is differences in different areas of the United States.

There are some states which have forbidden churches to gather. There has some other states where churches are suggested not to gather. And so there is going to be a distinction made by where you are. And so what one church is doing in one area of the country might not be the same thing that a church in another area of the country should be doing in regard to how they are responding.

And also the question of how large a church is. Our churches, Aaron and I talked about the fact that our churches both are under a hundred people. And so for us, when we're discussing this, we're talking about it in a much different context than someone whose church is a thousand people or two thousand or four thousand.

Churches that size are looking at a much different situation when it comes to logistics and social distancing. And if they're going to try to do those things, how are those things going to work and how they're going to manage their people.

What is the age of their people and the issue of things like susceptibility to disease and all of these things. And so one of the things that's often left out is the nuance of the situation, the context of these different churches are in.

And the other thing that's often not considered is we live in a land that while there is an authority, we don't have a king. We have a constitutional government. And so we have a government that functions unlike many of the governments in history in that we don't have one centralized figure of authority.

We have a centralized document that is our governing authority, which is the Constitution. And everybody who is sworn into office, whether they be senators or congressmen or governors or even the president, they are charged with the responsibility to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

And therefore, our government really is a government that has a legal document. And so we can look to that and we can say, okay, this governor over here is violating his oath of office when he does X, Y, or Z.

Now does that mean that he's not an authority? No. Does that mean he's not supposed to be honored? No. But the question does come is the question of levels of authority. So, for instance, just this past week, the president came out and said that churches could open.

Churches were essential and therefore churches could open. And a lot of churches were excited. Yes, that's good. I kind of took a different position. As you'll see in my sermon, I said I don't need the president's permission to gather because God has called me to gather.

But that's a little bit of a separate issue here. But the point is a lot of people were happy that the president gave his approval. But then turn right around and within hours of the president's proclamation that all churches are essential, the Ninth Circuit Court of California came and said, nope, they're going to side with the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and churches are going to remain closed.

And so the question is which authority is the most powerful and which one is right? Because you have the president who holds the highest office of land in one respect, but he is part of a checks and balance system that we have created in this nation.

And in every state, the governor is the highest office in that state. And so if you're in the state of California, you have the governor and you have the president of the United States. And so the question is which trumps the other?

So you have a real big issue there when you begin to talk about the subject of authority, and all of those things have to be nuanced. And so you say, well, what's the answer? Well, here's the last thing I have that I wanted to mention today.

This is why it is important that churches have a good, solid eldership within the church that is biblically chosen and biblically functioning. Because every church in every context and every state and every situation are going to be dealing with this in the position that they are in.

And honestly, and I hope this is understood, as a church of a hundred people in Jacksonville, Florida, I don't need to be told what to do by a pastor of 4 ,000 in California, because his situation is going to be different than my situation.

And my elders and the elders that I serve with are going to come together and decide what is best for the flock that has been entrusted to us. If you remember in the beginning of the book of Titus, the Apostle Paul went from town to town and he raised up, he appointed elders in those towns.

Why wasn't there just one group of elders who functioned as the authority over all of the church? Well, it's because every town, every church in every town needed their elders that could minister to that body.

This is one of the things that Aaron really helped me to, in our discussion, helped me to really realize the importance of the elders. Because as he and I noted, our elders in our churches that we're serving with have been a blessing during all this.

They've helped us to see things and to be encouraged and to understand what we need to be doing. And really it's not my job to call out the elders of a church in California. Now I can encourage, I can call people, in this sense I can say we should all want to gather, we should all desire to gather, we should not have to beg or feel like we should have to beg Caesar for permission to worship Christ.

I've said that, I'll continue saying that. But at the same time, if a church in California is making a decision that I wouldn't make and their elders are making a decision that I wouldn't make, then I need to be sensitive to the fact that those men are who God has risen up in that church.

And if it's a godly church and it's a biblically functioning church and a biblically functioning eldership, then I need to trust that God is working through those men in the same way that I trust that God is working through the elders in my church.

And I can pray for those men. I pray that they would be bold. I pray that they wouldn't be moved by anything other than a fidelity to Christ and to his scriptures. And I should be seeking to encourage the churches that I am able to interact with and encourage them to worship.

But at the same time, as I said, I think that we need to trust biblically functioning churches with biblically functioning elders to do what God's called them to do. To shepherd the flock of God that is among them and realize that every church has to, every church and every group of elders has got to make decisions that they believe is correct.

And they're gonna stand before God and they're gonna give an account. I'm gonna stand before God. I'm gonna give an account for how I served with my fellow elders and how I ministered to Sovereign Grace Family Church.

I'm not gonna give an account for anyone else's church. I'm gonna give an account for the souls that have been entrusted to me. And those men are gonna give an account for the souls that have been entrusted to them.

Civil Disobedience, Suffering, and Encouragement to the Church

And so across our land, we can be praying for one another. We can be encouraging one another. But at the same time, we need to understand that every situation is different and we need to be as gracious as we can to one another even if they are, even if there are churches that are doing things with which we might disagree.

This is a difficult time. This is a time of, this is a time when we're looking forward to the possibility of one day maybe coming to the point where we may have to engage in some civil disobedience and to gather as a church even we're told not to.

Thankfully in the state of Florida, we haven't been told not to. We haven't had to worry about engaging in civil disobedience. We continue to worship as we have, as we always have, and we are, we do so without fear at this point.

But at the same time, the Bible clearly tells us that if we have to make a choice to obey God or men, we always obey God rather than men. And if that means that we have to suffer, the Bible says that we will suffer with Christ, that we will suffer for Christ, and that our present sufferings are not to be compared for the glory that is to be revealed in us.

And so I thank God that no matter what we may suffer, we will never suffer in vain. This has been Coffee with a Calvinist. I hope that this has been an encouragement to you. I hope what I've said has been helpful, and I do hope that you will, if you've been watching or you've started watching and you want to continue, if you're watching via YouTube, I hope that you'll go ahead and hit the thumbs up, hit the subscribe button, and then you'll be alerted whenever we are adding new videos, and we have new videos that go out at 630 a .m. every morning.

And if you're watching via Facebook, please like, comment, and share this video so that we can reach as many people as possible with the message of the Word of God. And so thank you again for watching.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. God bless you.