Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Death, tyranny, and manipulative control have relied upon these words taken out of context.* Despite their misuse, these verses teach an important doctrine for society: secular government serves as an arm of the will of God.* Thus, for believers, respect and honor must be paid to those governments.* Respect and honor are intangibles that believers must render to civil authorities.* They leave no room for mere grudging, outward recognition; God asks for inner submission as well.* Paul does not stop on inner submission though; he includes the tangibles of taxes to be paid as they are due as well.*
As believers, we are not to submit to rulers just because they are powerful or have wealth.* We are to submit because civil authorities are functioning arms of the will of God.* Though they are always imperfect and rarely do the right thing every time (they are human, after all), governing authorities give their lives full-time to leading, thus serving as ministers of God.* They are the administrators of leadership on earth. This may seem to be a strange concept, especially when those secular authorities crash against the will and words of God.
What are we to do when those authorities move against God?
One scholar suggests that Paul’s words have two intended audiences: those who lead and those who follow.* We already noted the posture that God calls believers to regarding the authorities that He sets over them. For authorities, they must rule in a way that is consistent with God’s justice.* Stanley Porter suggests,
The important implication is that unjust authorities are not due the obedience of which Paul speaks, but rather are outside these boundaries of necessary obedience. Rather than being a text which calls for submissive obedience, Rom 13:1–7 is a text which only demands obedience to what is right, never to what is wrong.’
Paul and Christ would undoubtably argue that Paul’s words argue for both a submission to leaders and a submission to God.
What does this mean for us? Our posture toward leadership must be submission while the call for leadership is submission to God. In submitting to leadership, we are submitting to God.* When that leadership steps outside of God’s ways, our submission is first to Him. This submission to God above all is what disarms the ability of tyranny and manipulative control from operating.
Here is the question: are you submitted in humility? Before we can point out the errs in our leader’s submission to God, we must note our own.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to submit to the authority He has placed over you. Perhaps today God wants you to question your own submission to God first. Maybe today God wants you to humbly ask questions about the submission of your leadership. Perhaps God wants to show you how to follow those He’s placed over you despite their imperfections.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus.
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*Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; p. 499). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos.
Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 346–348). InterVarsity Press.
Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (pp. 466–467). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.
Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (pp. 423–424). Zondervan Publishing House.