Catholic2003:
This is what can happen when each person tries to interpret the Bible for themselves. How you can come to that conclusion when the prior verse is “Pay to all their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, …”, I will never understand.
Because the footnote to the first seven verses of Romans Chapter 13 reads as follows: “Paul must come to grips with the problem raised by a message that declares people free from the law. How are they to relate to Roman authority? The problem was exacerbated by the fact that imperial protocol was interwoven with devotion to various deities. Paul builds on the traditional instruction exhibited in Wis 6, 1-3, according to which kings and magistrates rule by consent of God. From this perspective, then, believers who render obedience to the governing authority are obeying the one who is highest in command. At the same time, it is recognized that Caesar has the responsibility to make just ordinances and to command uprightness; cf (compare) Wis 6,4-21.
That Caesar is not entited to obedience when such obedience would nullify God’s prior claim to the believers’ moral decision becomes clear in the light of the following verses.” (emphasis added)
We are not dealing with kings or magistrates, a single individual to rule over us, but a random number of elected officials, some of whom we voted on but most of whom we haven’t. It is a different animal we are dealing with then in the days Paul.
As important, Paul was concerned about trouble in the relationship between Roman authority and the followers of Christ if Christ followers were to say they were “free from the law.” He had to devise a reasoning that would protect them from Roman overreaction to the message he was preaching. As was the Book of Revelations written for instruction specifically in that time, so was the verse you quoted to rebuff my comment.
Catholic2003:
I can see this applying to homosexual marriage or using tax dollars to pay for abortions. But standing in opposition to taxes being used to feed the hungry is quite a big stretch.
My arguement rest on the purpose for which Christ came and his teachings. And his stated purpse and teachings were not to get us to get the government to do what is right, but for us, as individuals, to do what is right which includes feeding the hungry. No government will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and no individual will, either, on the grounds that he or she supported taxing people in order to feed the hungry.
