Lesson 10: Holiness in action – submission to His authority

Read 1 Peter 2:1-25- https://www.bible.com/bible/59/1pe.2
 13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme,
14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

One day Jesus was asked a hard question by the religious leaders (read it in Matthew 22:15-22) – they asked Him if He considered Himself not responsible to pay taxes to the government because He claimed to be Messiah and therefore was greater than the Romans who ruled over them. These leaders asked this because they thought they could trap Jesus with their question, and ruin His reputation with the people. If He answered that He was indeed Messiah and was greater than any human government (which was true since He is God), then they would turn Him in to the government authorities and have Him arrested as a trouble-maker. If He answered that He paid taxes, then they would tell the people He could not be Messiah, because the prophesied One from the Old Testament said He would come to break their chains of bondage and set them free.


As always, Jesus answered them with wisdom that made them shake their heads in wonder. He asked them to show Him a coin needed to pay the tax. There were two kinds of coins in the country at this time – Roman coins and Temple coins. The Romans would not accept Temple coins in payment of Roman taxes, and the Temple leaders would not accept Roman coins as payment of Temple taxes. Jesus asked for the coin to pay the Roman taxes. They showed him the coin with the image of Caesar on it. He called their attention to the image of Caesar, and told them they should give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.

In Romans 13, God also tells us we are to be obedient to our governments because they are in power only with God’s permission. Their assignment from God is to keep the peace, punish the wrong-doers, and protect the innocent. Any government which does not do this will be destroyed by God for doing what is wrong.

However, we do not blindly obey the government. In Acts 5 some of the Apostles were arrested for preaching about Jesus. God released them from prison, and the Apostles immediately returned to the Temple area to preach. They were again arrested and brought before the religious court and commanded not to preach Jesus ever again. Peter’s reply, in Verse 29, was that they would obey them if it was not something God had specifically told them to do that these men said they should not do. We must obey God rather than men, was Peter’s statement. We too must use this same measure of obedience – as long as the government does not ask us to do something God says we must not do, we are to obey our government. We are to give honor to the officials, and we are to love our fellow believers.

*Thought question: If we follow God and disobey the government by doing so, what should be our response to the government when they punish us?