1 Peter 2.13-17.
First I wanna remind you Simon Peter, when commanded by the Judean senate to shut up about Christ Jesus and how they had him killed, informed them, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Ac 5.29 KJV Then two decades later, he wrote the following passage in 1 Peter:
- 1 Peter 2.13-17 KWL
- 13{So} submit yourselves to every human institution,
- because of the Master—
- whether to kings,
- to authority figures like kings;
- 14whether to leaders,
- to agents sent by them to punish evildoers
- and to praise those who do good.
- 15For this is God’s will:
- Those who do good are to silence
- the ignorance of foolish people.
- 16Be like freemen—
- not like those looking for an excuse for evil,
- but like God’s slaves.
- 17Treat everyone with respect.
- Love the Christian brotherhood.
- Reverently fear God.
- Respect the king.
There are two ways I’ve seen people tackle this passage. More often it’s the folks who insist, “This passage tells us to obey our leaders, our institutions, and our elders”—and never notice this therefore creates a massive discrepancy between the Simon Peter who write this, and the Simon Peter who stood up to the Judean senate and told them he couldn’t obey them. I’ve pointed this out to these people, and it makes ’em hem and haw for a minute, as they’re desperately trying to think up a quick ’n dirty way out of this new bible difficulty I’ve presented them. Relax; it’s not a bible difficulty. They’re just interpreting 1 Peter wrong.
Then there are the folks who ignore it entirely. Most of ’em haven’t even read the letters of Simon Peter, though they will quote ’em to proof-text their favorite End Times beliefs. They might know this passage, but they hand-wave it away, and do as they please—and don’t respect human institutions. Don’t respect the government. Don’t respect federal and state agents, don’t respect cops and the military, don’t respect elected representatives. To them, government is bad, and anyone who works for the government is bad. And they might believe this for religious reasons—iike certain Mennonites, Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Nation of Islam, who believe human governments are forms of treason against God’s kingdom and Jesus’s reign. (Well, not the Muslims, who believe Jesus doesn’t reign till his second coming.) But most of the folks I know, believe this for libertarian reasons: Human governments are usurpations of their reign. They believe they are sovereign, and answer to no one.
Neither of them is correct. Neither misinterpretation, nor no interpretation, is the way to go. The ancient biblical worldview is that God rules all… but God allows humans to set up our own little kingdoms for the sake of law and order. and approves of them when we do right, and doesn’t approve—and sometimes intervenes, and has ’em overthrown—when we don’t. And, contrary to Christian nationalists, God doesn’t need them to be Christian or Israeli to get his approval. You do realize every human government outside of ancient Israel was neither Christian nor Israeli?—and that most governments on earth today are neither? But if they’re just, and stop evildoers from murder and theft and exploiting the weak, God’s usually okay with them. Someday Jesus will overthrow them all, but for now, they can do their thing.
The Roman Empire and Judean senate of Peter’s day were none of those things, and the United States federal government of our day is none of those things. God help us all. But that’s the proper historical context of this scripture. We gotta take that into consideration when we interpret it. Peter’s not writing about obeying a righteous government, nor only obeying a righteous government, nor obeying an unrighteous pagan government. But we do have to take our governments into consideration when we live under them. And that, not blind obedience, is what submission is actually about.
Submission… to unjust rulers.
As I wrote in my article about submission, multiple times the writers of scripture tell us to submit to God and his Law, submit to Jesus and his teachings, submit to fellow Christians, submit to our spouses, submit to bosses and lords and rulers. Lotta people to submit to!
And often, tyrannical leaders and spouses and pastors will insist “submit” means to obey; and in particular, obey them. It means no such thing. I remind you, when Jesus submitted to his parents, Lk 2.51 it didn’t mean he obeyed them in every instance—’cause he didn’t. Mary wanted him to take a break from teaching, Mk 3.21, 31-32 and he didn’t. He had to obey God rather than humans. We all do.
Peter was entirely aware the kings and rulers of the earth weren’t always gonna follow God, and occasionally would give orders which defied God. Like when pagan Israeli kings set up worship sites for the Baals, or Darius the Mede forbade people from praying, Da 6.12 or the Judean senate told Peter multiple times to stop proclaiming Jesus. Those who defied these commands are rightly considered heroes of the faith. Same as Christians who defied the Nazis in the 1930s, or defy the MAGA Republicans in the 2020s.
Yet we gotta submit to them. So clearly “submit” in the bible means something other than “to obey.” Properly, submission means we gotta take these people into consideration when we make our plans. We don’t just unilaterally decide to do as we please, and ignore whether this defies or offends them. Paul instructs us in Romans that, as much as we can, we need to live in peace with everyone. Ro 12.18 This includes pagans. Even antichrists.
So if the local government tells us, “No, that’s way too many people to pack into a building,” we’re not supposed to be a jerk like Sean Feucht and pack ’em in anyway, on the grounds the government is a bunch of antichrist pagans, but he only follows King Jesus. Feucht may claim the Holy Spirit told him it’s just fine to defy and antagonize the government, but his lack of peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, and other appropriate fruit indicates he’s following the desires of his own spirit, not the Holy Spirit. The Spirit who inspired Peter to write, “Submit yourselves to every human institution,” doesn’t grant us loopholes when we butt heads against the opposition party.
It is God’s will for us to do good. This includes being at peace with unjust rulers, and giving them no valid excuse to hate us. They might anyway; we can’t help that. But we can make sure we give them no ammunition. We never defied any just and reasonable laws. We might’ve strongly disagreed with inconvenient laws, but we didn’t violate ’em just to show off our contempt and our independence. And of course there are legal recourses for unfair and unjust laws, and as citizens in a democracy we can actively pursue those—and if people are in harm’s way because of those laws, sometimes we may just have to take drastic steps, and non-violently stand up to defend them against the government’s immorality. Because that, too, is doing good.
But ordinarily, we should be at peace with our rulers. Not plotting against them (apart, obviously, from getting their opponents elected, or getting them impeached and recalled where appropriate). Not treating feds and cops and soldiers with contempt for doing their jobs—although it’s fine to record and report them whenever they break the law. Treat ’em with the appropriate respect we should give to all people.
And God comes first. He, not our earthly rulers, even if we’re huge fans of those earthly rulers, has the final word.
This is what godly submission looks like. Sad to say we have a lot of Christians who are eager to preach the unhealthy, blind-obedient sort of “submission” whenever their favorite rulers are in charge; and preach rebellion when they’re not. It’s partisan, so of course it’s inconsistent and ungodly. It’s nothing like Peter meant. Reject that, and follow Peter, and thereby Jesus.
