Exposition by Max A Forsythe
Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA)
This week's issue of World magazine headlines a tragedy in conservative Indiana that dramatizes the teachings of our text today. In this tragedy, a small child died of meningitis, whose pains even doctors can sometimes even misdiagnose. Pending a court case in which six felony counts of neglect, manslaughter and reckless homicide are to be decided, a family's remaining children are with relatives. Now, there are problems in this case with both sides. The family legally and legitimately chose to isolate itself from almost all surrounding institutions. Besides home schooling, they also home churched as well. Only when troubles with the authorities blossomed did the isolated family begin to seek outside help. As it is, they are standing virtually alone against the local child welfare officers. And it their Indiana County, that is quite a difficult proposition.
Their county led the State of Indiana in per-capita abuse and neglect investigations with 28 per 10,000 compared to more normal 8 and 13 per 10,000 for the two most urbanized counties in the state! In addition the county in question has statistically many more children as wards of the state than similar sized counties. When questioned the county office was non-pulsed when confronted with their peculiar statistical spike! Certainly as conservatives, we should be very concerned with the state agencies that are already adopting the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child as their "local guidelines". But, we should also recognize that the agencies in question are still being run by humans and that only the most hardened careerists in child welfare agencies are liberal crusaders. I can even testify with certain knowledge that in some places, an entire county agency might even be run by a Christian who can hold off the worst of the scenarios that we hear about. I can also testify that some well intentioned parents can create the illusion of a problem when there really is none at all!
As the reporter for World summarizes the tragic death of a young child in Indiana, there were specific failures on each side, both government agency and within the family! Personally, I'm not to fond of the government system as we have it in the United States today. In fact I would be hard pressed to even call a government agency to pick up a stray dog that I could even remotely care about! But, I would also be the first to admit that we as Christians have a responsibility to be above reproach in so far as we are able! What is the first principle of our Presbyterian system? Isn't it that within the faith, we are all accountable to someone else?
The Pastor is examined by the Presbytery before he can accept a call voted on by any congregation. The elders and deacons are examined and trained before they can take office. The Presbytery itself has its records exhaustively examined by the General Assembly and the General Assembly is held accountable to the Presbyteries. No one in the Presbyterian system is left to fend for themselves without some other person to hold them to account or to give advice and encouragement. Even our own Westminster Standards echoes the sentiment and the fidelity of Paul's instruction before us today. "It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honour their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience' sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates' just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them ..."
In related paragraphs, the same standards encourage us to participate in government when and where we are able. And except in the grossest extreme whereby the state takes to itself the keys of the kingdom and gives undue preference to some form of faith (in its broadest definition) we are to be obedient servants.
In the 70's I remember an article where an African dictator took it upon himself to make the life of Christians in his country more difficult. One of the Church leaders felt obligated to seek an audience and thereby risk his very life. The audience was granted and the Christian bishop discussed with the leader the benefits of having loyal, ordered and hardworking Christians within the boundaries of his kingdom. At the end of the discussion, the dictator relented from his persecution because of the attitude of submission and loyalty described in our passage today. The greatest difficulty in the Indiana case is the fact that this conservative family took it upon themselves to be accountable to no one and thereby ran afoul of aggressive humanistic bureaucrats just looking for such people to persecute. Certainly, we know from news events earlier in the fall that even a whole congregation in the far west was charged with gross behavior, again by an petty, overzealous local investigator. That congregation was only loosely attached to fellow churches and left almost to its own defense. Within our own denomination, there was a judicial case a few years ago concerned with a southern Church in the PCA that held to every extreme doctrine known to reformed congregations. They even took on the Internal Revenue Service and expected the whole denomination to go down fighting with them. Since, that congregation was unwilling to let any of its practices or views be ordered by the body of the Presbytery, they were more or less left to cause the IRS as much trouble as they were habitually used to causing everyone else.
As you look at the heading here to this first half of chapter thirteen in the NIV version, you read the words, "Submission to the Authorities!" That is just what Paul is teaching the Church, its leaders and the members.
Here in Ohio, there is a law suit against the state by several independent schools concerning the testing of high school students. Certainly, I only too well understand their contention that the format and time for the testing is ridiculous. This week, I will loose almost half my classes every single day for five days, for one of those proficiency tests! Yet, if as a Christian or independent school, I had an opportunity to show the advantages of a system apart from the state I would want to go whole hog to demonstrate that there are really some schools in this state that really and truly educate children! Of course, we ought to keep the secular activists as far away as possible from controlling what leads to a proper education, but by any measure, any literate parent can easily demonstrate the superiority of a well rounded education if in fact that is what is happening!
It would be nice, it would even be wonderful if we could reestablish the foundation of Christian faith in this country for both our schools and our government agencies. However, this seems to be outside the providence of God this year and maybe even the next. We certainly ought to be very busy suggesting better ways of doing everything, but at the same time we should encourage those who are Christians to continue serving within our government even if, like Joseph they come into control of the means to make that government ineffective. Remember Egypt? After Joseph centered all the power and wealth of the Egyptians in the hands of the Pharaoh, the power of that ancient country declined for centuries, giving Palestine relief from Egyptian oversight and allowing the high period of prosperity and power to come to God's own kings, David and Solomon.
Don't you really know what will happen if leaders like those we know take full and complete control? Just like the sewer rats who guided the Soviet economy, the worldly wisdom of our own socialists will lead to decay and outright default! Have you heard the latest scare tactics coming out of Washington? The government may not be able to pay its interest, its veteran's checks and maybe even the social security checks! Now stop and think a minute about that. If you called everyone to whom you wrote checks and said that they might not be worth anything, what do you think would happen to their confidence in your abilities to pay?
Remember, God has instituted governments to serve at His pleasure and for His purpose. When they cease to honor Him the handwriting on the wall becomes very obvious. May we as Christians in this fair land be found blameless by our government if any disaster comes our way. Let us make certain to hold our leaders up in prayer as they contend with each other before our watching God. And may God's holy and precious will be worked out through our obedience to worldly leaders even as we prepare ourselves for the heavenly precincts.
Resources Used: The Holy Bible, New International Version
Places Preached:Bruce, F.F. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Romans. Jones, Bob IV. "Big Brother & the Little Brother", World (3 Feb 96) Mackenzie, R. Calvin's New Testament Commentaries: Romans. Murray, John. New International Commentary: Epistle to Romans.
Christ Covenant REFORMED (Presbyterian Church in America) Post Office Box 13926 - Columbus, OH 43213-7926
Rom13a.htm 14 February 96
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