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A terror to the evil

By Kimball Shinkoskey - Woods Cross | Sep 18, 2021

Christians across and country and the world grapple with Paul’s teaching, “Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.”

The earliest Christians wanted to express their hearty support for legal and humane institutions of government, and hoped that the governments of the day would fill those shoes and appreciate their sustaining support.

The problem here is that Roman government had just taken a huge turn for the worse with Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar coming to power just before the time of Jesus. The Romans now occupied the Jewish land. The absolute monarchy system of government could sweeten for Christians and Jews or sour against them in an instant, depending on which side of the bed the emperor woke up on.

In fact, the new Roman structure of government evident wherever Christians and Jews found themselves was inimical to that which both the Old Testament instituted and the teachings of Jesus hoped for. They had to work hard to make government better.

Two thousand years later, mayors, governors, and presidents are not always a “terror to evil.” They are often powder puffs to evil, and as for the good, it often seems “no good work shall go unpunished.” Their election campaigns and administrations are all too often beholden to various shades of not-so-good.

If the Christian churches consider that “the kingdom” is not just the church, but all of civil society, then it seems Christians, and all Americans, have a responsibility to participate more fully in government than they do today.

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