Secular Government - The view from the Bible

It is the Christian's duty to influence government, even if only with prayer. When we want to encourage government in a certain direction, we must first ask the questions: "What is government?" and "What are its taskings?". Until we have answered these, we will be tossed to and fro upon the waves of media hype and election posturing.

Romans chapter 13 has few verses on the topic, but true to biblical style, there is very much wisdom to be found. Even the person with a preconceived anti-biblical slant must acknowledge and respect the clarity and simplicity of the Apostle Paul's viewpoint. Romans 13 serves as the theory of secular government.

Especially in the books of Kings I & II and Chronicles I & II, but also in stories scattered throughout the Bible, we venture into the history of government action as recorded in the Bible. Here, we find that there is truly nothing new under the sun. What has been done before, will be done again.

Fraud, deceit, just and unjust war, coup d'état, murder, intrigue, vying for power, abuse of power to gain wealth and even socialism are all there for study.

Government according to Romans chapter thirteen
An analysis of verses dealing with Taxes
Judas and the Money Bag
The Joseph Plan - and the Road to Serfdom

More PDF documents handling various historical accounts found in the Bible to successively follow.

The interaction of secular government in society

The Apostle Paul made the blanket statement that government holds the power of violence. In God's eyes, the violence is to be used against evil-doers. The Devil, according to his nature, wants the government to punish good-doers and reward evil-doers. Violence in itself is not evil. The question is whether the violence is used to punish wrong-doers, or good-doers.

In these writings the reader will often find the phrase aggressive violence, and defensive violence. Aggressive violence is to be understood as violence employed to enforce an exchange of wealth, i.e. to steal. Alternatively, defensive violence is made use of to defend against aggressive violence. There is then no defensive violence without aggressive violence, and aggressive violence always strikes first.

So government policy can be viewed as being either aggressively, or defensively violent. This is the deciding factor when labeling a policy as good, or bad.

A Mathematical Analysis of the Central Bank Regime
The Mechanics of Union Labor Law
The Tariff as a means of protecting National Industry

More PDF analyses of typical government policies like Social Security, Environmentalism, Taxation, Medical Care, Education Systems and such are to successively follow.

Return to the His Kingdom website.