Two Passports

Word Unpacked: Devotionals in Romans

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Romans 13:1-7 (NIV)

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Turn out your wallet. Most of us carry exactly one passport. The believers in Rome carried two, and it put them in a real bind: which law comes first, whose rules do we actually answer to, when heaven and earth seem to want different things from us?

Paul's opening line here looks like a simple command to obey the government. But it isn't a new topic at all. In the earliest manuscripts, there were no chapter breaks — this line continues a sentence he'd started one breath earlier: overcome evil with good. Whatever Rome required of its citizens, the call underneath it never changed.

It would be easy to assume that citizens of heaven don't owe anything to earth's laws — that a higher court settles the question for us. Paul never says that. What he describes instead is almost the opposite: two citizenships, two sets of obligations, both carried fully, at the same time. Not one traded for the other.

Jesus faced this exact question once, when tax collectors came asking whether he paid the temple tax. He agreed, in front of Peter, that he technically didn't have to — the logic was on his side. And then he told Peter to go pay it anyway. Not because he owed it. That's the turn. But...