Submit to the Authorities? What 1 Peter 2:13-17 Claims About Political Power

The Problem with Romans 13

Romans 13:1-7 is one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. For starters, there is a long and convoluted interpretive history of not only this single, isolated teaching in Romans but of Paul’s letter as a whole. In my judgment, Romans is by far the most contentious book in the Bible, including the mysterious (but often simply ignored) Revelation of John. There are many reasons for this; the text that ripped the Roman Catholic Church apart in the 16th century was Romans 1:16-17, the stone which the builders rejected that became the chief cornerstone of Martin Luther’s reformation project. The answers to Christianity’s great dogmatic debates about sin and salvation are (thought to be, at least) found in the letter to the Imperial capital. Every serious theologian and Biblical scholar has had to give an account of Romans, and no one, literally no one, completely agrees with other interpreters on various aspects of the Pauline text.

The passage in question, Romans 13:1-7, also has a torturous reception history. Throughout Western history, this passage has been appropriated to support nearly every political program, justify every policy decision, and legitimize every regime. Rarely have interpreters tried to grapple with the historical, cultural, and rhetorical nuances of Romans 13 that might shed light on both what Paul intended to communicate to his audience and how the recipients of his letter would have understood it. I am universally dissatisfied with every interpretation of Romans 13, including my own.

This leads us to the disturbing but accurate reality that no one really takes Paul’s statements in Romans 13 at face value, even if they take his statement seriously. You might say that history disproves this; “Okay, libertarian,” the skeptical reader may ask, “just because it is a problem for your political philosophy doesn’t mean it’s a problem for mine.” Except it is. Christians love to quote Romans 13 when those with whom they agree are in power. Progressive Christians use this passage to justify massive, redistributive welfare states. But what happens when Republicans win elections? #RESIST! Conservative Christians use this passage to justify drug and immigration enforcement. But what happens when blue-state legislatures pass gun-restriction laws? #SHALLNOTBEINFRINGED! And, despite what NPR might try to tell us (they did claim Saddam had WMD’s, after all), we would be hard pressed to find anyone on the mainstream left or right in the United States today arguing that Paul would have happily encouraged Christians to submit to Adolf Hitler. There are limits to Romans 13, and we all know it.

The ‘Romans 13’ of the Catholic Epistles

Whenever I hear someone cite Romans 13:1-17, I groan. Here we go again. But it is not for any of the reasons I have outlined above. Why the disdain for the most infamous political passage in the whole of the Christian canon? Because it unfairly receives all of the attention. Hidden in the New Testament between Hebrews and Revelation, there are a small number of letters (seven, to be exact) known as the ‘Catholic Epistles’ (the word catholic here meaning ‘universal’) that are often entirely overlooked by the average reader of scripture. Much like viewing a full moon on a crystal-clear summer’s night makes one forget that the unseen half of the moon is shrouded in darkness, the radiance of the Gospels, Acts, and Paul overshadow these seven small but significant letters. Contained in the first letter of the apostle Peter (henceforth called by its traditional title ‘1st Peter’) is a passage on the church and political authorities that not only rivals the infamous Romans 13, but might, when understood in its historical context, shed much-needed contextual light on Paul’s perplexing rhetoric. The moon, after all, spins on its axis; the so-called ‘dark side’ of this celestial body is but a matter of perspective. So goes the Catholic Epistles. Let’s forget for a few minutes about one of my least favorite passages in the New Testament, Romans 13:1-7, and focus instead on a neglected and often overlooked statement by Peter that deserves much more attention.

I quote 1 Peter 2:13-17:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king.” (NASB-U)

Sound familiar? There is a reason that some scholars have referred to this passage as the ‘Romans 13 of the Catholic Epistles’. It seems like this would be yet another insurmountable theological problem for limited-government types like myself. Check, and mate. The problem with all political theologies built around passages like this, however, is that they begin with a set of deeply flawed assumptions about what the Bible is and how it deserves to be read. In order to understand this particular passage in 1 Peter, we need to reframe our interpretive presuppositions.

Reading Scripture Responsibly

The art of Biblical interpretation is called hermeneutics, a term which denotes critically (as in critically thinking, a lost art in the contemporary western world) interpreting the library of texts found within the Christian scriptures. One of the first and most important insights of academic Biblical hermeneutics is just that: the Bible is not one book, but rather a collection of books, written by different authors, to different audiences, in different social and historical contexts, using different genres and literary styles, over a period of hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of years. Every single literary work included in the Christian canon needs to be understood as an independent textual unit. A letter like 1 Peter, for instance, absolutely cannot be interpreted in the same way as a poetic text like Psalms, a prophetic work like Jeremiah, or a narrative like Acts. There are different rules of interpretation for each of these documents in the same way that modern readers understand intuitively how novels are meant to be read differently than articles in academic journals.

Given this reality, there are two main contexts in which every work must be interpreted.

The first context is straightforward: every text is a product of history, and therefore must be interpreted within its historical context. Some fundamentalists balk at this point. God’s word, they would say, must be perspicuous and therefore clearly understood by anyone who reads it. No need for historical background information. This hermeneutical assertion deconstructs itself. 1 Peter begins as follows “To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” Notice that Peter, author of this inspired, authoritative text, did not address it to modern American fundamentalists. If you believe in the authority and inspiration of all Scripture, then 1 Peter 1:1 states an obvious truth: it was written to people that were different from us. The ancients had a completely different way of understanding the world, and many of the political and economic categories that we take for granted today would have been entirely foreign to Peter’s original audience. Just because we think our modern political questions are important doesn’t mean that the original audience did. Statements that sound similar to modern ideas and concepts almost always have a different historical meaning than the ones we attribute to them today. In order to understand what the writers of the Bible are attempting to communicate, we must try to inhabit the world of antiquity.

The second, which is also stunningly ignored by many readers of the Bible, is the rhetorical (or in the case of a narrative like the Gospels, the narratival) context of a given work. The western tradition since at least the middle ages has treated the Bible as if every verse was an independent puzzle piece that needed to be attached to other independent puzzle pieces to create a systematic whole. This enterprise is entirely wrongheaded. Every work in the Bible is an independent literary unit, and is designed to be read as such. When Peter writes his letter to the churches in Asia minor, he has a particular set of goals in mind and begins establishing themes and concepts that will run throughout the duration of the letter. Just as a modern reader understands that any given passage in a novel contributes to the plot development of the whole, the writers of Scripture also intended their works to be read (or heard) from start to finish (considering the extremely low literacy rates of antiquity, the majority of early Christians would have had these works read to them in a group setting, which also has a major yet often overlooked interpretive impact on the way these works were constructed). Reading a controversial passage like 1 Peter 2:13-17 without trying to understand how it contributes to Peter’s overall agenda and how it is related to every other part of the letter ensures that the interpreter will without a doubt misread the text. We can’t rip a handful of passages out of various texts that are included in the Bible and read them together without first trying to understand how they were designed to function within the larger context of the original work in which they were included.

With both of these larger methodological points in mind, it should become immediately obvious why I didn’t simply rush to attempt to explain this controversial political passage from the outset. If we truly believe in and respect the authority and reliability of Scripture, then we need to be extremely cautious that we don’t misrepresent what the original authors were attempting to communicate. Laying out my problems with anachronistic readings of Romans 13 (which are all fully applicable to 1 Peter 2) and then the larger historical and rhetorical context in which these passages are situated allows us to see why we must carefully and thoughtfully examine these texts before rushing to apply them to our contemporary political context. As history would have it, Peter’s commentary on submitting to authorities is much more nuanced and complex than we have been led to believe.

Somebody Actually Had to Write the Letter…

A husband picks up his wife’s phone to find a text message written to her by another man. The text says, simply, “I love you and I can’t wait to see you next weekend”. But the husband isn’t concerned. Why? Because he knows that the text message is from her father and that they will be traveling to spend a few nights with them over the holidays, which, coincidentally, is next weekend. Authorship matters. In fact, the primary determining factor in discerning the meaning of a text is the intention of the author. Who created the document, and what did they intend to communicate? Twice in 1 Peter does the author identify himself. In 1:1, Peter states that he is the author, and in 5:1 he refers to himself as a ‘fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ’. Why should his audience take Peter seriously? Because he was one of Jesus’s most trusted disciples. He was with Jesus during his life, his ministry, his death (well, kind of), his resurrection, and his ascension. Peter can be trusted because he was an eyewitness to the person about which he is testifying. This means, therefore, that we can be confident that the perspective Peter takes in this letter is informed by his close proximity to Jesus. Despite Peter’s many shortcomings (which were on full display in the Gospels and, more painfully for Peter, Galatians), we know that he is the one to whom Jesus made the promise that “on this rock I will build my Church” (Matthew 16:18). We can not only trust what Peter says, but we are obligated to take it seriously.

This does, however, cut against the broad consensus of modern Biblical scholarship. The assumption that has been made by the majority of New Testament scholars is that Peter couldn’t have written this letter. Wasn’t he just an illiterate fisherman from the ancient equivalent of the hills of Appalachia? Didn’t plenty of writers in antiquity forge letters to legitimize their own arguments? It is safe to say that modern Biblical scholarship was born as a child of Enlightenment skepticism, and as the discipline developed over the course of the 19th century the biases against ‘religion’ (against which ‘science’, whatever that term might mean, became the only path to knowledge) which had political roots in the battle against establishment churches in Europe were embraced whole-heartedly by historians and theologians. Oftentimes, however, this thoroughgoing skepticism has resulted in historical theories about the development of the New Testament that are almost entirely devoid of actual evidence, which was, ironically, supposed to be a hallmark of the Enlightenment. Besides the internal attestation we reviewed above, a historian of the early church named Eusebius, writing in the early 4th century, comments on the authorship of 1st Peter: “As to the writings of Peter, one of his epistles called the first is acknowledged as genuine. This was anciently used by the ancient fathers in their writings as an undoubted work of the apostles” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical Histories, 3:3:1). The ancients seemed to think that 1 Peter is genuine, and I am inclined to agree.

There is another piece of internal evidence that sheds light on both the author and the occasion of the letter. Peter acknowledges that he himself did not actually pen the letter in 1 Peter 5:12: “Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly”. So yes, skeptics, Peter didn’t technically write the letter. But he did have it written for him. How can an illiterate fisherman compose a work like 1st Peter? By using a secretary. New Testament scholar Benjamin Laird describes this phenomenon beautifully:

“As the content and features of ancient writings are examined, it becomes increasingly apparent that writing in the Greco-Roman world often involved significant collaboration between an author and a number of individuals, each of who served a specific role during the compositional process…for many individuals living during the first century, the composition of a personal letter, business or legal document, or virtually any time of literary work involved direct collaboration with a trained secretary…in addition to maintaining the necessary writing materials, secretaries were capable of composing documents in a variety of literary genres and in a style that was typically more efficient, rhetorically effective, and pleasing to the eye.”  Creating the Canon (IVP Academic, 2023), pp. 15-16

It is completely historically plausible that Peter used Silvanus as a secretary to write this letter, and the best evidence that we have from antiquity would seem to support this theory. But who is this scribe?

According to the R.E. Nixon (no relation, I am sure, to Richard), ‘Silvanus’ is most likely the Latinized form of the semitic ‘Silas’, and we know from other New Testament documents that Silas was a leading member of the church in Jerusalem who also had prophetic gifts (Acts 15:22, 32). This Silas not only gets a shout-out in 2 Corinthians 1:19, but is also responsible for helping to craft both of Paul’s letters to Thessalonica (1 Thess. 1:1, 2 Thess 1:1). This explains the thematic similarities between those two letters (see Nixon, R.E., ‘Silas’, New Bible Dictionary (IVP, 2006), p. 1101) and allows us to draw the correct conclusion that Peter and Paul, despite Peter’s occasional setbacks, were largely in agreement. According to Acts, this Silas is an instrumental figure at the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15, where, addressing an issue that is at the heart of the New Testament and by extension 1 Peter, the church decides that gentiles (non-Jewish people) can be a part of the family of Abraham without having to follow the Jewish law (Acts 15:1-29). Not only does he participate in this debate that is foundational to the identity of the Church (faith in the messiah, and not following the Jewish law, is what defines the people of God), he is also responsible for delivering (and perhaps even writing) a letter to the law-confused church in Antioch (Acts 15:22). Silas then accompanied Paul on his second missionary journey (Acts 15:36-41) and will eventually wind up once again in the presence of Peter, where he serves as his secretary.

You may at this point be asking yourself why we have spent so much time talking about who wrote 1 Peter and why it is important that Silas is the author. What in the world does this have to do with Christians and politics?

Everything.

The Identity of the Church

Remember that the church in Acts 15 comes to the conclusion that non-Jews are not obligated to follow the law. They put their faith in Jesus, God gives them the Spirit, and they are now a part of Abraham’s family. God is not replacing or superseding the Jews, but, as Paul puts in in Romans 11, gentiles are graciously grafted into the family of God by faith (Romans 11:17-24). Peter struggles with this reality in Galatians (in an event that may have actually triggered the Jerusalem council in Acts 15) by compelling the Gentiles to live like Jews and requesting that they embrace particular aspects of the Jewish law (Galatians 2:11-15). Paul, the Jewish apostle to the gentiles, responds furiously to this, arguing that because of Jesus it is now those who have faith that are the children of Abraham, not just those following the Jewish law (Galatians 3:1-4:11; see especially 3:1-9). The identity of the Church is rooted in Jesus, the Jewish messiah who now rules over all creation. Peter will ultimately come around to Paul’s way of understanding the church and argue passionately for it at the Jerusalem council (Acts 15:7-11). The identity of the church, which is rooted in Jesus the messiah, is a central theme in 1 Peter, and has a direct and often completely overlooked impact on the way in which Christians are supposed to conceptualize the political powers that be.

So why, then, did Peter set out to write a letter to the churches scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (all of which are in modern day Turkey)? He is reminding them of their identity as members of the church and the need to be faithful witnesses to Christ in the midst of suffering. There are several places in the letter where Peter makes this intention clear (1:6, 3:13-17, 4:12-19, 5:9), but 3:13-17 is by far the most important for our purposes today. Here is what Peter says, in full:

“Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for doing what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”

Obviously the members of the churches are experiencing some sort of suffering because of their faith. This suffering is most likely not systematic; instead, it is probably due to the fact that Christians engage in practices that their pagan neighbors find strange. Peter is exhorting them to hold fast to this identity, being willing to defend their faith and maintaining a good reputation in the midst of it all. This statement doesn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, it is the climax of a long section in the letter that runs from 2:11-3:17. Notice what Peter says in 2:12: “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles [!], so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds…glorify God on the day of visitation.”

In Biblical studies, verses 2:11-12 and 3:13-17 form what is called an inclusio, or a set of passages that bracket off a particular argument or rhetorical segment of a work. Notice that the themes in 2:11-12 and 3:13-17 are the same: keep your behavior excellent in front of outsiders and don’t compromise your identity. What this means is that all of the material in between these two passages are designed to reinforce that same basic point. It is within this rhetorical device that we find the politically controversial 1 Peter 2:13-17. The careful reader will have already noticed that we have said nothing of the rest of the material in this inclusio, 2:18-3:12. Two more extremely controversial issues are included in this passage that shape how we understand Peter’s teaching on the identity of the church and political authorities, namely the relationship between slave and master and the relationship between wives and (presumably non-believing) husbands. It might help to see an outline of this section of the letter:

1. 2:11-12 | Maintain Identity, Keep Behavior Excellent Before Outsiders
   1. 2:13-17 | Christians and Governing Authorities
   2. 2:18-25 | Slaves and Masters
   3. 3:1-7 | Wives and Husbands
   4. 3:8-12 | Summary of Previous Instruction
2. 3:13-17 | Maintain Identity, Keep Behavior Excellent Before Outsiders

In order to understand how Peter’s instructions about Christians and the governing authorities works, we have to set it within the rhetorical context of both the letter as a whole and the individual passage in which it is included, where Peter also provides instruction on the relationships between slaves and masters and wives and husbands. A faithful interpretation of Peter’s statements must correspond to his overall goal of reminding his audience of their identity and encouraging them to maintain that identity despite suffering. We are now finally in a position to begin understanding how Peter conceptualized political authorities.

Family Matters

Christianity does not replace Judaism. In fact, conceptualizing those two categories as separate entities in the first century is historically anachronistic. What would become known as ‘Christianity’ emerges out of second-temple Judaism, and our ‘New Testament’ was written predominantly by Jews (with Luke-Acts being a possible exception). Therefore the theological framework within which Jews like Paul and Peter were thinking was fundamentally Jewish. To be sure, ‘Judaism’ is itself a diverse tradition in the first century, but there are some fundamental beliefs to which the vast majority of Jews subscribed, even if many of them would find different ways to articulate them. One of those central beliefs was election, the idea that God chose Abraham, promised him a family, and that his family was known after the Babylonian exile as the Jewish nation. The idea that Abraham’s family was distinct from the other nations based on God’s gracious election is fundamental to the logic of the Old Testament. Adherence to the law of Moses was what distinguished Israel from the nations surrounding them. As we have discussed already, the only real innovation in this Jewish theology of election among the early Jesus-followers was that, because of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Jewish messiah, gentiles who place their faith in him are incorporated into the family of Abraham without having to follow the Jewish law. This extended and redrew the boundary markers of Abraham’s chosen family around faith. It was in no way a repudiation of ethnic Judaism; Abraham’s family had been called to be a “blessing to the nations” (Genesis 12:3) and the prophets had foretold that when God returns to rescue Abraham’s family from their failure to be obedient that the nations will stream to the renewed Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2-4) and that the “earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). King Jesus made this happen, and the Jewish leaders of the early church would (reluctantly, in Peter’s case) acknowledge that gentiles were fully welcome into Abraham’s family as gentiles by faith in the messiah.

This is the historical and theological context in which many of the statements made by Peter in this letter must be grounded. In the first two verses, Peter refers to his audience as “aliens” and uses the language of election (“chosen”) to refer to his congregation. This is, within the context of 1st century Jewish thought, an obvious appeal to Israel language. Those that believe in Jesus are truly the people of God, and they have been chosen by God to “obey Jesus Christ.” Remember that the word “Christ” is a title which means ‘anointed one’ and is universally used by the writers of the New Testament to refer to Jesus’ messianic status. Jesus is truly, objectively the king of the world, and there are no other competitors. The prophets predicted this, and the Jewish hope for a coming king was fulfilled in Jesus. Of course the boundaries of Israel had to be redefined around the messiah; if Jesus is truly king, then his people are defined by obedience to him. Many theologians, operating within a supposedly “two-kingdoms” theology whereby Jesus is king in a “spiritual” sense but humans should exercise dominion in an ‘earthly’ sense, have completely missed what is a fundamental aspect of New Testament Christology. The reason why Peter can refer to his mixed Jew-gentile audience both as ‘chosen’ and as ‘aliens’, knowing that some of his recipients will be, like Paul, Roman citizens, is because Jesus is the real king and therefore the power and prestige of the Roman empire is relativized in Christ. On the centrality of Jesus’ messianic status to the writers of the New Testament, scholar Joshua Jipp says it best: “the messianic identity of Jesus…is not only the presupposition for, but the primary…content of, New Testament theology…Jesus’s messianic kingship is something of a root metaphor, a primary designation and driving image for making sense of NT Christology” (Jipp, Joshua, The Messianic Theology of the New Testament, p. 3). Peter believes that Jesus is king, and God’s family should understand that their identity as his chosen people makes them “aliens.”

To drive this point home even harder, Peter directly quotes Leviticus 19:2 in 1:16: “you shall be holy, for I [God] am holy.” This statement functions as a refrain in Leviticus, reminding Israel that God has given them the law so that they remain set apart and distinct from the other nations. Peter applies this election language of holiness to the church of those that believe in the Messiah, and states in verses 1:13-15 that the church needs to behave in a manner that is consistent with their identity. He even uses the word ‘obedient’ in v. 14, which clearly connects the set-apartness of the behavior of the chosen people with the idea that they are to be obedient to Jesus, who Peter believes to be the real king of the world. The first chapter of Peter functions as an introduction to the rest of his letter, and he has already made several points abundantly clear. The church has been called and set apart by God, and they are to be obedient to Jesus, the true king despite the fact that they may have to suffer for it. Peter will abandon none of these ideas as he continues to instruct his audience on how they should negotiate relationships given this complex set of realities.

It is also important to understand how Peter builds towards the chiastic instruction he provides in  2:11-3:17. He will continue to refine and expand his understanding of the church and obedience in chapter two, preparing his audience for the difficult relational advice that includes his provocative statement on submitting to the authorities. Peter continues the theme of Christian identity in 2:4-8 by articulating a claim made by Paul in both 1 Corinthians and Ephesians that the church is now the temple of God. I detect a slight echo of Genesis in verse 4, where the church is not only the temple but also the priests that minister in the temple, and Peter will cite a pair of passages from Isaiah and one from the Psalms to substantiate this claim: the church is to “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. Not only does this passage brilliantly express the high view Peter has of the church, it also demonstrates yet again that the boundaries between God’s people and the rest of the world have been redefined around Christ. This short but dense section has massive ecclesiological implications, and Peter will continue to refine his understanding of the church in the following section.

1 Peter 2:9-10 contains another brief chiasm, with Peter beginning and ending this section by applying Israel-language (“chosen race,” “holy nation,” “people of God,” “received mercy”) to his ethnically mixed audience and then stating boldly in the middle that God has called the church “so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.” God promised Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that his family would be a blessing to the nations, and this is happening through the family of Abraham, now defined by Christ and not the Law, sharing the Gospel with the nations. At the center of God’s activity in the world is his called, chosen family, just as it had always been. This observation alone should cause anyone reading Peter’s letter to rethink their commitment to earthly, secular government, but the next section of the letter, which leads directly to the “Romans 13 of the catholic epistles,” blows every facile political reading of 1 Peter to pieces. It is frustrating, but sadly predictable, that many interpreters ignore it. This passage deserves to be quoted in full. 1 Peter 2:11-12 reads as follows:

“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

The casual reader could easily skim over this passage, quickly moving on the more controversial section that follows. That would be a massive mistake. Peter makes several critical moves in this short section that must be understood in order to interpret the material proceeding it. The first has to do with the identity of the church. Peter has already referred to his audience, some of which would no doubt be Roman citizens, as “aliens” in 1:1. He repeats this again in 2:11, referring to them as “aliens and strangers.” His mixed Jew and Gentile community, comprising both Romans and non-Romans, are to understand that they have a new identity which relativizes all others. This necessarily precludes the idea that Christians have a “national identity” or that they must always be obedient to the whims of the state. Those that aren’t “in Christ” are outside the family of God. For now. Peter reminds his audience that they need to flee from lust and urges them to keep their behavior excellent among outsiders. But he uses a curious term that has massive repercussions. Peter, the Jew of Jews, who, even after a revelation from God that he should not call gentiles unclean (see Acts 10-11, as well as 15) still had a moment of crisis where he refused to eat with them (and was excoriated by Paul in Galatians; see Galatians 2:11-21), now uses the term ‘gentile’ to refer not to those who are not ethnically Jewish, but to those that are outside the church (Paul, provocatively but less surprisingly, makes the same move in Ephesians 2:17). Breathtaking. For a Jew in the first century, the boundary between Jews and gentiles was non-negotiable. It was, after all, the perception that the Jewish leaders of the early church had breached this boundary that created massive amounts of controversy (“If I still preach circumcision”, Paul asks in Galatians 5:11, “why am I still persecuted?”). This is why so many Palestinian Jews were furious with the Roman occupation. The Jews can’t be free if the Gentiles remain in the Holy Land (See Nehemiah 9:36). By reapplying the term ‘gentile’ to those outside of the church, Peter is drawing a bright red line around his audience; they are in, the rest of the world is out. But the hope, of course, is that they will be brought in. Peter understands that the church is facing pressure from the outside world, and in verse 12 he tells his audience to behave well in front of the ‘gentiles’ so that, even though they may slander the church, they will because of the good deeds of the church give glory to God when Jesus finally returns to set the record straight. The purpose of Christian behavior is to convict the world and, hopefully, turn them to the true king, Jesus. Before we even make it to 2:13-17, it is obvious to see what Peter is about to do: submitting to the authorities is an extension of Christians “keeping their behavior excellent among the gentiles” so that they may one day “glorify God.” As we will see more clearly in the following passage, Peter’s advice about government, slaves, and wives is meant to provide a pragmatic response to a world that desperately needs to hear the gospel. It does not legitimize, condone, or create a timeless theological framework within which we construct social institutions. The true people of God are those that have faith in Christ, and they behave well among those outside to testify to the glory of God. It is with that context in mind that we finally turn to 1 Peter 2:13-17.

“For the Lord’s Sake”

The passage itself is comprehensible only in terms of the context in which it is set. Remember that this section is the first in a set of three dealing with the complexities of Christian involvement in ancient institutions. Peter has already established that his audience are the true people of God, exiles who find their identity only in Christ and are called to set an example for the rest of the world. It should not surprise us when Peter begins this section with a statement that is unfortunately too frequently glossed over. “Submit yourselves,” says Peter, “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13). Why do Christians submit? Because the institutions which he is about to describe are eternally valid and reflect God’s intention for creation? No. Christians submit “for the Lord’s sake.” This is in keeping with what Peter said only words before, that Christians ought to keep their behavior excellent among the gentiles so that they will see their good deeds and glorify God. When Peter says “submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors,” he is simply referring to the church’s missional responsibility to set an example to outsiders. In verse 15 Peter will claim that by submitting to the authorities the church will “silence the ignorance of foolish men,” quite possibly the same ‘foolish men’ are are “distressing the church with various trials” in 1:6 and “slandering [the church] as evildoers” in 2:12. The church is suffering, and by demonstrating that they are willing to submit to the proper authorities it might silence the claim that the church is somehow engaged in illicit activities. For Peter, and I would say this applies to Paul as well, the authorities exist and the church needs to be pragmatic in how they relate to them. Does this mean that the authorities are eternal and will exist forever? Read the book of Revelation. Does this mean that Christ shares his messianic, kingly, ascended, and exalted status with human leaders. Of course not. The early followers of Jesus were great at doing something many American Christians struggle with: living in the real world. Peter understands that Jesus is the true king but that the authorities still exercise actual power over human beings. The church must find a pragmatic way to live in the tension between the Christological vision of the enthroned Christ and the present reality of the old creation that has yet to fade away. We submit when we can “for the Lord’s sake,” not for the sake of the authorities, so that, in the end, God will be glorified when Jesus, the true king returns. If you doubt me, try reading Revelation 17-22.

Another important qualifier has to do with the nature of the authorities to whom Peter refers. Here is what he says about the authorities to which the Christians submit (for the Lord’s sake, of course): “whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.” One of the problems that I alluded to in the introduction regarding the modern interpretation of ancient political texts is that we simply assume that the ancients had more or less the same categories of thought for understanding governing authorities. This is a massive historical mistake. The Enlightenment, for better and for worse, completely reshaped the way modern westerners think about the nature of government and politics, and I have yet to find a modern Christian theological interpretation of these political passages in the New Testament that doesn’t to at least a certain degree import our modern assumptions about political power into these ancient documents. We think about the Roman empire as if it was a modern, technocratic state. It absolutely wasn’t.

In fact, the ancient Romans had a fairly decentralized political system. In a time before phones, email, cars, or airplanes, it would have been impossible for a small number of politicians in Rome to micromanage the entire Mediterranean basin. The general system of imperial management in the ancient and medieval world often relied on local leaders in conquered or annexed territory to perform the day-to-day operations of local governance. As long as the taxes got paid and the peace was kept, the imperial authorities were satisfied. The Roman empire was no different. Notice that Peter (and Paul in Romans 13, for that matter), is not telling his audience to submit to Caesar. The likelihood that any of his audience, located in Asia Minor far away from the imperial capital, would ever come into contact with a Roman emperor (or even a senator) was far-fetched. Instead, they would be governed by local client-kings or governors who, as long as a territory remained at peace, would often rule by the standards of the region’s cultural customs. ‘Roman rule’ was often only a matter of who received the taxes and certain laws that must be followed, and with the exception of the imperium (the right to sentence a man to death) the Romans ruled with a light touch. It was up to the local ‘kings and authorities’ to maintain peace. Once we understand that this system is in many ways completely different from modern western political ones, the logic of Peter’s statements make more sense.

Peter also says in verse 14 that the authorities exist “for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right”. There are very few people in the western world, especially in libertarian or classical-liberal circles, who would subscribe to this political theory. We are all essentially Lockeans: if government must exist, it should only protect natural rights. The idea that government would punish people for morally repugnant behavior that doesn’t directly impact another person’s natural rights is anathema to people like us. So what does Peter mean here? It is important to note that, in Romans 13, Paul uses this exact same terminology to explain why his audience should be in subjection to the authorities. New Testament scholar Najeeb Haddad, who provocatively (and convincingly, I might add) has been very critical of the anti-imperial reading of Paul in his published works, explains that ‘punishing evil and praising good’ was the prevailing political theory that justified political authority in antiquity. Haddad comments on this language in 1 Peter, in a passage that deserves to be quoted at length:

“Peter relies upon a general theory of government whose purpose is to reward good conduct and promote public morality. This general theory was widely held and can be located among several authors. In Aristotle’s Politica, for example, he provides a detailed description of this theory. He suggests that the polis exists for the good life and that justice is expressed by judicial procedure, in regulating what is right and wrong. In his Legatio ad Gaium, Philo of Alexandria not only affirms this theory of government but states that “no law can be complete unless it includes two provisions – honors for things good and punishments for things evil…for penalties are good for the morals of the multitude, who fear to suffer the like…When Paul [and by extension Peter] says that “rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad” (Rom 13:3a), he is only affirming a positive theory of civil authority that ancient society already subscribed to” (Haddad, Najeeb, Paul, Politics, and New Creation , p. 67).

Peter is, then, simply appealing to the prevailing political theory of the day: authorities promote good and punish bad. If Christians acknowledge this reality and willingly submit to the authorities for the Lord’s sake, they should have nothing to fear. In fact, Peter is so confident in the upright conduct of his audience that he can state in 2:15 how this submission “is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men”. The Church is to keep their behavior excellent among the gentiles (we haven’t forgotten 2:12!) and by doing so they will obviously appear to the authorities as those who do good, worthy, perhaps, of their praise. This, of course, will ultimately reveal to the authorities that Jesus is king, and it will also silence those who are causing trouble for the church, possibly accusing them of immoral behavior. Peter then goes on in 2:15-16, using language that is reminiscent of Paul in Galatians (5:1, 13), that his audience should “act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king”. Yes, his audience is free, but as a matter of pure political pragmatics they should submit to the authorities, who exist to punish bad and praise good. That, dear reader, is exactly what Peter is doing in this passage. This is not a legitimation of any and every government, ruler, or political policy. Peter is laying out a principle that we must apply in our modern world: regardless of the political situation in which we happen to find ourselves, we should try our best to set an example to the authorities by the way we live.

How we work that principle out in our modern “democratic” (shoot those quotation marks with a chaser of irony) political systems where the state has the technological means to wipe out the entire human species at the push of a button requires us to creatively reflect on what it might mean in this time to submit for the Lord’s sake to our authorities. I suspect that the answer to this question depends on the political context of every Christian; what it means to be a Christian in China looks much different than being a Christian in Iran or the United States or Nigeria, and the church must do its best to faithfully witness to the world around it. This passage doesn’t teach libertarianism, to be sure, but it also doesn’t legitimize every decision made by the political authorities. That should be abundantly obvious at this point in our study. This is not the end of the matter, either. Remember that this exhortation to submit to the authorities is a part of a larger section that runs from 2:11-3:17 which also includes instructions regarding the institution of slavery and marriage. As we will see, these only make the case I have presented above more compelling.

Slaves, Submit to Your Masters

For the progressive or conservative Christian who is inclined to argue that the Bible tells us to always submit to the government because Peter clearly says so, please ask them if slaves should always submit to their masters. Very, very few people in the modern western world (despite what the politically motivated identity politics warriors on state-sponsored NPR might tell you) would support the institution of slavery, and, if a friend or family member found themselves as a slave, they would do whatever it took to emancipate them. Yet as soon as Peter is done encouraging his audience to ‘submit to the authorities’, he tells slaves to “be submissive to your masters in all respect, not only to those who are good and gentile, but also to those who are unreasonable” (1 Peter 2:18). So does this mean that Peter would have opposed the abolition movement in America’s antebellum South? Of course not. In fact, the abolition movement was only possible in a world shaped by Christian values. Slavery was a ubiquitous institution throughout antiquity. N.T. Wright makes the correct claim that slavery was as essential to the ancient economy as electricity is to the modern one (Wright, N.T., Paul and the Faithfulness of God, p. 32). It is obvious however, that the early Christians were deeply uncomfortable with the practice and believed that the social value of slavery had been relativised by the Gospel. Paul’s infamous statement in Galatians 3:28 that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” is a perfect summation of the New Testament witness to slavery. It is a part of the old creation. And yet, unfortunately, it still exists. As many New Testament scholars have argued (and as I wholeheartedly agree), while the Bible is directionally supportive of the abolition of slavery, there was simply no way that the early Christians could have overthrown the institution. Instead, Christians were called to see no difference between slave or free. All have equal standing in Christ. The Christian slave owner is to treat the Christian slave as a brother (Philemon 1:15-16).

But what happens if the Christian slave has a master who is not a Christian? They are to submit to their master for the Lord’s sake, knowing that their identity is found not in their status as a slave but as a child of the one true God. Peter acknowledges that this might mean unjust suffering: “if you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God” (2:20). Ouch. That certainly offends modern sensibilities. Peter then follows this statement up with a section (2:21-25) that is once again highly reminiscent of Paul (Philippians 2:5-11) where he tells the slaves in his audience (with an eye towards the rest of the congregation) that sometimes Christians are called to suffer unjustly because Christ did the same for us. Suffering can glorify God: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps” (2:21). Slavery is unjust, and we are all better off for having legally abolished the practice in the modern era. Peter, however, is dealing with a different reality where the church has to reveal God to the world, and for slaves this means submitting to their masters.

The parallels between this section on slavery and the preceding section on political authorities should be abundantly clear. It is completely appropriate for modern Christians to celebrate the death of institutional slavery and work towards ensuring it never returns. Any human that attempts to enslave another human should be thrown in prison. We all agree on that. What is astonishing to me is how easily modern Christians will correctly contextualize Peter’s statements on slavery and then completely decontextualize his statements on political authorities. If we understand that the realities of the ancient world sometimes required slaves to submit to masters then maybe we should also understand that the realities of the ancient world sometimes required Christians to submit to authorities. And, if Christianity by and large agrees that slavery should have been abolished, then why can’t we draw the same conclusions about political authorities? It is a question worth pondering.

Wives, Submit to Your Husbands

The final institution which Peter addresses is marriage; particularly the vexing question of how wives should relate to their husbands. There were many women in the early church who would have come to place their faith in Christ without the support of their husbands, and Peter presupposes that his audience will include many such women. Here is what he says in 3:1: “In the same way [!], you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.” Remember that Peter has just instructed slaves to be obedient to masters and then explained how if they suffer unjustly they are simply imitating Christ, who died for our sins. As I have repeatedly demonstrated, all of this is formed by 2:12, where Christians are called to keep their behavior excellent among outsiders so that God will be glorified. In a society that practiced patriarchal marriage, this advice doesn’t affirm the imbalance of the institution, as if Peter is telling women that they must always in every situation submit, but rather that, given the realities and expectations of women in marriage in the Greco-Roman world, submission to husbands would have been the most effective way of revealing God to them. It is important to understand the dynamics and expectations of marriage in antiquity. New Testament scholar Holly Carey describes how Augustus passed a series of laws surrounding marriage that were designed to strengthen the Roman empire, which include, of course, women submitting to their husbands: “such legal changes made marriage and child-bearing matters of civic responsibility, and they rewarded both male and female citizens who contributed in this way to the public good. It was believe that marriage and the creation of a family were not just personal affairs but contributed to the stability of the community” (Carey, Holly, Women Who Do, p. 29).

(Author’s note: This is an appropriate place to note that I am personally committed to the theological view of marriage called ‘egalitarianism’, where I recognize that men and women, while being biologically distinct as a creational principle, nevertheless have equal value and that Christian marriages don’t necessarily involve the man ‘leading’ the women. Again, I appeal to Paul’s relativizing of the social value of gender in Galatians 2:28 (which does not, as many progressive Christians erroneously and anachronistically claim, means that Paul affirms critical gender theory) as well as Genesis 3:16, which seems to suggest that the patriarchal structure of marriage is a result of the fall. My argument is compatible with complementarian views, so those that are inclined to disagree may freely do so without rejecting my larger argument.)

In other words, a Christian wife who was disobedient to her non-Christian husband would have been perceived as socially and politically subversive, an outcome that Peter was trying to avoid. This sociological dynamic is only further reinforced by what Peter says in 3:2-6, where he encourages women to be chaste and respectful, as well dressing modestly. He then appeals to Sarah and her obedience to Abraham. Again, Peter is appealing to a prevailing marriage custom in the Roman world. Carey explains: “Another expectation of women was that they conduct themselves modestly. This was important because a woman’s conduct was a direct reflection of her husband…in terms of dress, the virtue of modesty was less about avoiding revealing attire…and more about wearing simple clothing. Ultimately, modesty was about showing self-control rather than being self-indulgent” (Carey, p. 35). Just as Christians submit to authorities and slaves to their masters for the Lord’s sake, so that outsiders will be ashamed that they slandered Christians on judgment day, women are likewise to submit to their husbands, being examples of the model virtuous wife. The hope, if their husbands don’t have faith, is that they will be “won without a word by the behavior of their wives” (1 Peter 3:1). Husbands are likewise to “show her [their wives] honor as fellow heir[s] of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). We see, therefore, that Peter’s advice to women is part of a pragmatic approach to several complicated social and political realities that are designed to maintain the identity of the church in the face of outside afflictions and reveal God’s glory to the world. This section ends with an extended summary that runs from 3:8-3:17, further revealing the intentions of Peter’s advice about government, slavery, and marriage: “To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kind hearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:8-9) … who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed…sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you…and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:13-16). Verse 17 rounds out the section nicely: “for it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.” We have come full circle.

Taking Peter’s Advice

The point of this long and complex argument has been to demonstrate that Peter doesn’t justify the timeless and eternal power of human authorities. Peter tells his audience to submit for the Lord’s sake to the political rulers, appeals to the conventional Greco-Roman concept of good governance, and tells his audience that they should have nothing to fear if they do what is right. This is entirely consistent with his advice to slaves and women, and contributes to the overall purpose of the letter, which is to maintain the identity of the church as God’s chosen people in the midst of massive social pressure to conform. Peter is pragmatic while at the same time revealing that God will ultimately be victorious. The political authorities are a part of the old creation that is passing away, but still exercise very real power over others. Christians must find creative ways to live within this tension. As a summary, this might be an appropriate place to stop, but Peter gives us a few more powerful indicators that he does not, in fact, believe that earthly political authorities have eternal value.

Remember that he twice uses exilic language to refer to his audience as “strangers” or “exiles” (1:1, 2:11), and all throughout the letter he is constantly reminding them that they are the real, true people of God. To every Roman citizen in his audience, the message would be plain: your true citizenship is in Christ, not the Roman empire. 21st century Christians need to take the hint. Peter also operates within the incredibly high and royal Christology of the early church; to claim that his audience needs to obey Jesus the Christ (1:2) demonstrates that there is no higher allegiance. The word “Christ” itself denotes Jesus’ messianic status, with clear parallels to the Old Testament promise of a coming son of David who would rule the nations (several examples would include 2 Samuel 7, Psalm 2, Isaiah 11, and Ezekiel 34). This promise was fulfilled in Jesus, and Christians need to rearrange their political allegiances accordingly. Peter specifically mentions Christ’s glory and dominion twice: “so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (4:11), and “to Him [Christ] be dominion forever and ever. Amen” (5:11). And, to put one last nail in the coffin of implied statism, Peter refers to Rome, the city from which he is most likely writing, as “Babylon” (5:13), the paradigm of evil empires that will, according to the book of Revelation, ultimately be destroyed (see especially Revelation 18-19). Peter is under no delusions: Jesus is the Christ, and Caesar is not.

Throughout this extended study on what is a relatively short passage, the case that Peter is making should be crystal clear: Jesus is king, the church are his people, and all dominion and authority are his. We must give allegiance to him before all others. But Peter is a realist: just because Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father doesn’t mean that the earthly political authorities have been destroyed (yet). Christians must, for the Lord’s sake, sometimes submit to the authority of these leaders, and by doing so they will reveal their good character and glorify God. How we implement this principle in today’s world is the subject of another study. Suffice it to say, however, that Christians are not obligated to blindly trust the state or the political class because of Peter’s first epistle. Instead, we are called to reflect upon our own identity and the identity of Christ while revealing God’s glory to the world. Let us work towards that noble goal.

Source: https://libertarianchristians.com/2024/11/26/submit-to-the-authorities/