In our last sermon at church, we were talking about a particular scripture that has always been difficult for me. In Romans 13:1 it says, “Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power.”

On the one hand, the rule it was laying out seemed pretty clear.  However, when we read scripture, we see multiple instances where the faithful went against those in authority and were praised for it. We have David who defied Saul, the four Hebrew children who defied the king, Jesus tossing the temple tables, and Peter & John who refused to stop preaching the gospel even when ordered by the religious leaders.

After much discussion and thought about this verse and how it fits with other scripture in the Bible, I have concluded that I cannot follow any law or request that causes me to sin.  Everything that falls short of that, I have to have a conversation with God about what to do. Obviously, God’s answer will never be anything that contradicts the Bible.

What I found most interesting when looking at this scripture wasn’t so much the interpretation. (By the way, this isn’t the only scripture I have trouble with.) What stood out to me was how much I really wanted there to be a straightforward rule that I could apply to my life. You should do this, or you shouldn’t do this. However, I just couldn’t find it with this scripture.

This got me to thinking.  Why do I want my life to be dictated out by scripture?  The answer that I came to is that for me, and I suspect a lot of people, we would rather have a rule book than have a relationship with someone who is real and living. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t follow the Bible, because I believe we should. What I’m saying is that there is a lot of life that isn’t specifically covered in the Bible.

So if God is all powerful and infinite in wisdom, why not write the Bible in a way where we can open it up and find the specific answer to every question we have? The answer for me is that He doesn’t want us to just follow a list of rules. He wants us to come to Him with our troubles, with our problems, and with our confusions.  When we struggle through situations with Him, we begin to better understand who He is and His nature.

Being a disciple of Christ isn’t about following a certain set of rules. It is about having a relationship with Jesus. When we have a relationship with Him, of course we follow the guidance that He has laid out in the Bible, but He also wants us to come to Him and work through the situations in our life.

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
– Philippians 2:12-13

When discussing this idea with my dad, he summed it up best for me: “You can’t have a relationship with a book.”

– Written by Jeremiah

 

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