Category: Politics

A Review of Principalities Powers and Allegiances: Submission in Enemy Territory

Untangling submission to authority and allegiance to God

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A friend posted an glowing endorsement of the book, Principalities Powers and Allegiances, by Matt Mouzakis & Will Ryan, that intrigues me because the subject is a topic I have spent some time considering and writing about. The book is an exegesis of biblical passages that have posed challenges to modern Christians like myself: Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:11-17.

These passages instruct Christians to submit to earthly authorities “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13). Mouzakis and Ryan provide background and Scriptural insight that sheds some fresh light on these passages. It is not new light. In fact, it is ancient light that was likely understood by the original readers of those words, but which has been lost in the centuries since that time.

I do not have the book, but I was curious because of my own interest in the tension between faithful adherence to the Gospel and submission to governing authorities, so I asked Google Gemini for a summary of the book. More specifically, I asked for a summary of the exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 for comparison to my own exegesis. (How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did)

The exegesis of Romans 13:1-7 offered by Mouzakis and Ryan is a departure from modern reading that views government as God’s benevolent institution for all time. They argue that the passage must be read through the lens of the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and the larger narrative of sin and God’s judgment in the book of Romans.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview, in a nutshell, is that Yahweh, is the sole supreme Deity, and that the gods of the other nations are lesser, created spiritual beings (“sons of God” or elohim). It pulls from the judgment following the Tower of Babel that included the scattering of the people:

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
    when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
    according to the number of the sons of God.”

(Deut. 32:8)(ESV)

The “sons of God” are sometimes translated “sons of Israel”, but Israel was not yet a nation at that time. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) from which God formed His people were not yet born. God called Abraham out from among the nations and formed a people of God, the nation of Israel, separate and apart from the nations. Thus, Jews identified only two sets of people: the Jews and the Gentiles.

The Deuteronomy 32 worldview notes that the “sons of God” (the elohim) rebelled. They demanded the worship that belonged only to Yahweh, and they lead the nations into idolatry and violence. They are the principalities and powers that Paul speaks of who rule the “world system.” Jesus defeated those principalities and powers by his life, death, and resurrection (Colossians 2:15), broke down the dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14), and established his Church for the purpose of reclaiming the nations for the Kingdom of God.

Romans 13 needs to be read in the context of the sweep and arc of the story of God and what He is doing in space and time. Here are the key points of their specific interpretation of Romans 13:

1. The Context:

From Handing Over to Submission

The authors connect Romans 13 directly to Romans 1:21-23, where Paul describes God “handing over” (paradidomi) humanity to the consequences of their idolatry. In the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, this “handing over” included disinheriting the nations and appointing elohim (spiritual beings) to govern them.

The Problematic Authorities:

By the time of the New Testament, these spiritual beings—the principalities and powers—had fallen, becoming demonic forces that oppose God. When humanity rejects God, they are handed over to the “world” and to these spiritual powers, which are associated with the consequences of “sin and death.”

The Assertion:

The Roman government (specifically the Empire under Nero in the 1st Century) is viewed as aligned with these demonic forces. Paul’s message is that because Christians serve KING JESUS, they are no longer slaves to these demonic forces, even while living under their political rule.

2. The Nature of “The Authorities”

The Greek word used for “authorities” in Romans 13:1 is exousiai, which refers both to human governing authorities and spiritual powers (seen in Ephesians 6:12). Mouzakis and Ryan contend that Paul is deliberately using this ambiguous term to encompass the reality that earthly governments are influenced by unseen spiritual powers.

When Paul says the authorities are “instituted by God,” he does not mean God approves or blesses their actions. Rather, God established them as the temporary framework of consequences and judgment that the world is subjected to—a framework that God ultimately controls in his sovereignly.

3. The Ruler as “God’s Servant”

The authors evaluate the terms used for the governing official: leitourgos (minister/servant, v. 6) and diakonos (servant/minister, v. 4).

A Tool of Wrath:

The ruler is called both “God’s servant for good” and an “avenger who carries out God’s wrath” (v.4)(ESV). This wrath is seen not necessarily as God’s positive blessing on good governance, but as the execution of the consequences already outlined in Romans 1—the judgment of being “handed over” to a system that operates by the sword. the “good” is the carrying out of God’s purposes. The government’s function is to maintain basic civic order and punish wrongdoers, which is a necessary restraint in a fallen world, but the government itself is not necessarily acting righteously.

Consistent with this, we can find multiple times in Scripture where unjust nations are identified as servants of God. Isaiah identifies Assyria as the “the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!” even as Isaiah pronounces, Woe to the Assyrian!” (Is. 10:5-6) Jeremiah called the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, God’s servant. (Jer.25:9 & 27:6) to bring God’s judgment.

The Non-Endorsement:

The term leitourgos neutral. It refers to public servants, generally. It means a tool or agent of God, like Assyria and Babylon were to accomplish God’s purposes in exiling his people. It is not an endorsement of them as God’s representative.

4. Allegiance vs. Submission

The most crucial distinction is between submission and allegiance:

Allegiance is to Christ:

The Christian’s primary and ultimate loyalty is to Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Our allegiance (our citizenship in the kingdom of God) made the Christian community a rival kingdom to the Roman Empire. That is why Christians were viewed with suspicion and called “atheists” (because they didn’t bow to Caesar and they didn’t worship the Roman pantheon of gods). Jesus was crucified, in part, because he was perceived to claim to be the King of the Jews, though his kingdom is not of this world.

Submission is Tactical:

The command to “be subject” (hypotassō) is a call for voluntary, orderly yielding to maintain peace, prevent anarchy, and avoid creating unnecessary offense that would hinder the spread of the Gospel. Peter says to submit “for the Lord’s sake”, so that the Gospel message is not hindered. It is an act of discipleship lived out in enemy territory.

Taxes and Honor:

Paul’s only specific instruction about submitting to the governing authorities is to “pay to all what is owed them” (v.7), including taxes. He echoed Jesus in this who told us to pay unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to his disciples to pay the Temple tax. It is a call to fulfill one’s basic civic duty (giving to Caesar what bears Caesar’s image). However, the ultimate message is a remez (a subtle link or hint) to Jesus’s teaching to give yourself wholly to God because you bear His image.

In summary, for Mouzakis and Ryan, Romans 13 is not a command for blind obedience to the state, but a strategic directive for Kingdom citizens to live non-violently and orderly in a world ruled by lesser, fallen powers, while reserving ultimate worship and allegiance for King Jesus.

If you are interested in what the authors have to say about the book, this video features Dr. Matt Mouzakis discussing the process of writing the book and exploring its underlying theological themes in a conversation about writing worship music. Write Biblically Accurate Songs For The Church with Dr. Matt Mouzakis

If you want to read what I have written about the tension between submission to authority and allegiance to God, see How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? and more recently Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake Like Peter, Paul, and Jesus Did.

Did AI do a good job summarizing the book? I have added to the AI summary I obtained. Did “we” do a good job? If you have read the book, please let me know.

If this helped you, made you curious, or even if you disagree, please feel free to start a conversation in the comments.

Why I Am Speaking Out Now

Why I have not spoken out like this before

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People ask me why I didn’t speak out negatively against the Biden Administration. It’s true, I didn’t speak out (as much) against the Biden administration as I do now against the Trump administration.

To be clear, I did not vote for Joe Biden. I also did not vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. I am a lifelong conservative and I have voted Republican most of the time throughout most of my life, with few exceptions, mostly on a local level.

I would be classified as a compassionate conservative. On some scales, I come out as a “classic liberal.” I believe in the freedom of speech, individual rights, and basic constitutional protections for all people, but I am not a Democrat, and I never have been.

As a conservative, and as a human being, I have some of the same concerns that Democrats do. We just approach things differently. For the most part, I am not confident in large government. I have seen too much bureaucracy, waste, and abuse in state governments and large municipalities to have much confidence in large government.

At the same time, I recognize weaknesses in my conservative position that have become accentuated over the years. For instance, large business is not any better than large government, and could be even worse.

A problem for the political system as a whole is the amount of money that pours into the political process. It has grown exponentially over my lifetime. Money begets greed, self-interest, and corruption in ways that are not healthy for our politics.

The amount of money accessible to politicians has a strong negative effect on our political system. If you look at the data of the wealth of politicians when they begin as “public servants” and retire, the amount of wealth that politicians accumulate is staggering and indicative of a major problem in American politics. I believe that the love of money is the root of all evil, as the Bible says, and the amount of money in the political system is a corrupting influence.

But , I digress. None of that explains why I have spoken out more over the last year against the Trump administration than I did against the Biden administration. I thought the Biden administration was inept. It seemed clear that Biden was being propped up and pushed forward, but he was not controlling what was going on. The disparate interest groups in the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as a whole that push extreme agendas that much of the country is uncomfortable with were problematic. But political processes still operated. There was a strong Republican Party, albeit with its own issues.

I did speak out about the fact that Congress has become a lame duck branch of government. Over many years, beginning at least with the Clinton administration going forward, presidents have wielded more and more executive power, issuing executive orders to make sweeping changes that were never intended to be part of the power of the executive branch.

I believe one reason for that is that Congress is often unable to reach a consensus that will pass both houses of Congress. We are more polarized now than we were 50 years ago. There is no middle ground. Politicians in the middle get taken out by their own party. So we have no consensus-building block that is essential to allow Congress to adopt laws and overhaul laws like our immigration law when needed. Therefore, presidents rule by the stroke of a pen with an executive order, and that has become the norm. I have been talking about that for many years.

What we are seeing now is the fallout of those many years of allowing Congress to languish in passivity while we became accustomed to presidents creating law with the stroke of a pen. Executive orders were never intended to be the way our system operates, but it is the present reality. The Trump administration is the natural result of that failure.

Donald Trump is taking the momentum of decades of American political processes and stretching them to their inevitable conclusions, which is a king-like authority in the executive branch, where the president can do just about whatever the president wants to do with impunity, including ignoring legal precedent and law and becoming a law unto himself.

Speaking of legal precedent, our Supreme Court process, our process for appointing Supreme Court justices and lower court justices has become more and more political over the years. Things took a turn for the worse with the Bork confirmation hearings, which was an absolute political circus. I have been speaking out against that for years, because it undermines the integrity of the judicial branch of government. It was never meant to be hyper-politicized. Justices were meant to be appointed because of their judicial reputation and acumen. Judges were not meant to be political hacks or political puppets. They were meant to be truly independent, the best and the brightest.

Of course, human nature being what it is, conservative presidents would tend to appoint conservative justices, and liberal presidents would tend to appoint liberal justices. But the history of American jurisprudence shows that merit, judicial acumen, and proven judicial ability were at the top of the list of qualifications. That is no longer the case. Presidents and parties make no bones about who they want as their judicial candidates. They want people who are going to decide cases according to the party line, and that is coming home to roost now also.

Donald Trump thinks that he can tell justices how to rule and how to apply the law, or, in some cases, how to ignore the law. Donald Trump just fired hundreds of immigration judges so that he can replace them with immigration judges who will rule exactly as he wants them to.

That is not how the executive branch and judicial branch should be interacting with each other. The judicial branch is specifically meant to be a foil to the executive branch. The judicial branch is meant to stand independently so that it can be a check and balance on the other branches of government.

What we are seeing today is the complete erosion of this check and balance system that was established in our Constitution. It is completely breaking down and devolving into supreme authority in the executive branch.

I don’t blame Donald Trump for the erosion of the check and balance system in our government. It’s been happening for a long time.

I do blame him for being an opportunistic extremist. He is an opportunist who sees the reality, and he has no qualms about exploiting and taking advantage of it. He is a bad actor, in my opinion, who is driving a proverbial truck through a gaping hole in our system.

When I speak out, I am not just speaking out against the Trump administration. I am speaking out as a warning signal about where we are in the history of our country.

We are at a tipping point. Our system is caving in and collapsing. I am afraid it’s already too late, and part of the problem is that we are so focused on our partisan politics, so willing to excuse and defend our own party and our own party line that we cannot see the collapse of our system of government as it is happening in front of our eyes. 

Perhaps, more personally, I have been a lifelong conservative because I thought the Republican Party would protect the rule of law and the integrity of the Constitution. I thought the Republicans would conserve the basic freedoms we have and hold us back from a progressive erosion of the foundational components of Constitution and law.

What alarms me most about the Trump Administration is that he has taken it the other direction and is knocking down whole walls and structural elements of our Constitution to impose his will on the country. He is intentionally pushing every boundary in the direction of expansive executive power, and the Republican party won’t stand up to him.

The Trump Administration is running rough shod over due process protections, ignoring the First Amendment, and actively attempting to reinterpret and rewrite the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, among other things. These are staple protections of our freedom. Trump is undoing fundamental protections at breakneck speed and overwhelming the court system, and I see an immediate threat to the seams of our democracy that are ready to burst and break open. These actions betray every conservative nerve in my body, and that is why I am speaking out now.

Where are the conservative stalwarts standing up to him? Most conservatives are cheering or at least looking the other way as Trump and his motely crew of hacks dismantle the fabric of our law.

~~~~~~~~~~~

So, stepping down from my soapbox, let me know where I am coming unhinged. Give me some hope. Disagree me if you see it differently. I am not unable to listen to contrary voices, and (in fact) need some fresh perspective at times to balance me out. Thank you ahead of time.

Why I Write About Immigration Issues

The truth is complicated, but God’s heart is certain

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Mexican Border

I have friends who keep me honest, and I am grateful for that. They don’t always agree with me. In fact, they often disagree with me on various things, but they remain my friends, and I remain grateful for them.

Anyone who follows me on social media knows that I am virtually fixated on the issue of immigration right now. It may seem like a new thing—that all of a sudden I have become woke, liberal, or progressive. Some people who don’t know me well, I am sure, think that about me. The truth is more complicated than that.

I am a lifelong Republican and conservative by nature. I’m also a follower of Jesus, though, and I find that Jesus defies modern political categories and stereotypes. If Jesus looks to me like a Republican or Democrat, “my Jesus” probably is not the real Jesus, and my politics have likely influenced my view of Jesus.

Many people might look at my posts on immigration and feel like I have abandoned all sense of patriotism and national pride. They might think I have become a hater of the United States of America. Again, the truth is more complicated than that.

I grew up with a love for my country and a strong sense of patriotism and pride. I was educated, like most people my age, on the goodness of the United States of America, celebrating Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving this time of year with idyllic depictions of pioneers living in harmony with Native Americans as our forefathers lived out their manifest destiny in keeping with a divine mandate from our creator to form the greatest, freest country on earth.

I still believe we live in the greatest, freest country on earth, but the truth is messier and more complicated than I once believed. I am grateful for a strong sense of the goodness of the United States of America I learned as a child, and I appreciate the positives in that idealized memory of America. But it’s more complicated than that.

Humanity is nothing if not messy. We are fallen, sinful creatures. We know that, but our idyllic, comforting images die hard.

The pioneers displaced the Native Americans who were here long before us. They were pushed out of their ancestral lands. They were marched in a “trail of tears” to godforsaken territories where they have had to scrape out a meager subsistence ever since then in the literal dust of the barren, rocky places to which they were consigned.

Slavery is a pox on our idyllic history. That it was supported, promoted, and defended by Christians who sought comfort in the Bible while they exploited, oppressed, and dehumanized people for the color of their skin (and wealth they could generate) is a testament to the utter bankruptcy of human beings – even religious ones.

Let’s be honest about this, also: religious people who use their religion to justify their unjust ways are not doing anything different than non-religious people who are unjust. It’s just more insidious for the fact that they contort love of neighbor to love of self.

I have learned to be honest and not to look away from these contrary images of our history and our past. God calls for repentance, and repentance requires honesty. Repentance and heart change are the only proper response to the evil of idolatry and injustice.

Honesty does not mean I do not love my country, and it does not mean that I am not thankful for being born here. I still believe that the good we have brought into the world is not any less good. It’s just complicated, and I want us to live up to the ideals we ascribe to.

In case you could not tell, I am not an idealist, though I certainly do have idealistic tendencies. Not that I am any different than anyone else. We are complicated and complex creatures; human beings. Despite the polarized simplicity of social media that pigeon holes us into two-dimensional, stereotypical ideologues, people and societies are complex.

On the issue of immigration, my “awakening” happened more than a decade ago – in 2014. During the Obama administration, as I watched the Syrian refugee crisis unfold in the news, I realized that didn’t have a robust biblical view on the subject of immigration. I have written about this often, so please bear with me if you have read what I have written before.

Continue reading “Why I Write About Immigration Issues” →

Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake

Romans 13 is about refusing to become what oppresses you, not about endorsing whatever a governing authority does.

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Bas-relief portraying the emperor Nero at the Certosa di Pavia

One of the most discussed texts in early Christian ethics is 1 Peter 2:13–17, because it calls believers to “submit… to every human institution” and to “honor the emperor,” even in times when those institutions were hostile or unjust. Peter, who penned this admonition, ultimately lost his life to an arbitrary, capricious, and unjust Roman Emperor.

“13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.”

1 Peter 2:13–17

Paul, who lost his life to the same Roman Emporer, says similarly,

“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. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

Romans 13:1-2


These two passages speak to the way Christians should honor and submit to earthly authorities. They have posed challenges to Christians from the time there were written. In Peter’s and Paul’s time, Nero was the Roman Emperor. Nero was a brutal, harsh, paranoid ruler who had his own wife and children killed to protect himself and to advance his own ends. Peter and Paul were both martyred by his decree.

The great American story is a far cry from the brutality and caprice of Roman history, but we have lived through our own unjust laws, including laws that protected the institution of slavery and the laws that perpetuated Jim Crow after slavery was finally prohibited. In more recent times, American have laws protected the practice of abortion, and we could find other examples of unjust laws and laws that protect unjust practices if we dig deeper.

I doubt I am exaggerating to say that no nation governed by men has ever been perfectly just, and I doubt no nation of men will ever be perfectly just. How then should Christians in any age govern themselves in light of Peter’s and Paul’s admonitions to honor and submit to governing authorities, including unjust ones?

I previously tried to parse these tensions when I published How Should the Church Act Regarding Authority? the day after January 6th, when supporters of Donald Trump, including many people flying banners of Christian faith, stormed the Capitol building in response to what they thought were unjust election results. At that time, I was critiquing the “insurrection” against the election and inauguration of President Biden. Even if the election results were unjust, shouldn’t Christian have submitted to them?

Now, I find myself critiquing the Trump Administration’s unjust enforcement of immigration laws. Some of the people who defended Trump’s complicity with the January 6th insurrection are now defending the current immigration enforcement practices based on the biblical mandate to honor and submit to authority. It seems to be a tangled mess!

We should obviously be consistent, and not selective, about the law and order we submit to, but how we should live that out in the face of injustice may not seem crystal clear. It’s important, though, that we do the work to rightly divide the Word of God

Continue reading “Submitting to Authority For the Lord’s Sake” →

Is the American Church a House Divided Against Itself?

Whether God for us or against us is the wrong question.

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I have yet to find my equilibrium after the Charlie Kirk killing. I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I didn’t follow him. I heard him speak one time at an event in which Ravi Zacharias was the keynote speaker, but I never watched, or listened, or read anything from Charlie Kirk online. I didn’t agree with his Republican apologetic, though I couldn’t have identified anything Charlie Kirk specifically said before his death.

Since his death, I have heard and read testimony of his love for Jesus. His wife, Erika, publicly forgave his killer in an ultimate act of sacrificial obedience to Jesus.

Charlie Kirk’s legacy will always be that of a follower of Jesus and a staunch Republican, friend and defender of Donald Trump, who maintained political views opposed to mine.

I am a born again Christian. I believe in the death of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins and his resurrection from the dead. I believe the Bible is the word of God and His revelation to mankind. I read the Bible daily. I believe there is only one path to God, and that is through Jesus Christ. I go to church every Sunday, and I am involved in Wednesday evening and Saturday morning Bible studies.

I have been a Christian for 45 years. The fundamentals of my faith have not changed in that time, but I have gone down some side roads from which I had to retreat back to a more orthodox faith. I was tempted by the prosperity gospel, and I once embraced an Americanized Christianity verging on idolatry.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God has not changed during my life (or at any time since the foundation of the earth), but I have changed often, as I have had to adjust my thinking, confess my sin, and allow my mind to be transformed by God’s Word and the influence of the Holy Spirit in my life.

I am a work in progress, of course. I have yet to arrive at any final destination, but I look forward with yearning for the day when I see Him face to face, and I will know as I am fully known!

I used to believe that all true Christians should (and therefore must) believe all of the same things about everything. That makes sense in a rationalistic way because we all have the same Holy Spirit, and we all read the same Bible, so we all should believe exactly the same things about everything. Right?

Continue reading “Is the American Church a House Divided Against Itself?” →