Submission to authorities
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
It is often said that nothing is sure except death and taxes. These two certainties were known also in Paul’s day. He uses the latter, payment of taxes, to illustrate compliance to government. Paying taxes is generally viewed as an irksome civic duty. But even that becomes tolerable when viewed as being done out of respect for God’s servants who are giving “their full time to governing.” Their sole purpose, the apostle says, is the God-given task of serving and benefiting society.
Obedience to government, however, isn’t restricted just to paying taxes. Paul generalizes, “Give everyone what you owe him.” Paying our various kinds of taxes (income tax, property tax, sales tax, gas tax) is a tangible and measurable activity. But there’s an even more important activity—an intangible one—that involves not just our hands (and pocketbooks) but also, and especially, our hearts. Paul calls for not just outward and formal obedience but for the even greater tribute of a grateful and willing heart. Such a heart genuinely honors and respects the leaders and authorities who represent God in the many positions of service through which they daily serve us.
* Paul’s assumption, of course, is that the government properly represents the God from whom its assignment has come. If the civil authorities should require things that are in opposition to God’s will, then Christians will have to follow their consciences and “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).