Ecclesiastes 8:1-9
Keep the king’s command… (v. 2) Today we get some very practical advice from the Preacher: Be a good citizen, keep your head down, don’t offend the authorities, and hope for the best. As usual, the Preacher’s advice is firmly rooted in reality — specifically the reality that crossing the most powerful person around can be more than a little dangerous; it can be deadly.
Saint Paul gives us much the same advice:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Romans 13:1-7
And so does Saint Peter:
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. … Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
I Peter 2:13,14,17
We all nod our heads in agreement (because this is Scripture, after all) until our own interests or opinions clash with those governing authorities. Then our hackles go up and we immediately point to Acts 4 where Peter and John defy the Sanhedrin and continue preaching Christ despite being ordered not to. And we ask, “What about Hitler? What about Stalin?” These are, in the large, good questions that reveal that we are not obliged to blindly obey orders that contradict God’s law. But I think that we in modern Western democracies are far too quick to believe that our opinions equate to God’s, and so we rationalize disregarding these admonitions to be subject to governing authorities. Perhaps a bit more humility and a good deal more fear of the Lord would be in order.
Such good scriptures for us to ponder in the current political climate. Seeing them as servants of God does not mean they are holy or their decisions are always right. Yet God has put them there and for His purposes, and according to scriptures even Hitler and Putin. Gives me great pause as to how to pray.
I notice the Preacher in Ecc. 8:6 repeats a theme from Ecc. 3, “There is a time for everything.” I don’t know what significance this is, if any, but I noticed the repeating theme. Thoughts??
Great observation, Bruce. I can’t say with any confidence that I know the significance, but my sense is that the Preacher is advising us (both here and in chapter 3) to “hang loose” and to not get too bent out of shape if things do not appear to be going the way we want. Just wait awhile and the weather (so to speak) will change — but not because we took control and forced the change. Of course, I may well be missing the mark here. Anyone else want to chime in?
I’m running late, please forgive me. If you don’t already know, Carol and I are on a week away; we are so busy resting and relaxing that I’m having a hard time finding time to post! But as to Ecc. 8:1-9… First with the reading, then with John’s comments I could not help calling to mind the November 2020 election and the January 6 “insurrection”. It wasn’t the same as the authoritarian king in today’s reading, but that assault on our Capitol was a major challenge to our democratic norms. No doubt there are thousands (millions?) of our fellow citizens who believe that the 2020 election was “fixed” and felt justified in rebelling against what they felt was an unjust outcome. Frankly, my mind goes to Absalom’s attempt to wrest the kingdom away from his father, David (II Samuel 15-19). Absalom was challenging the existing structure; his efforts and those of his followers came to a tragic end. Thankfully, today, politics may be “as usual”, but outcomes are considerably more constrained!
I agree with you, and I think Absalom’s rebellion is a good Biblical illustration to bear in mind. The problem I have, though, is in raising the specter of January 6 without calling out the other side, as though only people on the right are guilty of not submitting to authority, while people on the left are perfect citizens. But that is just simply not true, though the news media does everything it can to make it seem that way, calling January 6 an “insurrection” (which if true would mean that it was the most poorly planned and executed insurrection in history), but calling the much more violent and widespread riots that raged all summer long in 2020 “mostly peaceful protests”. Meanwhile the Justice Department (properly) prosecutes those engaged in violence on January 6, but where are the prosecutions for the summer rioters? We are bombarded with the message that everyone on the right is a thug and a fascist (which is wildly false), but that violence from the left is fully justified and acceptable. We should indeed all be submitting to proper government authority, and that authority should be applied equally, but it isn’t.