2019-03-17T11:00:00-05:00
13:1 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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 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, 4 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. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 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.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. http://www.esv.org
I was once in a discipleship community led by an older man in our church, and one morning a friend of mine asked, “If you could stereotype our generation, what would you say?” He replied, “Your generation makes statements; you don’t ask questions.” Statements reveal what we think we know, but honest questions force us to admit that we might not know what we think. His comment revealed that my default setting in life is to think that I am right. Perhaps the things that we view as normal yet never question are the very things that should be questioned. This story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal centers on such a question: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?”
Instead of trusting in the Lord, the people of Israel had conflated worship of the one, true God with the gods of their surrounding societies. Baal was believed to be a god that controlled the rains that were quite literally the lifeblood of an agrarian society. This was in direct contradiction to the grace of Israel’s God: “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit” (Leviticus 26:3-4). Elijah confronts the people of God with a choice: “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (v 21). The question is not if we will follow a god, but what god will we follow?
As creatures made to worship, we cannot not worship. From a street-level view, worship is whatever consumes our thoughts, controls our emotions, and directs our day-to-day actions. Ancient cultures may have carved their gods in wood and stone, but gods formed with professional degrees and bank accounts are no less idols. If Israel’s implication in idolatry was directly connected with their agricultural economy, how might Elijah’s question challenge our knowledge economy highly dependant on consumer capital? An idol can be any good thing that we trust in for a sense of significance or security. They offer us control but end up controlling us.
Make professional success your god, and you will never achieve enough. Make status and appearance your god, you will hide your insecurity behind clothes and cars. Make money your god, and you will be anxious of losing it and ever striving to make more. Make children or grandchildren your god, and you will be controlled by their happiness. Make religious performance your god, and there will be an abiding anxiety that you are not good enough. Every day is a choice: “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal [insert success, relationships, money], then follow him” (v 21). God’s response to Elijah’s petition makes it clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that there are no other gods.
The one, true God encounters us in Jesus with a different question: “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). This is the God who did for us what we never could do for ourselves through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In receiving God’s grace, our lives now have an answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69).