Christian Dissension

Romans 13:1

Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God.


We must remember, always, to weigh everything against Scripture.

I have no doubt that speeding is a sin: nowhere does it say in Scripture that I am entitled to drive 56 in a 55, or that I have to drive 54. In this case, the authority that God has established should be submitted to because Scripture is silent on this issue.

Every four years or so, a new group of so-called American Christians use Romans 13 to protect their candidate against other groups of American Christians who are either too conservative or too liberal for the first group's taste.

However, we must remember the story of Daniel, who remained a man of God by disobeying the established authority. An authority which, according to Romans 13, God himself established. This is, to me, is a perfect argument against the idea that Romans 13 is a catch-all for governmental authority.

Our country has a long and growing history of anti-Christian actions and though I am not happy about that, I also do not see any end in sight. As long as that is the case, I think that we must continue to use Scripture as our ultimate authority.

I don't know that obeying the amoral decrees of a 'God-established' authority will ever be a good idea.

Green Bible

Well, as you can probably tell by the date on my previous post, I've been really busy. As a student at UT, I can honestly say that I have never had a harder or more challenging semester than this one; but enough excuses, on with the post.

Although, I have done little to contribute lately, I have been cruising the blogosphere and I recently ran across this over at the New York Times.

I really enjoy seeing all the new types of presentations that people use to repackage the Scriptures. I like checking out the new translations, new study systems, new paraphrases; they all interest me. But this, The Green Bible, is something completely different.

The Green Bible is printed on recycled paper, has a cotton/linen cover, and is printed using soy-based inks. The feature that really sets The Green Bible apart, however, is the fact that all the verses that reference the Earth are printed in green (like the Bibles that have Jesus' words in red).

On first glance, I think this is very cool and would definitely pick it up if I saw it at McKay's (the only place I ever buy books). But this Green Bible made me think: Is it really a good idea to set certain verses apart? Our nature as humans seems to cause us to pick a short-list of our favorite Scriptures and then cling to those 10 verses; never venturing out of our little box. Would this Bible just be one more tool to help us segregate our Scriptures?

I know that I'm over-thinking this; and the Bible-hoarding side of me really wants a Green Bible. But what do you think? Is this a great new tool to dive even deeper into God's word, or is it one more Bible to make the publisher ten more dollars and leave us all clinging to ten green scriptures?