The SC choir chaplain brought up a passage in 1 Peter at the beginning of this week regarding submission to authority. It led to interesting conversation, and I'd like to reiterate part of that conversation here. 1) It is important to remember that the early churches who passed around these letters had a very practical use for them. The early church could have easily been stomped out had the early Christians been too anti-government. True, the church was persecuted. True, the church did get into trouble with the government. However, remember that the persecution happened for short bursts of time (historically speaking) and only in isolated areas. It was by no means universal persecution. Additionally, when you look at other early Christian documents, you see more injunctions to work with the rulers. And why not? The early church needed all the support it could get, while not compromising, of course. If they were all outspoken government radicals, they would not have lasted long. 2)...
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