“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.” (1 Peter 2:13-15) Submission. The Oxford dictionary’s definition says, “the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” Other words similar in nature are agreement, acceptance, compliance, consent, and accession. But we are such stubborn people, and we get our back up like a cat’s when someone tells us what to do. We often even try to do the opposite of that. Is that always really the wisest thing to do?
“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men.” (1 Peter 2:13-15) Submission. The Oxford dictionary’s definition says, “the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” Other words similar in nature are agreement, acceptance, compliance, consent, and accession. But we are such stubborn people, and we get our back up like a cat’s when someone tells us what to do. We often even try to do the opposite of that. Is that always really the wisest thing to do?
Consider for a moment: Would you step out in the middle of a busy street? How about putting your hand into a raging fire? There are few of us, I’m sure, who might jump headlong into a snake pit. Why? Because we were told not to and obeyed - it just made good sense. Surely we’ve all taken risks we probably shouldn’t have because we were deliberately disobeying warnings. Praise God He was with us during our times of stupidity.
Traffic signals and warning signs are there for a reason, and we should certainly pay attention to them. I recently saw a short clip of a grown woman putting her entire hand into one of the Yellowstone hot springs, despite all the warning signs placed strategically nearby. She learned very quickly why she should have obeyed those signs. There are dozens of people injured or even killed each year when they try to approach the wildlife there, yet large signs are set up everywhere not to do that very thing. To say that humans are at the top of the food chain is often questionable. Submission has a clear purpose and proof in these cases.
We don’t have to like submitting to authority, although it’s most likely smarter to do so, but Peter tells us to do it for the Lord’s sake. We are presenting to the world the image of Christ. Except for His righteous anger with the peddlers in the temple, Jesus was the meekest of lambs. He used His wit and His wisdom when needed to overcome any authority. He wasn’t staging sit-ins or organizing riots. We must become more like Him. For instance, if there are laws we don’t agree with, there are avenues allowed to us in order to make changes. We must, like Jesus, use our wit and wisdom, granted us through our prayer and devotion to the One who makes everything possible.
