Like the previous section, Paul is defining our posture toward the world and the Kingdom of Man, especially in this case when the kings of the Kingdom of Man are in view. And like 12:18, it extends to what is possible (without disobeying God) and much as it depends on us. This posture is one of submission to the God-given authority to even evil leaders (see the Roman context). It may include suffering mistreatment by those leaders. Christianity is not a political anarchist movement. It does not need to control government or upend it in order for the Church to be the Church, including oppressive dictatorships. See Daniel for an OT example. The end goal is always the salvation of the lost. We can check ourselves in our disobedience by the Acts 4 passage and by checking our motives being evangelistic or otherwise.

This is probably the most troubling passage, on its face, that I could imagine being carried out to its fullest. Is that an American thing or an individual Christian thing? It's incredibly difficult to pick and choose which issues would be open to disobedience. I'm really curious to see how this turns out in our discussion. I've personally had to come to grips with this scripture to make a decision and it was incredibly gut wrenching to do.