Luther expands the “father and mother” of the fourth commandment to also mean “other authorities.” His reasoning for this is that all human leadership flows out of the leadership and responsibility God gives to parents over their children: parents cannot teach their children everything so they hire schools and teachers to represent them in training their kids; parents cannot defend their homes and children from the threat of foreign invaders so they pay taxes to the government who cares for national defense. So for Luther, the government the citizen lives under is just as much a function of God’s authority as the parents a child lives under.

For that reason, governments must never be rebelled against or overthrown. This does not mean, though, that governments must always be obeyed. While the Christian’s vocation is citizen, his or her identity is baptized into Christ, so the Christian must always obey Jesus before any other human authority, but this must be done with the respect and honor that God’s chosen agent for each country, state, or city is due.

Hosts: Aaron Mueller and Chuck Rathert

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