Question for Christians?

We should cooperate with our governments until they become impossible to live with.

We are to only to obey the government when the government is under and submits to the authority of God.  Any government that refuses to submit to the authority of God is to be resisted peacefully.

Only obey government that is stopping evildoers. When the government is evildoers, we don't obey that.  I refuse to do what any government says if they are trying to hurt people.

Orthodoxy is the only true faith. Rapture = heresy; Fireball should be beheaded for spreading this heresy on Yahoo Answers (deceiving Christians into false hope). Dreams/thoughts are from 1)angels who always do good; 2)demons who never do good; or 3)you making shyt up in your head while you sleep trying to solve your problems; or from 4) your gov't using this supertechnology. Usually, dreams/thoughts are from demons. So, that explains a lot of people being in the wrong all the time. Rapture thing is from demons but you can't rule out the gov't using some super technology like Project Blue Beam to kind of introduce people to the evil flying antichrist who will ride on a donkey into the Third Temple. So, churches who closed for COVID (or had COVID measures like dipping spoon into some liquid like alcohol) are no longer Christ's but now are working for Satan promoting the new COVID religion. Last Patriarch is Patriarch Irenaios 1st. He blessed Catacomb movement. For liturgy what you need is antiminis (towel with remains of saints sewn into it); wax candles; one cup/one spoon; non-Kosher non-yeast non-barcoded non-qrcoded wine/bread. Kosher = sprinkled with blood. Yeast is grown on pig bacteria. QRcode = barcode = mark of the beast. Roman Catholics tried one cup and one spoon and got sick with Bubonic plague (no laughing matter). You must hide (within a small group of 10-15 people according to saints Gabriel Urgebadze and Seraphim of Sarov) in order to escape the unforgivable mark of the beast. No documents once you hid because documents are from Satan; burn all the documents that you can find. No electronics once you hid because antichrist's minions will track you using electronics that you got. Even old broken unplugged 1970 TV set will show the antichrist using Tesla's ether. In case you're in 'Murica and want to hide, then consider inland Alaska. Arctic Circle = Security Circle for WW3. If you manage to escape the unforgivable mark of the beast, then your direct ancestors will go to heaven (according to saint Vyacheslav Krasheninnikov). Thanks for reading this spiel. Forgive me.

The common Christian "resolution" of this "conundrum" is as follows:

- Always obey the laws (the governmental laws)

- except when doing so means that you must violate a COMMAND of God

In most modern societies

there are very rarely laws

that, in the following of them,

force a Christian to disobey a command of God.

This is a great question and the answer is equally interesting. The Bible says to 'obey every ordinance of man' but it does not say HOW we must obey. 

For example, Jesus did not 'pay taxes' in the same way prescribed by common custom. He refused to pay them out of righteous commerce or money collected for the poor. We know this because two of Caesar's goons actually came out to determine why. 

Jesus 'ended the offense,' (His words), in a very unusual way. He sent His disciples out on an inspired 'treasure hunt' to locate a lost coin, then used this coin to settle the tax debt, explaining to the disciples that 'the sons' (i.e. 'citizens'), are naturally exempt from paying taxes and that tributes should be paid by 'strangers,' (i.e. 'foreigners'), as they did when honoring king Solomon, for example, (Matthew 17:24-27).

Jesus effectively returned some of Caesar's own 'misappropriated' wealth back to him to settle the supposed claim of debt. So while He 'obeyed' Caesar, He didn't follow the expected course or custom and would not give any of 'GOD's possessions' to Caesar. He rendered unto Caesar only what was his.

Likewise, GOD gives us the liberty to 'reinterpret' HOW we obey any ordinance of men, including disobeying any law that directly contravenes the laws of Christ, since there is a superseding law that protects us called Christ's 'declaration of universal authority,' (Matthew 28:18-20).

We only assert this law when we can find no inspiration from Christ's Holy Spirit to obey the ordinances with a new 'reinterpretation' that allows us to maintain our moral and ethical codes, as Christ did with Caesar's taxation edicts.

God appointed government to keep law and order. 

If you obey the government, you do the will of God.

If the government tells you to do something contrary to what God has dictated in Scripture, then you must obey God rather than the government.

Good question.  The answer lies in reading the verses carefully, to note what they actually say, rather than what you or others think they say.

Acts 5:29 doesn't say that we should obey God rather than the government.  It says (Peter says) "we must obey God rather than MEN."

Remember that Peter was addressing the high priest and the Sanhedrin (Jewish parliament).  They had ordered the apostles not to teach in Jesus's name (verse 28), BUT THEY HAD NO RIGHT TO ISSUE SUCH AN ORDER.  Therefore, Peter and the other apostles were doing nothing legally OR morally wrong; their only offense was damaging the egos of the high priest and the other Jewish leaders (verses 17 and 33).

As for Romans 13:1-7, that passage does indeed command that Christians obey to cooperate with properly appointed, lawful authorities.  We Americans hear a lot about civil disobedience and "challenging the status quo/system," etc.  But there is nothing civil about vandalizing homes and businesses or attacking policemen.  The truth is that in OUR system we have built-in means of changing laws and remedying problems.  Those means were built-in specifically to avoid bloodshed and the kind of anarchy we witnessed throughout the nation over the last 12 months.

TRUE civil disobedience is what both Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated and practiced.  True civil disobedience is RISKY.   Many, many people, including Gandhi and Dr. King themselves, knew that they were risking their lives IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUT CHANGE THE RIGHT WAY.  They knew that by advocating change through peaceful means that they were exposing the weaknesses of those who didn't want change.  They and many others died for the changes they sought.

Then why is true civil disobedience so vastly superior to the chaos we saw here in America over the last year?   Several reasons, including the fact that those who committed crimes were not patriots, not dreamers or anything positive.  They weren't even just misguided:  they knew exactly what they were doing and that it was wrong.  They did it because they were PROFESSIONAL BULLIES, and like all bullies they love hurting others.

Another and much more important reason that genuine civil disobedience is superior to the anarchy of last year is that the changes brought about through civil disobedience WILL LAST.  India won its independence from Great Britain about 75 years ago now.  The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s resulted in laws changing throughout the nation, and opening the way for disempowered peoples to gain education, own property and to pursue their own dreams.

But while genuine civil disobedience is positive, the times when it is appropriate are rare.  No society, no nation can prosper for long when government authorities are punished for trying to uphold the law.   If those who claim to want change today REALLY wanted change, they would use the means provided in the system.  Instead they prefer to abuse the very authorities appointed to protect them from harm.

Even Jesus paid taxes. Was it God’s rule, or theirs? If a rule is contrary to God’s laws, than we must choose God above all, even above every denomination on this earth, if any of them have a teaching which is contrary to His words.

 As the Bible says: Let God be true, but every man the liar. If a person contradicts His words, or think they can abrogate His words, know that He will always keep His words, and their words do not have the power to overturn His.

 In the Bible, when the disciples of Jesus were instructed by the worldly authorities not to teach or preach in the name of Jesus, they did not obey the instructions of the worldly authorities, but they continued to teach and preach in His name, because that is what God commanded them to do.  

When it comes to obeying traffic signs, lights...etc... these rules would not be against the Spirit of Righteousness. All things with Godly discernment.  Should you slow down your car and move to the side of a road when you see an Ambulance siren behind you trying to pass by?  Even though the Bible does not tell us the answer, we should know what the Godly response would be.