In Titus 3:1, Paul says to submit to the government and its officers. Be obedient. Always be ready to do what is good. That is a loaded verse right there. One that infringes on our rugged individualist spirit as Americans. It is interesting to me that Paul wrote this letter to Titus around AD 64. During this time Nero was the Emperor of Rome. This year in particular, the city of Rome caught fire and 80% of it was burned to the ground. Nero needed a scapegoat so he blamed the Christians. So he decided to eliminate them. He used some for sport, tying animal skins to their bodies and setting hungry dogs on them as people watched them being torn apart by the bloodthirsty animals. Others he decided to put on crosses and light on fire. In the evenings, he would use them as lights for his garden. Paul was beheaded a few years after the fire. So all this to say, it always amazes me that Paul tells us to submit to the government when he was living under such tyranny and evil leadership. The reality is though, when we honor The Lord by obedience, he blesses us. Even if we disagree, we submit. See Romans 13 for more on this. It is hard right now in the USA. But when we compare where we are to what Paul was saying and thinking about who he was living under, we can swiftly realize that we can choose to pray for our leaders because we really don’t have it so bad. Just a thought.
The submit part is just the first part of the verse. Paul goes on to say that we should be obedient. When I was younger, I learned that obedience is doing what I am told to do, when I am told to do it with a right attitude. Seem might consider that simplistic, but really, isn’t that what God is asking of us? Obedience is based on love and trust. If I trust God and am confident in His love, why should obeying Him cause fear in me? Where love is, fear cannot be. Perfect love casts out fear! Secondly, Paul says that we should always be ready to do what is good. This means we need to live in such a way that doing good just flows out of who we are. So that our natural reaction, our tendency, is just to do good works. I think that is a positional decision we make in our spirit man. Because our mouth speaks and our actions come from what is in our hearts (inner being), it is important to be feeding on that which causes the expression of our mouths and the works of our hands to be kindness, mercy, service, life and positivity, and of course, love.