Citizens of Heaven

As I write Brazil is experiencing a unusual amount of civil unrest that began about two years ago but has accelerated in the last week. As i understand it the issues center around corruption, poor health care, public education, and a rise in bus fares. About seventy percent of Brazilians are considered poor, about eighty-five percent are urban dwellers, and only about fifteen or twenty percent own cars. Most depend on public transportation.
    Last night as i was working on the computer i started to hear a lot of noise- car horns, air horns, chanting, and a lot of people yelling. Brazilians are fanatical about soccer ( futebol). It is like all the professional sports in the US rolled up into one. So i assumed that the ruckus had something to do with the Confederation Cup, a soccer series which is the warm-up for the World Cup in which most of the countries of the world vie for dominance, held every four years. Brazil will host this next year for the first time in half a century.
    However, Licia, one of the adult daughters of the family with which i am staying in a small city north of Rio de Janeiro, said it was protests. The house is only a block and a half from the principal street of the city, and close to the terminus of a bridge which links it with the other main city of the region.
Sometime later another daughter, a university student, came in with half a dozen friends, people from the church who had been involved or swept up in the protests. She was shaken up and the three of us spoke for some time about her experience.
   Several days earlier a young brother named Juan had asked me my thoughts about the situation. At the time I had little knowledge and had not thought about it. As I have reflected the following has come to me. Because of sinful human nature there is corruption in every earthly society. Every human government reflects the underlying rebellion against God. While recognizing that many Christians over time have felt impelled to get involved in social and political issues of their days, I question if this reflects New Testament revelation.
     Philippians 3:20 refers to believers as citizens of heaven. Hebrews 11:13-16 speaks of Abraham and others who wandered the earth seeking a heavenly country. They are spoken of as foreigners and strangers. 1 Peter 2:11 uses the same language to speak of believers as aliens and strangers. Disciples of Christ live in this world but are not of it. We are ambassadors ( 2 Corinthians 5) of another Kingdom, that of God.
    While we are in this world, we are urged to submit to the authorities because they have been established by God. Romans 13:1-7 are clear on this point, and 1 Peter 2: 13-17 back this up. Even Jesus makes this clear when in Matthew 17:24ff  He says to render to Caesar what is his and to God what is His.
    Brethren consider that the government that the apostles Peter and Paul wrote believers to submit to was that of the Roman Empire under the Emperor Nero (reigned 54-68 AD). Nero was a meglomaniac who in later years martyred Christians, (most likely Peter and Paul) in at least one case using them as human torches to illuminate orgies at night. Very few people were citizens and rights as we might understand them in the 21st Century were non-existent. Yet the Holy Spirit reveals through the inspired writers to submit to this ungodly government. Let us not expend our energies to change temporary, worldly things. Rather let us preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ which promises eternal life.