Are you postmil? I agree with 90% of what you’re saying, but I would need some serious convincing/persuasion to believe that Romans 13 is primarily about ecclesiastical government and not civil government.
Discussion
Hey Tom,
Just to get you "in the ballpark," I'm an amil shading toward postmil, but at the core I am a biblical theologian and those "labels" are very general. I've been hanging with postmils, but I don't accept the viewpoint entirely. Nevertheless, I daily pray for God's Kingdom to be implemented here on earth and I work toward that end while I wait (impatiently) for the second advent.
There are a number of "alternative" understandings of Romans 13. I don't claim to have 100% exegetical clarity on every detail in the chapter, but I am sure that the "standard" interpretation is wrong-headed. It just doesn't fit the overall teaching of scripture. This article is my best shot at explaining it thus far, or at least countering the prevailing view:
As I've been working my way through the New Testament in Greek, I've become more and more persuaded that the book is principally a handbook for God's new/preferred form of human government. And that form is humanly decentralized, local congregations each directly reporting to Jesus as Chief Shepherd.
To "see" this requires looking at the NT through a different pair of glasses, as I've tried to describe in this article:
https://peakd.com/politics/@creatr/a-sola-the-reformers-missed-sola-ecclesia
I'm not asking you to believe/accept this yet; just consider the possibility, and please do argue against it, particularly if you bring scriptural ammo to bear.
Thanks for reading my stuff and discussing.