When to Say Yes and When to Say No

Acts 5:12-32

Introduction

This time of COVID-19 has been a chapter of the church unlike anything that I can remember. It has challenged us to to rethink everything that we have just taken for granted. What does it mean to worship? What does it mean to gather? What does it mean to care for one another? What does it mean to trust God in scary situations?

One question that has been at the forefront for many congregations has been: What is our relationship to the government and how far does our obedience go?

We were told by the government to shut down our buildings and to not meet here for worship. Did you ever in your life think that something like that would happen? And not just for a couple of weeks but for months and months. The government told us to not do what we in the building  are doing right now. Let that sink in.

There have a been a number of responses from congregations and pastors. Some have listened to the reports of doctors and scientists and concluded that the government was implementing this for our own good. Others saw this as an attempt by the government to deliberately stop us from worshiping, targeting us as part of an anti-Christian agenda. To them the only Christian response is to refuse to shut our buildings and reject what the government has said.

This has been a difficult time to make sense of things. On one hand, there is evidence that the radical steps to slow the spread have saved lives. On the other hand, there are passages in the Bible where Christians have stood up to the authorities when told to do something that they could not do? One is in our passage today, “We must obey God rather than human beings!”

What is a Christian to do? Should we rip off our masks, mover our chairs closer together and sing loudly our favourite worship songs to show the government who is boss?

Well if that is the Bible tells us to do, we should. But is that what it says? We need to look closer.

Saying No to the Authorities

It is never a good idea to just take a verse by itself out of context. We need to know what was happening that led to that statement. And what a story it is!

We saw in previous chapters that Peter and John had been arrested by the religious leaders and warned to stop preaching Jesus. They hoped that these uneducated followers of Jesus would be intimidated but that never happened.

We find in this chapter that Peter and some of the other apostles were arrested again, because they were still preaching Jesus. No the Sanhedrin was going to show them who was boss. Except God was the real boss. An angel freed them from jail but instead of telling them to go into hiding, they were told to go to the most public place in Jerusalem and continue preaching Jesus. This was meant to get the Sanhedrin’s attention and force a confrontation.

Despite having an unexplained jailbreak on their hands, the Sanhedrin tried once again to use intimidation. Having just experienced a miracle of God, it was not much of a dilemma for the apostles to choose what to do. In a choice between the Sanhedrin wanting them to shut up and God wanting them to speak up, God was going to win every time.

There are a number of things to notice about this story. While the Sanhedrin had authority, they were not the official government. It was Rome that governed and the Sanhedrin served under that authority.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, there are commands for us to obey our governing authorities. Those are general statements and not a blanket statement that we do whatever the government tells us. At this time there were Jewish zealots who were actively rebelling against Rome in such a way that eventually breaks out into open war. Christians were not to either fully submit to government, in the way that the Sadducees partnered with them. Nor were the Christians to become zealots, slipping a knife into the back of a Roman centurion. Rather, Christians were to pray for and obey the government as long as it didn’t compromise their faith.

That’s the question. How much is a compromise? In this case, the apostles were specifically commanded by God to preach Jesus and the Sanhedrin told them to stop. There is no grey area here. The early Christians endured many limitations on their individual freedom and liberty. But they were not going to back down on telling people about Jesus. It was essential to the faith.

Yes or No?

So at what point do we say either yes or no to the government? When the government asks to have our church’s financial records, do we let them or do we stand against them? The Bible never mentions church financial statements, so it would be difficult to see this as an essential of the faith. It looks as if saying yes to the government is reasonable.

What about our Mennonite brothers and sisters? While I am not a pacifist, they see non-violence as a core gospel issue. What should they do if the government puts a weapon in their hands? Because nonviolence is essential to them, they would have to say no and they have, offering to help our country in many other ways.

What about the more recent government regulations about places of worship and COVID-19? In what category does this fit? Hebrews 10:25 warns us about “not giving up meeting together.” Are COVID-19 regulations asking us to disobey God’s clear word?

We need to ask some questions:

• Why is the government asking the churches to close? 
• Are other religious organizations included?
• Are only places of worship affected by the lockdown?
• Is the government limiting other means of Christian communication?
• What does “meeting together” mean and are there other ways to do it?

While we hope the lockdown is completely behind us, the principles are the same for the next challenge we face. While some of my pastor friends disagree with me, at no point during the lockdown did I feel as if the government was targeting me as a Christian. Therefore, I was able to cooperate with the government during this crisis without any concern about a compromise of my faith.

There may be a time when we have to say no to what the government asks. That is already happening in other nations. We need to know when this comes and for that, we need to know what the essentials of the faith are. Talking about Jesus is essential. Talking about Jesus in a specific building is not essential.

Conclusion

We need to obey God rather than human beings. That was true in the first century and it is true in the twenty-first century. Nothing has changed. In order to do this properly, we need to understand two things: What is God telling us to do and what are humans telling us to do? By far the majority of the time there is no conflict and sometimes there is even great overlap.

There is an attractiveness to standing up to organizations, especially the government. There is a time to do that. The Confessing Church were right in resisting the Nazi’s government’s takeover of the German church. But that is a much different situation from COVID-19 precautions such as physical spacing or wearing masks. Be prepared to take a stand, just make sure that you are taking the right stand at the right time.