The Epistle reading for today is one which I consider to be one of the most abused and mis-used passages in the entire Bible! Does it mean, for instance, that Rosa Parks was supposed to give up her seat on the bus to a white man? Does it mean that minorities should have quietly obeyed the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation? Should Jews have quietly gone to concentration camps? I don’t think so!
At the time St Paul wrote this, he was a proud citizen of Rome. Rome had treated him well. He had no way of knowing that rulers such as Nero and Caligula were in the future.
He did have to worry about some folks who thought that with the coming of Christ being so soon to come, they did not have to concern themselves with mundane authorities.