Why Should We Respect Those in Leadership? By Lisa Burkhardt Worley, D.Min.
Recently, I was at Washington Reagan Airport getting ready to return to Dallas when I heard loud boos mixed with loud cheers. They were coming from the other side of the gate area.
At first, I thought it was just a rowdy group of travelers, but then I spotted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, and they were shouting at him as he waited to board.
I told my husband, “I can’t believe they’re booing him!” A woman standing next to us, carrying a baby and holding her toddler’s hand, overheard me and started yelling. “Why is he being booed? RFK Jr. has let measles get out of control in this country. I am worried my children will get measles!” She was so hostile, I did not engage, but I looked up measles stats. Measles cases are on the rise, but RFK Jr. isn’t telling people not to get vaccinated. It’s probably rising because people are choosing not to vaccinate their children.
With an election approaching, there are candidates I don’t like, but I will respect whoever is elected to office. It’s biblical. Romans 13:1-2 says, “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So, anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished.”
I have been studying Gideon, the fifth judge of Israel. God used him to defeat the oppressive Midianites. The Midianites would attack the Israelites regularly, destroying their crops and stealing their livestock. It got so bad that the Israelites had to live in caves on the mountainside. However, those harassers were allowed by God! Judges 6:1 states, “The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years.” After seven years, the LORD called Gideon to save the people from the Midianites’ terrorist activity.
In the first century, the Roman rule was also oppressive, but Jesus respected the governmental authorities. When spies came to Jesus in an effort to trap him, they asked, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Luke 20:21-22). What did Jesus say? “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Luke 20:24-5).
We have to put ourselves in the elected official’s shoes. How would it feel if people booed you? In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5, He exhorts us to be peacemakers and to love our enemies. I believe this applies to all aspects of life, including politics.
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