This chapter calls for less revision than some of the others, not because Romans 13 has not continued to be studied since 1972, but because the text has become less central in the thought of some. The notion that out of this one apostolic passage there could be derived a normative and timeless divine pattern for what “The State” both is and should be, which dominated Protestant thought since the Reformation, was not a promising base for further development. Those who hold to that hope, on the grounds of their theory of Scripture, need say no more, and have said no more recently than they said generations ago. On the other hand, those who read the letter to the Romans with critical concern for what mattered to the author and his addressees no longer tend to put these seven verses at the center of their concern.
Many scholars who have been reading Romans most carefully over the last generation find the author to be most concerned for the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles in the new community This theme brings Romans closer to Galatians and Ephesians, and thus to the topic of my chapter 11.
Another set of critical readers see in this passage its cross-references to the themes both of the principalities and powers (my chapter 8) and of subordination (chapter 9). They then study (a) Whether Paul, when he thought about the Roman government, was essentially politically conservative and, if so, (b) whether he thereby betrayed the radicality of jesus or applied it to a new agenda. Thus the deeper reading of the Romans passage overlaps at each point with concerns this book works with more thoroughly under other headings.
