What Is the Role of Government?

Since God is the one who first instituted government, it is God who defines the role and purpose of government.

God instituted human government after the Flood (Genesis 9). Since God is the one who first instituted government, it is God who defines the role and purpose of government. If we want to think biblically about government, we must first start with Scripture.

According to God’s Word, the purpose of human government is not to solve all of our problems! Rather, it is to restrain and punish evil and to promote order. This immediately raises a question: What is evil? Someone must define what evil is. And, again, God has done that for us in His Word. When we start with the Bible, we have an unchanging, eternal foundation for determining what is right and what is wrong.

But, you might ask, isn’t that “Christian nationalism”? No. But whoever is in government has a worldview that determines how they define morality and vote on issues. Now, consider this: Every single law in the United States is based on someone’s morality. No law is morally neutral. So who gets to decide? Is morality determined by sinful, fallible human beings or by the perfect, authoritative Word of the Creator?

Whenever we legislate, we are always legislating morality. The question is: Whose morality are we legislating?—is it based on human opinion or God’s Word?

I address the question of the role of government and the truth that there is no neutrality in a recent video we filmed for my YouTube channel. I encourage you to check it out.

This is just another reminder that, in all areas, we need to start with God’s Word as our authority!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.