Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • The Good, the Bad and the State – Rom 13.1–7 and the Dynamics of Love

  • Dorothea H. Bertschmann
  • Journal:
    New Testament Studies / Volume 60 / Issue 2 / April 2014
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    14 March 2014, pp. 232-249
    Print publication:
    April 2014

  • This article investigates the relationship of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the letter to the Romans. God is presented as the guarantor of a moral structure, who judges people in symmetrical fashion. However, in Christ God goes beyond the commonsensical in a counter-intuitive initiative to overcome ‘bad’ through ‘good’. The Christ believers are admonished to imitate this approach (12.21). Still, the authorities are respected as divine agents, who imitate God's abiding concern for symmetrical judgement. Paul's major concern in Romans 13.1–7 is reassurance: the believers' higher paradigm of love is compatible with the demands of political authority, which is unambiguously ‘good’ for them (13.4).