My first experience (but not my last!) with Mexico City police came around a year after we arrived as short-term missionaries. I drove our minivan downtown to take my family as well as a visitor from the United States and a lady from our church to see some historical and cultural highlights. As we sat at a stoplight on one of the city’s main thoroughfares, an officer stepped in front of us and waved us to the side of the road. He informed me that my offense was driving without a front license plate. I felt helpless. Since our van was registered in the State of South Carolina (which issues only rear license plates), it was literally impossible for me to have a matching tag on the front. In order to comply with Mexican law, I had a few options. I could register my vehicle in a US state that used front plates. I could sell the van in the US and purchase a more expensive one in Mexico. Or I could begin the rather mysterious process of importing the vehicle, paying taxes, and acquiring front and rear Mexico City plates. Since we were planning to leave the country for deputation in a few months, none of those options was very appealing!

That experience required me to think through an important area of Scriptural truth summarized in this phrase from 1 Peter:

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Peter 2:13¹).

Kings, governors, and other human authorities are ordained by God (Romans 13:1–2, cf. Daniel 4:25). These institutions (literally “creations” in 1 Peter 2:13) are not supreme but exercise delegated authority under God’s own authority. Resistance to their authority is actually resistance to God, so we must submit. The Holy Spirit used Peter to give that exhortation to believers scattered throughout Asia Minor, and the command remains in force for all followers of Christ. The heart attitude of a Christian should be to arrange himself under the authority of human government at every level, and that attitude should be reflected in our day-to-day speech and actions.

Missionaries face a special circumstance, because they manage life under two human governments—that of their sending country and that of their host country. Sometimes it’s complicated. South Carolina got my property taxes, but they couldn’t help me comply with Mexican law. Neither government was right or wrong. They simply had different regulations and expectations, and my responsibility was to arrange myself under both.

The Lord commissioned His followers to make disciples of all nations. Those who cross cultures with the Gospel choose to subject themselves to foreign governments and to a nearly endless variety of laws and regulations in those nations. Not only must they keep up with what their sending country requires, but they voluntarily navigate day-to-day life under their host nation’s ordinances. Examples include speed limits, copyright law, detailed permitting requirements for nearly everything, an ordinance that prohibits outdoor noise after dark, strict recycling laws, frequent and stringent vehicle emissions inspections, an enforced schedule that keeps people from driving their cars one day a week, varied immigration laws that put people in government offices regularly or require frequent departures from the country, specific building code requirements, a plethora of environmental regulations, and many more.

We do not get to choose what laws to obey, even if they don’t make sense to us or create an unusual burden for us. We must not flaunt “freedom,” in actions, attitude, or speech. Like the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, the cross-cultural gospel worker voluntarily gives up some rights and freedoms for the sake of the Gospel, so that he or she might “by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

“Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” Some who read this might need a heart adjustment. Some might need a speech adjustment, especially regarding leaders and laws with which we disagree. May God give us grace to arrange ourselves under every human authority created and ordained by God. It will be for Christ and His cause.

^{Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash}