Been a while since I blogged, just been too focused and busy on other things, though I do have a Romans 13 thought, in the light of ‘of course Boris [replace with ‘whoever’] is appointed by God, the Bible says so, so no disorderly conduct here then by you’.
But Time… the magazine. N.T. Wright has an article in there from Dec. 16th. The opening paragraph and opening sentence of paragraph 2 reads:
One of the central stories of the Bible, many people believe, is that there is a heaven and an earth and that human souls have been exiled from heaven and are serving out time here on earth until they can return. Indeed, for most modern Christians, the idea of “going to heaven when you die” is not simply one belief among others, but the one that seems to give a point to it all.
But the people who believed in that kind of “heaven” when the New Testament was written were not the early Christians.
The link is here:
https://time.com/5743505/new-testament-heaven/
I find that Romans 13 passage very challenging for sure. Don’t know what I think about Hitler being God’s appointed leader but then Paul was dealing with a pretty nasty bunch of leaders that were as amoral. Not comparing Boris Johnson to Hitler of course – never do that lightly. Or is there more to that passage I’m missing?