About Governments..

I know I have already said before that NT Wright is the man. Seriously probably the most enlightened New Testament scholar of our day. When I read his work I get all stoked and know that he is on to something. Anyways, I am reading his work on Paul and came across this quote that I found to be particularly relevant especially when considering the possibility of ministering in the SF Bay Area. Basically the context for the quote is a chapter on Gospel and Empire, and a subsection regarding Jewish Critique of Pagan Empire where he aims to demonstrate that the modern western political spectrum of division between left and right would have been completely foreign to early Christians when determining a response to pagan rule;

"a classic Jewish position which echoes well into the Christianity of the second and third centuries, seems to us today to play from both ends of the spectrum at once. The rulers are wicked and will be judged, especially when they persecute God's people. But God wants the world to be ruled, rather than to descend into anarchy and chaos, and his people must learn to live under pagan rule even though it means constant vigilance against compromise with paganism itself." (Paul, 66)