What Is The Biblical Concept Of Government?
What is government? When this question is asked, most people respond by equating government solely with a centralized state. They portray the idea that the only governing institution is a political one. Historically, however, the term “:government” was always qualified in some way, unlike our present definitions. Before World War I, textbooks dealing with national government were qualified with the title “civil.” According to the textbook, “Elements of Civil Governments” written in 1903, “the family is a form of government, established for the good of children themselves, and the first government that each of us must obey” (p.18). The book continues by defining five areas of civil government: “the township or civil district, the village or the city, the county, the State, and the United States” (p.18). The term “government, ” as the older educational definition indicates, is broader that the state. Textbook writers were aware there were personal, family, church, school, and civil gover
