Those in authority are God's servants?

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Explain how God has established any authority throughout history. Name a truly benevolent governmental system anywhere in history and maybe you'll have a point. I don't believe God has instituted any governing authority in history, I'm disagreeing with the passage. While this passage was being written the Roman authorities were throwing Jesus' followers to the lions and burning them on stakes and crucifying them. Obviously this passage is totally wrong and completely untrue by the fact that it says ALL governing authorities are God's servants for our good.

The Apostle Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans while anticipating going there himself. (55-58) There was no persecution of Christians at that time. Chapter 13 was Paul's way of imitating the Post-Exile Jewish writings in playing up to the Emperor. This is what was written back then, around 539 BCE:

45:1 Thus says Yahweh to his anointed(Messiah), to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and strip kings of their armor; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut:

2 “I will go before you,
and make the rough places smooth.

Isaiah 44:28 Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,’
even saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built;’
and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”

Paul didn't go as far as Post-exile pseudo Isaiah by calling the Emperor Yahweh's Messiah, because Paul was teaching that Jesus was Messiah, so he stopped short. But the purpose was the same: to put the idea in the Emperor's mind that the Jewish tribal deity was great enough to establish all rulers.

Let's see how Cyrus took it in 539 BCE.

From The Kurash Prism:

I am Kurash [ "Cyrus" ], King of the World, Great King, Legitimate King, King of Babilani, King of Kiengir and Akkade, King of the four rims of the earth, Son of Kanbujiya, Great King, King of Hakhamanish, Grandson of Kurash, Great king, King of Hakhamanish, descendant of Chishpish, Great king, King of Hakhamanish, of a family which always exercised kingship; whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whom they want as king to please their hearts. When I entered Babilani as a friend and when I established the seat of the government in the palace of the ruler under jubilation and rejoicing, Marduk, the great lord, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of Babilani to love me, and I was daily endeavoring to worship him.... As to the region from as far as Assura and Susa, Akkade, Eshnunna, the towns Zamban, Me-turnu, Der as well as the region of the Gutians, I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitations. Furthermore, I resettled upon the command of Marduk, the great lord, all the gods of Kiengir and Akkade whom Nabonidus had brought into Babilani to the anger of the lord of the gods, unharmed, in their former temples, the places which make them happy.
Kurash (Cyrus) the Great: The Decree of Return for the Jews, 539 BCE

Messiah Cyrus didn't think the Jewish tribal deity was important enough to mention. So ungrateful!

Paul may or may not have made it to Rome (62, 2 years before Nero's persecution), depends on how accurate you consider the book of Acts to be.

Anti-Christian policies in_the Roman Empire

Anti-Christian policies directed at the early church had occurred sporadically and in localised areas since its beginning. The first persecution of Christians organised by the Roman government took place under the emperor Nero in 64 AD after the Great Fire of Rome;with the passage in 313 AD of the Edict of Milan, anti-Christian policies directed against Christians by the Roman government ceased. The total number of Christians who lost their lives because of these persecutions is unknown, although early church historian Eusebius, whose works are the only source for many of these events, speaks of "great multitudes" having perished, he is thought by many scholars today to have exaggerated their numbers.[2]:217–233 Although provincial governors in the Roman Empire had a great deal of personal discretion and power to do what they felt was needed in their jurisdiction, and there were local and sporadic incidents of persecution and mob violence against Christians, for most of the first three hundred years of Christian history Christians were able to live in peace, practice professions, and rise to positions of responsibility. Only for approximately ten out of the first three hundred years of the church's history were Christians executed due to orders from a Roman emperor.
. . .
During the reign of Constantine the Great the systematic persecution of the pagans began.

Eusebius AD 260/265 – 339/340 wrote Life of Constantine (337).
Constantine the Great (27 February c. 272 AD – 22 May 337 AD)
Edict of Milan in 313, decreed tolerance for Christianity in the empire

Eusebius, as noted above was in the position to influence Constantine, and exaggerate the numbers, as noted above.

It took 336 years, but Paul's letter did it's work. The Emperors of Rome saw their authority to rule as coming from the Jewish tribal deity, transformed into "The Only Deity", and then:

The persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began late during the reign of Constantine the Great, when he ordered the pillaging and the tearing down of some temples. The first anti-Pagan laws by the Christian state started with Constantine's son Constantius II, who was an unwavering opponent of paganism; he ordered the closing of all pagan temples, forbade Pagan sacrifices under pain of death, and removed the traditional Altar of Victory from the Senate. Under his reign ordinary Christians started vandalizing many of the ancient Pagan temples, tombs and monuments. This persecution had proceeded after a period of sporadic persecution of Christians.

From 361 till 375, Paganism was relatively tolerated, until three Emperors, Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I, under Bishop of Milan Saint Ambrose's influence, reinstituted and escalated the persecution. Under pressure from the zealous Ambrose, Theodosius issued the infamous 391 "Theodosian decrees," a declaration of war on paganism,