He is the first North American pontiff to be elected leader of the Catholic Church
Romans 13 tells us that we should "be subject to the governing authorities, “ but this doesn't necessarily mean that one should go against God's law. In fact, the opposite is true: "for no authority exists except by God’s permission."
The Bible has many examples of civil disobedience, where men and women broke the law, but how righteous were they in doing so? Click on and draw your own conclusions.
This story can be found in the Book of Exodus. The Egyptian king commands the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Purah, to kill Hebrew baby boys at birth.
Both Shiphrah and Purah refused to do it. They told the Pharaoh that “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.” But they refused to obey the order because they feared God. (Exodus 1:15-22).
Exodus 2:1-2 tells us that the parents of Moses hid him for three months after his birth. They did so to protect him from the Pharaoh's decree to kill male babies.
The explanation for this is later found in Hebrews 11:23, which reads: “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.”
In 1 Kings 18 prophet Elijah challenges King Ahab and the false prophets. In verse 17 the king calls the prophet the ”troubler of Israel.” To which he replied: “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.” This was a defying thing to say.
The Bible describes an episode when King Saul imposes a day-long fast on everyone. His son, Jonathan, didn’t hear about the king’s new law, so he helps himself to a sweet honeycomb he finds in the forest. (I Samuel 14).
Jonathan was caught by his father’s men who told him: “Your father bound the army under a strict oath, saying, ‘Cursed be anyone who eats food today!.’" The soldiers did not obey Saul in the end and Jonathan lived.
A drunken King Xerxes demanded Queen Vashti to come before him and show him her body. Queen Vashti refused to come and the king was not happy about it.
Queen Vashti paid for her disobedience. Memukan, one of the king’s eunuchs, advised “that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes” and that “the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she.” (Esther 1:19).
King Xerxes had promoted Haman so he commanded his servants to bow down and pay homage to him. All the royal officials did so, but Mordecai refused to kneel down or pay him honor.
Mordecai refused to do so because he was a Jew and so kneeling down was a form of idolatry. “When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.” (Esther 3:6).
Mordecai, in an attempt to put a stop to the decimation of his people, asks Queen Esther (who replaced Queen Vashi) to intervene with the king.
To do so was against the law, but the Queen did it. “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish,” she told Mordecai. (Esther 4:16).
King Nebuchadnezzar erected a golden statue and ordered everyone to bow down to it every time a bell rang. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, however, refused to do so and were thrown into the fire.
Their reply to the king was: “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18).
King Darius issued a decree that “anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days [...] shall be thrown into the lions’ den.” (Daniel 6:7).
Daniel didn’t obey the king’s decree. He prayed to God three times a day like he had always done. The king threw Daniel into the lions' den, but he survived because “God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions.” (Daniel 6:22).
The foreign men who came to see Jesus also disobeyed the law. King Herod asked them to find where baby Jesus was and tell him. The plan was then to have Jesus killed.
Luckily, the wise men disobeyed his request. “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2:12).
Touching a leper would make one unclean, according to Jewish law. Jesus not only touched one, but he cured him of the disease, reads Matthew 8:2-3.
Jesus broke Jewish law again by healing people on the day no work should be done. (Matthew 12: 10-13).
Jesus also defended his apostles for breaking the same law when they began to pick up heads of grain from a field. The Pharisees asked him why they were doing something unlawful on Sabbath days.
Jesus told them: “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath. Therefore, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Talking to a woman without her father or husband around was a no-no in biblical times. Not only did Jesus do this multiple times, he also talked with women who were strangers, of different ethnicities, and accused of being sinners.
Jewish law forbids the drinking of blood. Although Jesus did not literally break this rule, he did tell his disciples they were to drink his blood (John 6:54).
According to Acts 4, Peter and John are commanded by Jewish leaders to stop preaching the gospel.
The disciples of Jesus told the Jewish council leaders: “You are the judges here, so we’ll leave it up to you to judge whether it is right in the sight of God to obey your commands or God’s. But one thing we can tell you: we cannot possibly restrain ourselves from speaking about what we have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears.” (Acts 4:19-20). They ended up being thrown in jail.
The Bible tells us in Acts 5:17-42 that the apostles were arrested for preaching about Jesus in Jewish temples. They stood before a council and the high priest asked them: “Didn’t we give you strict orders to stop teaching in this name?”
Peter and the apostles replied: “If we have to choose between obedience to God and obedience to any human authority, then we must obey God.” They were flogged, told to not speak in the name of Jesus, and then released.
Sources: (Culture Watch) (Grunge) (Bible Gateway)
See also: Bible outcasts loved by God
Instances when biblical figures broke the law
When man's law is broken in the name of the Lord
LIFESTYLE Religion
Romans 13 tells us that we should "be subject to the governing authorities, “ but this doesn't necessarily mean that one should go against God's law. In fact, the opposite is true: "for no authority exists except by God’s permission."
The Bible has many examples of civil disobedience, where men and women broke the law, but how righteous were they in doing so? Click on and draw your own conclusions.