Questions for Understanding Romans 13

Romans 13 has proven to be somewhat of a debated text throughout church history, to but it mildly. Today, it is used by Christians of all stripes to support their own political ideology. In particular, libertarian Christians have been questioning the dominant protestant interpretation of Romans 13 as granting moral legitimacy to the modern state. Much good work has been done to place Romans 13 in the broader biblical-theological context drawn from key texts such as 1 Samuel 8 and Revelation 13.

However, one generally lacking feature in libertarian circles with regards to the discussion of Romans 13 is a detailed grammatical and syntactical exegesis of the text. If we libertarians ever wish to convince the broader Christian community that ours is a biblically faithful position, we must provide such. Toward that end, here is my list of questions that need to be answered to provide a persuasive interpretation of Romans 13:1:[1]