For this cause you pay tax

Financial timeline http://www.bankrate.com/finance/federal-reserve/financial-crisis-timeline.aspx?ec_id=m1116059&ef_id=WqVOLu-gbFoAAAPO:20140614013624:s

june 13 wrap http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-13/american-empire-fire-weekly-wrap-june-13-2014

I think the discussion centers down on how a man should be punished for failing to surrender life, freedom, or property to the construct of civil government: Monarch, Oligarchs, or Demogarchs. How much of those things are the property of the human under-king? And how much of his life, liberty, or property needs to be pulled by force including the penalty for not voluntarily returning what the under-king owns? If we are theonomists, don't we have to limit the punishment to what God requires for the crime he describes? Where is the crime described? Where is the under-king's ownership defined? Is the restitution 20% or 100%? If God never authorizes human force to punish failure to pay Him His tithe, how is it sinful man gets off using human force (without divine authorization?) for failure to pay some arbitrarily-determined amount to sinful men? Why not rather recognize that if we refuse to support Biblical government voluntarily, God will afflict us with un-Biblical government involuntarily.

I've seen this article and think McDurmon is wrong.  Paul isn't just describing the taxation, he is saying that it is legitimate (due) because the government provides a necessary and legitimate (under God) service, the protection of life(more correctly the punishment of those to take life) and, by extension,  property rights.  Taxes are "due" because he bears the sword as God's minister - in the same way as the priests were God's ministers and were owed the tithe.


I'll bet McDurmon and you and I would agree the tribute is due - the officer deserves good pay for his labor and extra risks in the spirit of "¹⁷ The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard ^[e]at preaching and teaching. ¹⁸ For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”"

So the civil minister is worthy of his wages....unless he is punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty, then he needs to be removed from office and punished for his crimes. You might even mention some names . When Caesar is serving his Master, we must render to Caesar what is Caesar's. The wage has been given to him by this principle of God's law. If he is an able man, who fears God, a man of truth, who hates dishonest gain.

This word they translate "tax" does not necessarily carry the same connotations the USA IRS version connotes to us. It is definitely something that can be rightly owed and that the body politic is obligated to pay - both Christians and non-.

That said, it need not be a crime - i.e. a sin human beings are supposed to punish. I propose that God directly takes care of the discipline of this serious sin in the same way He treats people who do not pay Him His deserved tribute for creating them, giving them life and the ability to sustain life by trade according to His law where He gives the ability to manufacture. I don't think God has an obligation to provide for us when we refuse to live according to His law.

Neither does He have an obligation to provide us a healthy Justice System when we refuse to support one (by time and money) and to recommend and teach our sons and society the righteous definitions of sin and crime from the scriptures.

We have noted that king Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 17) got tons of voluntary tribute from his loyal businessmen that militarily strengthened the nation's protections. Could this have been a good lesson to us when we read that, even more than Josiah's reforms, Jehoshaphat invested in sending on teaching tours - both Levite Bible teachers, and officials from the Executive Office -- to teach God's law.

Why not embrace the idea that the civil magistrate has no authorization to punish for failure to support law enforcement? It may be every man's responsibility and there is freedom to support Professionals and specialists. How will God punish a culture that sins by refusing to support Biblical, righteous laws? Notice how the Ungodly will be only too happy to support non-Biblical, unrighteous laws. If we refuse to make sure the guilty are punished and the innocent are protected - they will do their best to see the guilty rewarded and the innocent punished. (I mean innocent of God-defined crimes).

Otherwise we may find ourselves out in Autonomy-Land having to make up arbitrary ideas about how much tax people owe and what kind of punishments need to be afflicted on them. If we should think it sufficient to just say it doesn't matter how much tax we pay as long as the government only punishes crime as Bible defines it....

It is true that would cut the Budgets so drastically we would hardly know how to complain. But notice we are now caught in our own trap - The Bible does not ever specify the punishment for failing to support the non-levitical/non-priestly magistrates. So even if we were philosophically in favor of requiring tax payments to support a good and godly government - our playbook does not give us anything to do in this area. Now the government could commit the crime of theft-by-threat (or assault or kidnapping if some refuse to pay the minimum tax), I suppose, and since there is no human government above the human government to require double-restitution we are back at God having to punish for this overall failure of civic responsibility in the Kingdom of God.

 

I don't think McDurmon can be consistent here because to be consistent would also be to say that we do not owe government ministers honor or respect(fear) either.

Couldn't we owe them appropriate honor/respect/fear in proportion to how well they exercise their charge to enforce God's law? If the magistrates turn to punishing the non-criminal and rewarding the criminal, shall we raise their salary or decrease it? Should we give them more respect or less? Are you saying we should pay them money and honor just the same when they are committing the same crimes they are supposed to be punishing?

The interesting question is whether government can legitimately compel payment of taxes by the use of the sword, not whether they are due, or not.  We must be careful not to make scripture say more than it does.

Doug

Looking at History, this seems to be exactly what is happening. The Church quits obeying and teaching God's case law applications and become least in the Kingdom of Heaven. You reject Yahweh as king and before you know it you have a human sovereign who is arbitrarily making laws taking away your grapes, your sheep, sons, daughters, and your seed corn. They send in the Jesuits and offer you free education and next thing you know they are eating your flesh and drinking your blood to pay for their discipleship of the Youth and to support their debt-generating wars.

They reward the criminal who has partnered with the government-thief and they punish the productive worker with taxes and punish the thrifty self-reliant saver by inflation.

You said you wanted a government like all the other nations?

 

Rom 13:4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.  5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.  6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.  7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

On Thursday, September 11, 2014 8:52 AM, "herb@greylaw.org" <herb@greylaw.org> wrote:

Taxes are huge.

All the mechanical power of international bankers and their handmaiden -- human civil government -- derives from collected taxes, borrowing on future hope of collection of taxes, and the gains from the inflation tax by pretending to increase monetary units.

This mechanical power is made possible through the faith (mostly unconscious) that vacillates back and forth between each individual being god and center of the universe, and (since that is so obviously silly and indefensible) that Man-The-Collective, in the guise of the county-to-federal civil government complex -  is the owner of all land, labor, money, and sovereign over how they are to be traded between men (think - 'commerce clause' in the Constitution).

There are -- besides our favorite idea that we are the smartest, most knowledgeable, intelligence in the universe with the most Rights -- basically two religions: The one where Someone loves us, and symbolically feeds us all blessings by means of His own flesh and blood, and the one where we combine with other men and make up our own rules whereby the Collective supposedly feeds us all blessings by symbolically eating up our flesh and blood by coercing from us the fruit of our lives by means of direct and indirect taxation.

We must change gods.

We could simplify it down to a question of ownership.

The old English word for Owner was Lord (as in landlord, or the idea of 'master' if referring to our labor). If we are going to escape the unjust burden of taxation, we must change our idea of who owns us and the fruit of our living.

So, who has the right of ownership over us, our work, and the land and resources around us?

According to the Declaration and the Constitution, those founding documents of our American (Masonic) Civil Religion,  our rights have come from God, but now we belong to ourselves, and the focus is on rights instead of responsibility. It is up to us to draft -- by majority vote -- whatever laws seem best to us. WeThePeople can easily figure out how best to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

No sweat. We just need to get a maximum number of folks to vote, and we are guaranteed to come up with the best way to force people to be free and prosperous. And if our, or any other nation, does not want to be free and prosperous, well, that is what our police and military are for.

How's is working out for ya?

Think of the philosophical question:

What punishment should be applied to the human that fails to pay his minimum tax, and what percentage -- or fixed amount -- of a man's income does he owe?

Should government punish by taking away a double restitution of property? Should it incarcerate to idleness, or coerce productive slavery? Or should it execute?

Should tax be  100% and have the government provide all our needs on an equal basis? Or should we roll it back to 0%, let people provide for their own needs, and let the government receive voluntary contributions?

And, once we collect what the government needs to operate, what are they supposed to do? What other crimes (besides not paying taxes) do  we punish? How do we punish them?
 

For This Cause:

Rom 13…..for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

Let's consider the two main passages in the Bible that inform us about taxes. I think all of us would like to know how much tax we need to pay, or how much tax the government is authorized to collect from us. We would not like to pay any more than we have to, nor do we want to pay a tax-preparer or accountant any more than we have to to figure it all out every year.

I would like to give and take in this conversation. I think I have figured out some things over the years I want to offer you. Many of you may have more insight or wisdom than I. Perhaps together we can put together something that will be profitable for families, churches, and the nation.

First I propose some loose definitions of vocabulary:

god: that entity in a person's world view considered to be most strong and most good/loving/just/wise

religion: that view of what exists from which a person derives the concepts of personhood, good and evil, origin, meaning, and destiny.

Life: physical functions of the human body, spirit, and mind (and all it contains)

Sin: whatever actions are contrary to the goodness of a person's god.

Liberty: the free, uncoerced, and unthreatened thoughts, words, and actions of a human limited by the concepts of god, religion, and sin.

Crime: actions of a human that should be punished by other humans by taking away the criminal's life, liberty, or property.

Ethical authority: that universally recognized ability to accurately explain and clarify sin and crime in accordance with the god of the religion.

Tax: that amount of wealth (usually money) that someone under the jurisdiction of a civil government is required to pay under threat of losing property, freedom, or life.

Contribution: wealth offered voluntarily to another

I have seen about 3 views of what to do with this passage in Romans 13.

Ignore it, doesn't apply.

Because of the bad things government will do to us, better to always obey it unless you know you won't get caught, God will not blame you for things you are doing when the government is making you do them, since He ordained it.

This passage gives a narrow definition of what can be coerced by men, and it is the responsibility of good men and true, to support righteous government - judged by God's laws and standards.

1. Since God has ordained the kind of government we have, it is safe to do, even if the text of the Bible says otherwise:

• Refrain from doing what they say not to do, even if god says it is ok to do.
• Refrain from doing what god says not to do, even if govt permits it.
• go along with what they command lest we be punished even if it means disobeying a principle of the Bible.
• Do what they permit even if it means disobeying a principle of the Bible
• resist what they command or allow if it means disobeying a principle of the Bible
  
• Anything the government authorizes or demands is ok to do. You are just following orders.
• benefits us at the expense of others). The only exception is if they tell us we cannot do what God has commanded us to do, or prohibit us from doing something God requires us to do.

1. All the power of government is backed by the sword, equivalent to the threat of capital punishment. This follows the Biblical case-law about contumacy. If the criminal despises all legitimate authority shown by human government -- he is killed.

2. God's revelation must define what is evil. Only in the Bible can we trust God's definitions of sin and crime.

3. Government avenges God's wrath, not man's.

4. Punishment for evil can come from two sources, external consequences from responsible law enforcement from other humans who manage to observe, apprehend and punish the criminal; and internal consequences from the individual's own conscience.

5. Men faithfully carrying out the purpose God has for righteous government deserve your contributions. Besides your individual responsibility to participate in executing justice according to your station, you may be obligated to contribute to the effect service of other men in governing over men for God.

Mt. 22:

¹⁵ Then the Pharisees went and ^[g]plotted together how they might trap Him ^[h]in what He said. ¹⁶ And they *sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and ^[i]defer to no one; for You are not partial to any. ¹⁷ Tell us then, what do You think? Is it awful to give a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” ¹⁸ But Jesus perceived their malice, and said, “Why are you testing Me, you hypocrites? ¹⁹ Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. ²⁰ And He *said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” ²¹ They *said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He *said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” ²² And hearing this, they were amazed, and leaving Him, they went away.

1. This is a poll-tax, not an income tax.

2. God decides what is His and what is Caesar's. Everything Caesar has, legitimately, has been assigned by God. Not everything Caesar claims would belong to him.

3. God's law may command us to give specific things to Caesar in accordance with divine assignment.

4. It is more important for men to render to God what is due Him, than to render to Caesar what is due to him.