I am not saying that it was only relevant to Rome, but I do believe that the context is more relevant than many readers think.
We tend to apply passages universally, unless they seem too extreme, like, "Go, sell everything you have, and give it . . ."
There are themes that run through Pauls writing; I do not see this passage as a principal theme in Paul. I do think that the Roman situation was complicated. The church in Rome seems to have been predominantly Jewish, without Roman citizenship, and as such would have been on shaky ground. I think today we have churches and missionaries in similar situations.
When we live in a foreign country, we respect the government there, but we do not act traitorously with respect to our native country. We tend to forget that our citizenship in the New Jerusalem is the one that counts, and here, whatever nation "here" might be, we are at most resident aliens. As such, we need to live respectfully and keep our noses clean.
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