A very misunderstood passage indeed.
An interesting exercise is to insert your favorite tyrant in place of "rulers" in this passage.
Let every soul be subject to Pol Pot. For there is no authority except from God, and Pol Pot is appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists Pol Pot resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For Pol Pot is not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of Pol Pot? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For Pol Pot is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for Pol Pot does not bear the sword in vain; for Pol Pot is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for Pol Pot is God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.
The whole point of the law in the USA is to insert your own name. This is the meaning of, "by the consent of the governed".
I'm guessing, anotherjoe is middle American, but not the middle or there would be more attempt to stand out.
I 70 west, but not coast. east coast education, maybe. Am I close?
Good point. Unfortunately, it's only theory now. US Inc claims all
citizenssubjects as property.SW desert, never spent time on the right side of the country, other than visiting. :) Seminary trained, pastored a church for a few years and have preached in a few countries.
Your assessment is interesting to me. Can you describe the thought process?
"joe" is general issue, there is one in my family. "another" is anonymous. both of these also indicate middle, but no one i've known east of Colorado would call themself "another". California is definitely not middle. your use of language says east coast or Christian, Mormons are probably not on steemit. New Mexicans aren't known for their vocabulary or religion. Your comment about tyrants is on a post about obedience to government. All of this leaves, Colorado, Arizona, or Wyoming at the outside. There is almost no one in Wyoming. Colorado is more middle, but Arizona is more anonymous, not I 70, but not far off. That is as far as I got. There is only so much I can do with 6 lines of text and a screen name. These are all just broad generalities. A person's family can change much.
Wow, that's pretty cool.
Christian, yes.
Contrarian... I rarely meet anyone like me. And because of my reading taste, my vocabulary tends to be different. But I also have a lot of relations in the OK/Northeast Texas area, so have been influenced by them somewhat. Then there's the California influence that exists anyway, and is where I went to seminary. I grew up in Phoenix.
"Another" isn't really anonymity, at least not on purpose (other than using a pseudonym for anonymity). It's in contrast with "average". Check out my logo at the bottom of any of my articles and you'll see "Not Another Average Joe", but with "Not Average" in smaller type, making "Another Joe" stand out. IOW, I might be Another Joe, but I'm not average.
OTOH, I feel no need to draw attention to myself. But I'm willing to be heard. ;)
Fun stuff. Thanks for walking through that. I've learned distinctions of peoples in different ways, but that was pretty impressive.
I'm still learning, and some of it seems to have been coincidence or subconscious, but it works a surprising amount of the time. It's mostly just a little deduction and winnowing the possibilities.
No need to insert Pol Pot. You could just insert Nero, who was incredibly evil and who was reigning while Paul was writing.
Of course. And that's more applicable in context. Someone people are more familiar with tends to fit the modern application better though. And there are Nero persecution deniers, so I just avoid it and use someone that's pretty much undeniable. Some insert Hitler, but that's so overused I avoided it this time.