5 Bible verses that inform how we should respond to stay-at-home orders
Draconian. That seems to be one of the new words du jour as governmental stay-at-home orders only get stricter. Michigan, my state, has even made national news for having some of the strictest restrictions in the nation. Here, all gatherings, public and private, are banned until May 1. Certain stores are even prohibited from selling certain items. The laws are extremely inconsistent about what is “essential” (lottery tickets and abortions) and “nonessential” (root canals and landscaping). Many Michiganders are very frustrated with these laws, and clogged the streets of Lansing on Wednesday to show it. Many U.S. states and countries around the world are in similar situations.
Now, some of the politically-charged debate on this issue is mind-numbingly awful. We should all be able to agree on a few basic truths:
- COVID-19 is a dangerous disease that would kill hundreds of thousands of people and overwhelm hospital systems without radical countermeasures.
- You can’t just shut down the world and put tens of millions of people out of work with no income—many of whom need that income to treat other dangerous medical conditions—indefinitely.
- It’s perfectly valid to point out both of these things without putting “the economy” ahead of human life or naively believing everything the government says.
But all that aside, whatever you or I think about it, the situation is what it is. Unless you live in one of the few states without explicit stay-at-home orders, the government has ordered us all to stay at home and shut down “nonessential” businesses. But many people find this order draconian, unnecessary, and even harmful. A lot of people in Michigan just went to Lansing to protest the law, a small number of them even openly flouting the restriction at the governor’s doorstep.
So how should we respond to these unprecedented orders? Here are 5 verses that I think show us.
#1. Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to the king as the supreme authority, or to governors as those sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. (1 Peter 2:13-14)
The Bible is unambiguous on this matter. Christians are to obey the government’s laws, not for the government’s sake, but for the Lord’s. God has set governments in place to maintain order in society. When we decide that we know better than the government and simply follow our own rules, we undermine the system God has put in place. We can petition the government for change, but we can’t just follow our own rules. Of course, there is an exception to this rule, and that is if the government commands us to disobey God. In such cases, we must “obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29). But as I’ll explain with the next verse, I don’t think that applies here.
#2. Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)
Many have objected that stay-at-home orders prevent them from carrying out this command, and on this basis many states exempt churches from the rule. But whether this is true hinges on why we go to church in the first place. We gather to have fellowship, worship God together, and identify as a community of siblings in the family of God.
Some of the Hebrews to whom the epistle is addressed were declining to meet together so they wouldn’t be targeted for persecution for the cross of Christ. Today, most churches are restricting themselves to virtual services or drive-in services to participate in the combating of a deadly illness. Needless to say, the Hebrews’ situation and motives and ours are nothing alike. And in our modern day, we do have ways to worship God as one (even if not physically together), to have fellowship with one another, to hear real-time Bible teaching, and to share our faith and even invite people to join us in worship via many platforms. So I don’t think that temporarily not meeting together in person is in any way a violation of Hebrews 10:25.
You can live-stream church services and connect to chat and discuss Scripture together via Zoom or Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts or any number of free online services. It’s not the way to do things forever. Virtual communication is a poor substitute for in-person presence. But it is a sufficient temporary substitute.
#3. Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days. (Proverbs 19:20)
I think this is a hugely important point. The way to gain wisdom is to listen to counsel from others, and accept “discipline” (a Hebrew word which also means correction). Who would you listen to in order to gain wisdom on a particular matter? You would listen to someone who knows about that matter. So in that vein, when you want to know about your house’s electrical system, the wise thing to do is to consult an electrician. If you want to know about your house’s plumbing, you consult a plumber. If you want to know how about the risk of severe storms in your area tomorrow, you consult a meteorologist. If you want to know about how diseases spread, you consult a medical expert.
Now, I know that nearly everyone would claim they have done this. It seems like everyone has their favorite study or expert to appeal to when it comes to stuff like this—and it always seems to be an expert who agrees with the opinion they already had. Due to the sheer amount of media available to us, and the sheer number of educated people expressing their opinions, it’s pretty easy for anyone to find an expert who agrees with them. With so many varying opinions, what is the wise thing to do? The best thing we can do is look for consensus based on sound reasoning. Unless you have some overriding evidence that the expert consensus has arrived at their opinion due to ulterior motives or unsound reasoning, that is generally the wise option.
With our media today and how they like to sensationalize things and create controversy, it can admittedly be difficult to know what the consensus really is. But I think we have enough information to know that in the case of COVID-19, the consensus among experts has continually been that COVID-19 is a dangerous disease that threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans at minimum. And wisdom would dictate that we trust that, even if their predictions are not infallible, they know what they’re talking about and are far more likely to be right than we are!
#4. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)
I might be the most blunt when it comes to this one, but I think some of us have our thinking all wrong when it comes to this. For example, some are saying that they are responsible enough to make decisions about their own safety. That may be true, but it’s also completely missing the point. Yes, you may be okay with getting sick if you go to that family gathering or that church service. But then you’re going to the grocery store and using the same self-checkout as the 65-year-old grandmother behind you. You’re looking through the freezer section for the chicken nuggets, and the next person who touches that door handle is a diabetic.
Those who disregard the stay-at-home orders to hang out with friends or walk around Meijer for fun, touching and breathing on things the whole way through, are contributing to the problems of others for their own gain. And if studies indicating that perhaps 50-80 times more people have been infected with the coronavirus than previously thought are true, then the possibly that you may have it and be an asymptomatic carrier and spreader is significant.
It’s easy for young and healthy people not to be afraid. They won’t get as sick. And even if they do, it’s been said plainly by some healthcare providers that if hospitals are overwhelmed—far more likely if there’s no quarantine—younger and healthier people are likely to be prioritized if some kind of triage is necessary. It’s no coincidence that most of those protesting stay-at-home policies and expressing an attitude of fearlessness fall into that demographic.
And because there are so many people who do need to go out, whether to essential jobs or to help friends and relatives who truly need it, it’s even more vital that those who don’t need go out refrain from going out, so that those who need to help friends and relatives are exposed to fewer people who could potentially infect them, and in turn infect those they need to interact with.
And for staunch supporters of the current policies, it’s important to note that when it comes to overall policy, this principle of putting-others-before-self goes both ways. Those who want to lock the country down for more weeks or months also need to consider the great harm that will be done to the tens of millions who cannot work, feed their families, or afford treatment for other dangerous medical issues. The unreliable government systems have been no help to many of these people. Just as it’s no coincidence that those who are anti-lockdown tend to be those at low risk, it’s also no coincidence that those who are pro-lockdown tend to still be gainfully employed. It’s important that we have that discussion as well and not vilify those who want to have it as not caring about human lives. It’s also important that we offer help to those who need it and not merely pontificate from our computers about why they should stay home.
#5. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. (Romans 12:17)
Although others’ opinions aren’t always a reliable metric by which to determine our choices, it is important to consider how our actions will be perceived. Will they reflect well or poorly on the name of Christ? There is a degree to which you can’t help how other people perceive your actions. Some people will think badly of you no matter what. But when we can, we should choose our methods and actions carefully to maximize the chance that they will be received as intended. This is especially true of our methods of protest.
How are people going to perceive someone going to church with hundreds of other people? Most likely they’ll perceive them as reckless and basically asking to not only become a carrier or fall ill themselves, but spread the disease to their relatives and people at the grocery store.
How will people perceive someone who doesn’t wear a mask at the grocery store? Most likely they won’t perceive them as being fearless, but as not caring about other people’s health.
So even if you think this is all a bunch of hysteria (a position with which I would strongly disagree), the sort of tactlessness some are displaying is diametrically opposite to the attitude Paul wrote about in Romans and that he embodied in his interactions with the Corinthians–around whom he would not even eat meat because some of them thought it was wrong! How much easier is it for us to make it evident that we’re part of the solution, not part of the problem, by complying with government orders and CDC recommendations?
Some concluding thoughts
If people are saying, “We shut down for a month over this?” that means it’s working. The entire goal of this operation was so that we would have far less deaths than the models predicted. While it’s true that everyone and their mother has their favorite theory, their favorite study, their favorite piece of news that supported their opinion, the fact is that we will probably never know what would have happened if we hadn’t taken the measures we did. But we can bet that we certainly don’t know better than the top epidemiologists in the world. As such, their opinion on the destruction the virus would have caused is far more likely to be right than ours.
In the meantime, what we should do is act as productive members of society and try to contribute to a united solution under the authority God has placed over us. The authorities are responsible for instituting policies that promote our welfare, and if they fail at their duty, they bear the blame. We are responsible for complying with those policies, and if we fail at our duty, we bear the blame. That’s the system as God designed it.
Counteracting measures that the government has put in place by disregarding them is as good as making no contribution of our own. Many people have had to sacrifice their livelihoods to mitigate the spread of this virus. If people continue to go on about their business and don’t take extreme precautions in line with the recommendations of the top disease experts in the world, then all the sacrifices everyone has had to make over the last month will be for nothing. That’s not to say we can’t protest or advocate for change, but we should do so without being counterproductive to solving the problem.
Stay home and stay safe!
