Gemma Adam of FIEC Practical Services helps churches embrace legal responsibilities for the sake of the gospel
The legal system and the Word of God can sometimes seem entirely contrary.
We don’t see the Apostle Paul worrying about risk assessments or DBS checks before preaching to crowds in Acts. Church leaders often tell me they struggle to justify spending valuable time and effort on legal matters when they want to be proclaiming God’s Word and winning people for his kingdom. The law can feel like a never-ending list of regulations and tasks. But churches and Christian organisations need to comply with these things, primarily because the Bible commands believers to submit to the governing authorities for ‘the authorities that exist have been established by God’ (Romans 13.1). This isn’t the case when the authorities’ commands conflict with those of the Bible but, praise God, we are not currently in that situation in Britain. Churches are not above the law, but need to submit to it, like every other organisation does, as Romans 13 says: ‘not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience’. So, rather than seeing the law as a hindrance, churches and Christian organisations can joyfully embrace legal compliance as an opportunity to aid their mission to spread the gospel. How? Here’s a few examples:
