One of the greatest precepts that I received from my Dad was what he called blind obedience to authority. He said orders were not to be discussed, but obeyed and followed blindly. Of course he meant righteous authorities! He was not ever meaning any unrighteous ones. And that is exactly what Romans chapter 13 says: Everyone is to be subject to God – including the authorities themselves and since unrighteous authorities are not subject to God – they are not to be followed. So all other authorities are to be obeyed.
Dad said this to me in order to prepare me for being a Christian. Later in life I would need to obey the highest of all authorities: The Lord. God actually wants us to obey him exactly the way my Dad said.
Now the word “blind” has some bad connotations, like the ones relating to those that run a dictatorship. What Dad meant was that sons and daughters are to follow instructions and not stand around debating the pros and cons or whether something is convenient to us or not. He never meant we should do something that is wrong.
Dad was trying to teach me to honor authority; a common theme throughout the Bible.
I don’t think the Lord allowed Dad to say this to me except that the Lord had in mind that one day soon I would need to learn to follow and obey him “without arguing or disputing”.
Interesting to note that although my Dad left me with these unusual instructions – he never quite treated me anything like that himself. Rather instead, he was quite lenient in any of requests he made of me. He asked me to do very few things and everything he asked me to do was always righteous. He never asked me to do anything that was wrong or went contrary to what the Bible taught. Now there were a few times that he defended others in their behavior when maybe I would not have done so, because what these people were doing was not right, but he never once ordered me to do what they were doing since that would have been against my conscience and what the Bible taught.
As best as I can remember nothing my Dad ever taught me or told me to do was ever wrong and if ever I disobeyed him in anything he was 100% in the right and I in the wrong.
Now, this may not be the experience of some others, but it was mine.