Who's the boss?

When my sons were youngsters and we would make the nine hour drive from Atlanta to southwest Florida, birth order always governed the backseat conversation.  Somebody would do something annoying to one of the others and that would lead to an elbow jab and then an order to "quit it."  That, in turn perpetually led to the angry statement:  "You're not the boss of me!"

Who is the boss of us?  Some philosophers of self-determinism like Ayn Rand maintain that individuals are the boss of themselves.  Religions maintain that religious believers relinquish some degree of self-determination to something higher.  

Our scriptures this week talk about God as that something higher.  From an enthronement hymn in the Psalms to the confrontation between Pharisees and Jesus about what we owe to Caesar and to God, sovereignty of God is in the discussion.  Moreover, we get the feeling from these scriptures that God is always at work unfolding a divine strategy through events in history.  Does that mean that God is manipulative?

Scriptures this week are:

• Psalm 96:1-9

• Isaiah 45:1-7

• Matthew 22:15-22

• 1Thessalonians 1:1-10

Allen Cross