The Christian's Dual Citizenship

How can someone be the product of, and loyal to, two nations simultaneously? How can one be equally at home in Britain and America, or in South Africa and New Zealand? It's a question that the political theorists struggle to answer, for ultimately, it is a particular application of the one and the many, or the problem of diversity and unity. But regardless of how the theorists have tried to conceptualize this problem, we have a concrete example of it before us in the text this evening. Paul claims two different citizenships back-to-back — citizenship of Rome, and citizenship of God's Kingdom. The two are in play simultaneously. Paul's Roman citizenship protects him from murder at the hands of an outraged Jerusalem mob; Paul's Kingdom citizenship gives him the authority to keep saying the thing that made the mob mad in the first place, which is that he is a good citizen of the Kingdom of God. From Paul's story, we will see this point: The Christian is a citizen of an earthly polity and of the Kingdom of Heaven. He has a dual citizenship, and that citizenship gives him a place from which to testify to Jesus, and an authorization to to testify too. Paul also shows us a model of how to balance these competing loyalties and memberships: We use our earthly citizenship to serve our heavenly.