‘Put them in mind.’ The modern versions will tend to say, ‘Remind them’, but it is a bit stronger than that.
A few years ago we had a pandemic and it is amazing that there were Christians, and this exhortation had gone completely out of their minds, and they said, ‘We will not obey the civil power’, and they didn't. They weighed in against this all the time, but it is here in the word of God. Sound people, people who are valued, sound preachers. They fell at this fence, and that is a small warning. However great, however famous, however appreciated, those men who fell at this fence. Be careful. Don't say, they are one hundred percent. They may be seventy percent, but there are things in the Scripture that they either don't understand, or do not want to take any notice of, or want to brush aside one way or another. But for all the centuries of the Christian church no one until the last pandemic ever seriously questioned this: that God rules the world through governments of all kinds; and with the exception of the laws of God we conform to them.
You notice that there was a kind of distinction made. Some of those people who didn't want to obey governments said, ‘Oh well, governments are only for law and order; they are to be obeyed only in matters of wrongdoing.’ But no, we are to submit to all authority. ‘Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers’, and then in addition it says, ‘to obey magistrates.’ There is law and order, and so it is in 1 Peter, and so it is, if you exegete it carefully, in Romans 13. We are to obey in everything,, not just in relation to criminal offences. Everything, as long as it isn't against the law of God. We pay our taxes; we follow the rules of an orderly society in every respect that we can.
What are the exceptions to civil obedience? We may turn to Acts chapter 4:19, and look at the verses which are the great exceptions. ‘And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ Now in this country at any rate in the time of the pandemic we watched, and there were the lockdowns, and we couldn’t go to church. But at the same time people who wished to, couldn't go to a restaurant or to a bar or a pub or to a club either, a nightclub or anything like that. It was right across society evenly. Now supposing they had let those pubs and nightclubs operate, and left only the churches closed: well then it would have been different. That would have been persecution; that would have been an attempt to silence the word of God. Then would be the time not to comply: we obey God rather than man. But while it was right across the board, then we obey. People can argue afterwards whether it was scientifically the wisest thing to do; at the time it was thought so. So every Christian’s duty was to comply. The exception is the law of God. Acts 5:29 makes it very clear: ‘Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.’ Now some friends and some good teachers said, ‘Oh no, this is a matter of who rules the church, Christ or Cesar’, as though the church can do what it likes. It cannot. Christian people have to obey the civil authorities, unless they are required to contradict the word of God and the truth.