For a list of dozens of authors’ diverse interpretations of this passage, see J. Duncan M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970), p. 318 n. 2. For an example of the tendency to interpret this passage as discouraging civil disobedience, see Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” in Karl Barth, Theologian of Freedom, ed. Clifford J. Green (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989), pp. 273–274.