Most scholars think that Paul wrote the Roman letter from Corinth. An educated guess is that it was written in the year 57 a.d., although there is always some discussion about such dates. The emperor was probably Nero.

Previously while in Corinth, Paul had made friends with a couple named Aquila and Priscilla. They were Jews who had been living in Rome, but had been forced to leave when Emperor Claudius expelled all of the Jews from Rome. According to the historian Suetonius, the Jews were kicked out because of “their continual tumults instigated by Chrestus.” Chrestus could be a misspelling of Christ; some scholars think there were Jewish-Christian riots in Rome which led the Roman government to act against the Jews.

Not that the Romans lacked for reasons to act against the Jews. The Jewish people never fully accepted the Roman occupation of their land, especially given the worship of other gods that the Romans often brought with them. Within two decades of the writing of this letter, the Romans will have decided that “enough is enough” and will have destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish resistance.

Nero, of course, within a decade would launch the first large-scale persecution of Christians, action taken merely to deflect blame from himself for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 a.d. Tradition tells us that Paul himself lost his life during Nero’s anti-Christian campaign.

Such was the political background of Romans 13. The call to avoid conflict with the government was a prudent one.