Jeff Sessions, then Attorney General of the USA, argues that people need to be subject to the governing authority of Donald Trump because God instituted that authority and those who resist this authority resist what God has appointed (see the Bible's Letter to the Romans, chapter 13). And the erstwhile Apartheid government of South Africa argued the similarly against the African National Congress and other resistance movements.

Argument for acquiescing to arbitrary government, dictatorship, plutocracy and kleptocracy? It has certainly be used that way.

But other parts of the Bible recommend all sort of other ways of being faithful to God. Take a trip through Leviticus and use it to measure your faithfulness. Or Paul's musings (Corinthians 11) on the relationship between men and women and the need for men to cut their hair and women to keep covered.

Reading the Bible always requires a higher authority to guide us. And that authority is for Christians Jesus Christ and his Way. "Love God above all and your neighbour as your self" - a good place to start. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Reflect on the way of the Good Samaritan - going beyond religious and ethnic boundaries to respond to need and suffering. Journey along the way to Golgotha with Jesus in discovering what self-giving for others' healing is all about.

For Christians, the divine authority of any political leader - Trump, Putin, Trudeau, May, Maduro, Netanyahu, Xi Jinping, Duterto, Merkel, Bolsonaro - is always measured against the Way of Jesus. Naive? to be sure! but measuring their governing behaviour against the divine standard of self-giving love is not just the bottom line, but life's sacred Way.