Purpose Of Government

According to the Bible, what is the purpose of civil government? I'll quote from a book called "10 Things Satan Doesn't Want You To Know". This is from the fourth chapter called The Battle Between Kingdoms.

"Governments, with rare exceptions, seek to expand their power beyond the mandate to restrain evil, preserve order, and promote justice." That's it. Those are the three things a government should be doing.

The purpose of this chapter is to point out that governments tend to go beyond these three things, and that's where we get into the battle between God's kingdom and the kingdom of civil government. On the other hand churches want to get involved in the three mandates of government, and that is equally wrong. The church can point out evil. It's the duty of government to catch criminals, have a trial and give out punishment. The church can point out evil supported by or performed by other governments. It's the duty of government to fight that evil (we call this war). The government is to maintain order through the use of police and the military. No church should never have a police or military force at its command.

When the government expands beyond what it supposed to do, problems will result. When the church expands into taking on government's responsibilities, there will be problems.