Acts 16:28 - "The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens."

A school has rules to keep students from hurting or disturbing each other. Cities, counties, states, and nations make laws that large groups of people may live together in peace. Rules and laws, however, serve their purpose only so long as everyone obeys school rules, because he does not want to interfere with the rights of other people and because he knows that everyone must respect laws if he himself is to be protected.

In every group, however, some people refuse to obey the laws in the hope of gaining something. Because there are such people in every group, it has long been recognized that making laws is not enough and that it is necessary to have certain people to enforce the laws. Through the centuries the men who have done the work of law enforcement have had many titles. Today, in most parts of the world, they are called police.

The police do not make the laws - this is done instead by city councils, state legislatures, and other law-making bodies. The police simply enforce the laws that such bodies make. And it was so in biblical times, also, although the laws that these police enforced were the laws of God.

Deuteronomy mentions the appointment of shoterim - officers - and most Jewish commentators render this as police officers who maintained the law, first the law of God, and, later, the law as set down by court decisions. Among the duties of these officials were issuing court proclamations to the people and administering corporal punishment.

In the New Testament, the word used for police may be translated literally, as "one who carries a rod" - the fasces - as a sign of office and authority. The fasces was a bundle of birch rods held together with a red thong; these rods might be used for scourging prisoners. In some cases, the fasces also held an axe, which was used for carrying out the death sentence. All the principal Roman magistrates were publicly attended by officers carrying the fasces before the magistrate as an emblem of his power of criminal jurisdiction.