Abusive Authority

.... Jesus told us that all authority is given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), and because this is true we must always act in His name, for we have no authority of our own (Colossians 3:17). Like the Holy Spirit Himself, Christian leaders are simply to ‘come along side’ of other Christians with the intention of pointing them directly to Jesus (John 15:26; 16:13; 1 Timothy 2:5). Through this the Lord’s authority is represented but it is never delegated.

.... "But you, do not be called 'Rabbi'; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

(Matthew 23:8-12)

.... In this passage, Jesus is speaking about religious titles such as Rabbi, Father or Teacher. But the real point is that those who were claiming such titles were making themselves mediators between God and men. In effect, they were claiming that He had delegated His authority to them and that we must now ‘access God’ through them (see 2 Corinthians 1:24).

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.... In fact, certain Christian leaders of today are quick to add even more: "We cannot separate our submission to God’s inherent authority from our submission to His delegated authority." In other words they are claiming that obeying God means obeying them, without recourse, for the two are inseparable. And they claim this even remains true when they have really twisted it! "Just because it has been twisted by man does not mean it was not authored by God."

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.... Such a statement is arrogant, self-serving, reckless and irresponsible to the point of being dangerous. Should we really accept man’s ‘twisting’ of the Scriptures while telling ourselves that God has ordained it this way, and that He would actually be displeased to have it otherwise? Unfortunately, a lazy, religious part of man would love to have it exactly so, to which Jesus would answer:

.... "Full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition."

(Mark 7:9)

.... Let’s build a scenario to address the underlying conflict more pointedly, then relate it to Jesus Himself. A Christian leader tells a young lad to do something that is unscriptural. The lad points out his error by quoting the Scripture itself, but the leaders insists. How is this conflict resolved? Is authority found in the Word of God, or in the person of the Christian leader? Let’s see how the answer is modeled in Jesus Himself:

.... "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak."

(John 12:49)

.... In this example Jesus, the speaker, claims no authority of His own, but points beyond Himself to the Word of His Holy Father. And after His resurrection, when all authority really was given to Him (Matthew 28:18), the Holy Spirit did the same by quoting the words of Christ in order to point us back to Him (John 14:26; 16:13-14).

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.... Therefore we must do the same, resorting to His word in pointing back to Him, if His authority is to be properly represented among men. As such we entirely disagree with the foolish notion that Christians are "on a collision course with the very one they call ‘Lord’" by holding Christian leaders accountable to the Scriptures, and acting accordingly! On the contrary, Jesus would say:

.... ‘Why do you call me ‘Lord’ and do not do the things I say?"

(Luke 6:46)

.... Or as the apostles would say,

.... "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge."

(Acts 4:19)

.... The main point of our disagreement is that under a situation of abuse, Christians would be stripped of legitimate recourse. Hopefully, that would be an extreme possibility and not the norm, but blind power of this nature will, in itself, always lend itself to such abuse. As Lord John Acton would say, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" and historically speaking, the church has always lapsed into great abuse when the power of leadership was magnified -- and especially when it had gone unchallenged. And as we have noted above, there is a religious part of Christians that loves to tolerate this, and would seldom seek to free themselves from it:

.... "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?"

(Jeremiah 5:31; see also 2 Corinthians 11:22-21)

.... We will continue this discussion in our next posting.

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Daily Bible Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3