Recently, I was studying a little on Biblical authority. How it works, when it’s abused, and what it could like like.
Here is what I learned:
- How is the Biblical mandate of authority so simple, so effused with grace, humility and so utterly God-dependent while our modern day interpretation leads us into such dangerous places?
- Leadership functions to specific tasks, determined by God’s authority.
- People crave spiritual authority in their lives. There is a security that comes from understanding the boundaries that are set by others, and to live accordingly.
- Spiritual leadership is the practice of supplying wisdom, discernment, truth and good direction to a community of people while helping them to grow wise, discern and live well themselves.
- We have something to get done. How many times do we abuse the community’s willingness to let us lead them simply for the sake of getting it done? People worn out, burned out, run down to the ground for our cause…which was really our task, not theirs.
- We need other voices to challenge us and conflict us. It can be a scary thing, especially with the demands for heroic leadership.
- We abuse authority when we take it for ourselves, measuring it as a tool or method of achieving our greater purpose or task.
- Leadership that resonates with true Biblical authority is accessible, secure, layered in relationship on every level, open-handed, and explicit. It’s leadership with people, not for people.
- Hold to an ideal that extols God as the one spiritual authority, and that His truth is as accessible to me as it is to the greatest of my spiritual heroes.
