Understanding Authority Part 1

From rigid to fluid, from controlling to releasing authority.

Your understanding of authority will either be a liberating, releasing and empowering insight or a bondage that limits your expression and keeps you enslaved to the opinions of others. The probability that all of us have seen the perverted form of authority is great. Authority is one of the most abused subjects in the Word, and that’s why we need to see it from God's perspective.

God is love; His power and authority can only be understood in the light of that truth. It is the love of a father that motivates him to share more and more of his resources with his children. As a father longs for his children to be empowered to act and speak with integrity, so our heavenly Father desires to share His powers with us. No parent wants to nurture a child in such a way that the child never learns to think and act on his/her own. Parents want their children to mature in such a way that resources and power can be entrusted to them. Love is therefore the motivating force out of which authority develops.

The God-kind of authority is the means by which God enables, releases and empowers us to become all He knows we could be. His authority is not used to control but to entrust; His authority does not limit our expression but draws out the most creative abilities in us. His authority does not even look like any authority we have seen before; it simply looks like love in action.

Those who enjoy friendship with Father do not fear his authority, because it is just another expression of His love. To trust His authority is easy for we know and believe the love He has for us. The difficulty for most is how to relate to authority in other people. How does He communicate His authority through other people. The reason for this becomes clear as we discover in God's Word the two ways in which authority is communicated.

Most only know of one type of authority and that is the hierarchical type, where God delegates authority to one level that re-delegates it to another level etc. But there is another type! The difference is as broad and definite as the difference between the old and the new covenant.

Lets first hear what Jesus had to say about this:
Mat 20:25 - 28 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Here Jesus introduces us to the first way in which authority is manifested. Let’s call it the organizational or hierarchical type. He describes it as authority 'over' or dominion 'over' indicating that it is bound to a position which in turn is bound to a level. Now the most significant words in this passage that we cannot miss is: '..it shall not be so among you..' Did you get that? IT SHALL NOT BE SO AMONG YOU.

Jesus introduced a whole new way in which His authority operates among us. Whereas the organizational type of authority was bound to a position and therefore whoever filled the position had the authority, independent of his character, this new type is linked to a function or task. Let's call it organic or fluid authority for now.

To illustrate this, I'll use Paul's metaphor for the church, which is a body. If you decide to move your fingers, you don't first communicate the thought to your arm, which in turn communicates it to your hand, which in turn communicates it to your fingers. That’s ridiculous. Every part of your body is directly linked to the head and is well able to receive instructions directly. There are no 'positions' of greater authority through which these instructions need to be filtered to find out if they really came from the head. There is only one authority and that is the head. He empowers certain parts of the body to do certain tasks. That authority does not continue to reside in that part of the body, neither does it elevate that part over other parts. The parts of the body are equal among one another.

So much still needs to be said about this, but this article is just an introduction to the concept of organizational versus organic authority. Meditate on it; it is so rich. Tomorrow we will delve deeper into the differences and start looking at the practical ways in which it was experienced among the believers of the New Testament.

By Andre Rabe
andre.rabe@gmail.com
http://eclesia.blogspot.com