Men’s Breakfast (Authority)

INTRODUCTION:

Authority is the moral right or license to make decisions or employ power for a particular purpose.

Authority always has a jurisdiction or set of boundaries.

So we need to ask what role/office has God assigned to me, what is it’s purpose or goals and what limits are in place?

Not all authority is applied in the same way.

Sometimes the moral burden rests on the person in authority.

Other times the moral burden rests on the person under authority. (See difference between Rom 13:4; Eph 6:4)

Both elders and husbands are to exercise authority. Yet, unlike elders, (1 Tim 4:11) husbands are never told to “command” their wives but love.

Not all authority is given the power of discipline (or a mechanism to enforce what it commanded)

There are essentially two types of authority: authority of counsel and authority of command.

Both are true and legitimate forms of authority and should be heeded when exercised but they’re applied differently.

Those with an authority of command have the enforcement of discipline added to their tool kit to make their authority efficacious.

Not only can they punish those who disobey their authority. They can force their will over the will of another.

Those with an authority of counsel have neither of those tools. It’s not applied nor effective in the same way.

Biblical Offices

Authority is never inherent to a person but to their office. (there is a hierarchy of office but a radical egalitarianism of individuals)

There are at least six core offices with authority according to the Scripture.

Husband, parent, government, manager, congregation, pastor/elder,

The following seem to have an authority of command.

Parents of children in the home: (Pro 13:24; 22:15)

A civil government/sate:

Churches or congregations. (Keys Mat 16:19; 18:18)

Managers

The remaining offices seem to carry an authority of counsel. Their words are still binding but they have no discipline mechanism to enforce it.

Husbands: (Eph 5:22, 24) There are no keys, sword, rod or any other mechanism for enforcing this authority. Those who do are called “abusive.”

Elders: (1 Tim 4:11; 5:7; Titus 2:15) Members are to “submit and obey” their leaders (Heb 13:17). Our words should bind the conscience. Yet we are not given authority to “enforce” them. (Only the congregation is given the “keys” for enforcement.) Power of discipline drastically reduced if not eliminated.

Different Foci

The fact that one has an enforcement mechanism and the other does not means these two types of authority operate differently, and teach different truths.

For starters, an authority of command teaches us more about God’s transcendence, while an authority of counsel teaches more about his immanence.

The government is “sent by [God] to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Pet. 2:14; cf. Rom. 13:3–4).

Its lessons lean toward the transcendent.

It can announce law by horseback messenger or by evening news. No relationship required. Yet it teaches us that God is a lawgiver and judge.

Whole churches, too, when they act jointly with the keys of the kingdom, lean toward the transcendent. By binding and loosing on earth what is bound and loosed in heaven (Matt. 16:19), they formally represent heaven.

Drawing a professing believer into membership teaches us that God saves. Excommunicating a person teaches us that God punishes.

Toward the other end of the spectrum, meanwhile, elders and husbands demonstrate how God exercises his authority immanently.

Their authority doesn’t depend on the threat of discipline, like a policeman’s.

It depends on being with them. Knowing them. Understanding them. Reading their body language. Asking questions. Moderating counsel according to context.

Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, combining large quantities of both transcendence and immanence, are parents.

Fathers on earth are named after the Father in heaven (Eph. 3:15). A parent represents the broadest expanse of God’s own authority.

That said, the older children become, particularly moving into the teen years, the more a parent should lean into immanence or relationship.

Parental authority begins with greater quantities of transcendence but then aims toward immanence as the children grow.

Parents will adopt a different posture toward the three-year-old than the thirteen-year-old and more still the twenty-three-year old.

Different Approach

Authority of Counsel will be applied with a lighter hand.

Husbands and elders with their authority of counsel will lean towards language on the lighter side of the spectrum. They should never make it language of “force.”

Even words like “must” and “require” should be used sparingly unless taken straight from Scripture.

Meanwhile churches and governments - with their authority of command will often lean towards heavier side.

Parents - God help them - cover both sides of the equation.

You can see the Apostle Paul navigate this dynamic - his word choice and tone of voice in Philem 8, 9, 14.

He had the right to “command” but instead sought to “appeal.”

The second way this authority is applied differently is it operates through trust and relationship instead of threats and discipline.

Authority of command is the opposite. It’s more impersonal so the motivation isn’t out of relationship but rules and consequences when they’re broken.

A husband should not use his authority to force, but to invite and elicit the same kind of faith-filled and loving obedience from his wife that Christ desires from the church. He wants to see her obedience and support grow of its own accord, like a flower growing up out of the heart.

The same is true of elders. They strive for an obedience that is rooted in “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5). They don’t possess authority for the purpose of forcing decisions but of eliciting them.

The third way this authority is functions different is it’s earned.

They don’t “need” to earn it because the Bible calls wives and church members to submit. There’s an obligation on their side to submit to the office.

Still, a good husband or elder will continually strive to remove all stumbling blocks and will work to make following him as easy as possible. He will work to earn the trust of the people under him.

He will do this by working hard, by sacrificing himself in the job, by living in a manner that is above reproach, and by leading with confidence.

How many husbands have discovered that sitting all weekend watching football games while his wife works hard to prepare the house and the children for the upcoming week hardly wins her trust and affection!

Does Christ make the man head so that he can rest while his wife works? Hardly. The head should work hardest of all, sacrifice the most, and walk with greatest integrity.

Not only that, Paul’s instruction for elders to be “sober-minded” points to the stability and even gravitas that a good pastor and husband possesses.

He knows who he is, and is confident in his headship. He’s emotionally self-controlled and in control of his passions. He’s steadfast. His presence is felt in the room. In fact, good leaders have this, whether they’re Christians or not

The fourth difference of the authority of command is that it waits with patience and plays the long game.

A police man will command you to slow down and if you don’t listen it’s over. Those with an authority of counsel will be more patient.

A parent will command a child to go to bed now. But the nature of a husband’s or elder’s authority forces a man to be patient, long-suffering, tender, consistent. It requires him to live with his wife and church in an understanding way.

It works for growth over the long run, not forced outcomes and decisions in the short run, which is why Paul tells Timothy to teach “with all patience.”

The fifth difference is that this authority respects those they lead as their equals.

Elders and husbands must honor and respect those they lead as possessors of equal agency in every decision.

A police officer and parent will override the agency of those they lead for purposes of protection and instruction. Husbands and pastors can never do that.

A husband and elder’s authority is particularly suited to partnership and collegiality because they don’t hold the ability to coerce. Their authority requires collaboration, involvement, and calls for consent

The sixth difference is that this authority is quick to forgo their rights.

Husbands and elders should also be quick to forgo their rights, perhaps especially when disagreement continues. Possessing a right does not imply an obligation to exercise it.

Paul tells husbands and wives both to give their “conjugal rights” to their spouse (1 Cor. 7:3), while simultaneously modeling a willingness to give up his own rights to physical sustenance:

“I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision” (1 Cor. 9:15).

The Lord might command spouses to give, but that doesn’t mean he licenses us to take, or even to demand that something must be given.

The larger lesson is that men possessing an authority of counsel, whether in the home or the church, should be the quickest to surrender their rights, because that is the example Christ left for us.

He came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom (Mark 10:45).

Remember, the goal for a husband or elder is not to get your way. The goal is to grow and lead people toward Christ, so that you get to wherever you’re going together and by happy consent.

Christ The Example

When Christ came the first time he demonstrated authority of counsel. When he comes a second time he will come in authority of command.

In his first coming, Christ, the Bible’s supreme picture of God’s immanence, commands people to follow him.

He verbally rebukes people. Yet he doesn’t punish or exercise the sword. Instead, he draws near.

It’s as if he’s exercising an authority of counsel. Punishment is delayed until his second coming, when he will come with the sword and an authority of command (e.g., Rev. 6:15–17).

It’s after his second coming that all people on earth, friend and foe, will bow their knees to him as transcendent Lord (1 Cor. 15:27–28; Phil. 2:10).

Counsel = Gospel Logic

What an authority of counsel offers, in the final analysis, is a type of authority that follows a gospel logic.

Consider: The gospel includes a new heart, and that heart, in its ideal form, wants to obey. An authority of counsel, then, is suited to this ideal.

It doesn’t use force, but renounces force because doing so displays the beauty of whatever compels those new desires.

Instead, an authority of counsel works best by pointing to that beauty. By inviting. By compelling with kindness. Then the hearts “under” it want to follow.

God gives husbands the opportunity to exercise this type of authority with the drawing power of a Song-of-Solomon-like love. This is his common-grace gift for all creation, and part of the underlying logic of the typological connection between husbands and wives and Christ and the church.

God then gives elders the special-grace opportunity to exercise it with compelling lives of righteousness. Their righteousness should prove attractive to a born-again congregation, so that elders can say with Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).

All of this means that an authority of counsel is essentially evangelistic.

You invite. You don’t force. Sometimes you correct, but mostly you compel with hope. You point to the law, but mostly you announce grace.

You speak plainly, but you also speak kindly, because your goal is to win people over—wives toward unity, church members toward righteousness.

You’re not to be a pushover, any more than Jesus was a pushover, nor to capitulate, any more than Jesus capitulated. Yet like Jesus calling his disciples from their fishing nets, so husbands and elders exercise authority by initiating and pointing in love toward the path forward.

They, in turn, possess an obligation to obey, even as the non-Christian hearing the gospel does.

Conclusion

Too often, Christians discuss authority as if it is one kind of thing. Hopefully, the discussion here demonstrates that authority comes in a variety of fabrics with a variety of textures that serve a variety of purposes. This means we, likewise, need to be more textured in our descriptions and practice of it.