Who Do You Trust?

Another thing our generation doesn’t like is authority, though we’re hardly unique in that tendency.  Adam and Eve took the first bite at authority, and we’ve all been gnashing our teeth at authorities ever since.  Your parents—the ones who got upset when you disrespected their authority—they rebelled against their parents.  Some of your parents may have burned bras and draft cards, smoked weed in public places, and got arrested for unruly protests.  Others of your parents did more tame rebellion, like copying music and movies illegally, speeding, and switching churches presumptuously when they didn’t agree with something that was going on. 

If you’re a Christian, you know that one of the big turning points of your life was when you left the spiritual guerrilla warrior camp—where you were suspicious of God, complaining against Him, disrespecting His laws—and submitted yourself to Him as King.  You saw and believed that a God who loves you enough to lay down His own life for you can be trusted with your life.  Finally, an authority who can be trusted!

But then God, Who you trust, keeps you in a world full of authorities you don’t trust.  What's that all about?

In fact, He sends you under the authorities of the church.  Why would He do that?  I mean, we do have the Spirit of God, right?  Why can’t we each just have our own private relationship with God, come together to minister to each other, and leave authorities out of it?  Since God has leveled the playing field through faith, why should anyone in the church be over anyone else?  Isn’t that the point of the scripture from Hebrews 8 that I brought up in chapter 2?  “None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Heb. 8:11). 

That is the goal and endpoint of the New Covenant church, but the author of Hebrews frames it by saying about the Old Covenant, “Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13). 

Hebrews was written after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but the Old Covenant is still only “becoming obsolete” and “growing old.”  It is “ready to vanish away,” but it hasn’t completely vanished.  If the New Covenant were fully functional in a church, every person in that church would always be walking by the Spirit, not by the flesh.  Everyone would be operating by Christ’s love in its fullness, speaking when God gives them something to speak, and shutting up when God tells them to shut up.  Everyone would have perfect knowledge, not “seeing in a mirror dimly,” but clearly.  In this scenario, as I’ve said earlier, there is no need for any authority figure or for one human to have to obey another. 

If all are obeying God, then everyone’s obedience is perfect without having to worry about authorities or external commandments.  But this isn’t where we live, is it?

Coming soon...Chapter 5.2: The Goal of Church Authorities 

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