Today we divorce authority from responsibility. Totally. So be careful what you ask for. Okay, take authority but then you are responsible for the outcome good or bad of what happens we want to have authority without responsibility.
Hi Friends, Welcome to Ideas have consequences the podcasts of the disciple nations Alliance, where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of our mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Welcome to another episode of ideas have consequences. This is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and to gate today on our podcast, I'm joined by John Baltimore, in Virginia, and Luke Allen up in Oregon. And here with me in Phoenix is Dwight tideway. Hi, everybody. Hey, Scott, great, great to be together with you. It's always a joy. And today, we are going to, we're going to talk on a subject that has become very near and dear to my heart. And people are going to think this is funny when I say what it is, but it's it's the word authority.
You know, authority. And I laugh, we laugh because I think in our culture, and certainly, I mean, I understand this, it's got it's got a very kind of negative idea attached with it. We think of authoritarianism, you know, and authoritarian leaders for a lot of people brings to mind Donald Trump.
despots Yeah, you know, and,
and there's obviously a lot of truth to the fact that authority in a fallen world is abused. And, you know, authority is, is something that kind of abuse of authority, I think, is something we've all at some level, right? struggled with in the workplace, or at home, or whatever. And so it's certainly understandable that people have a negative view. But what I want to do is with you guys today is I want to kind of put that aside and just see if we can really get into what the Bible teaches on this subject. Because I think when we, when we look at it carefully and deeply, it becomes this incredible, it really amazing, incredibly, even beautiful concept, and very important concept for a variety of reasons. And I know for me, as I've dug into it, it's really been enlightening and kind of almost life changing. I think one of the reasons I love this topic so much, guys, is that it's something that is so relevant for everybody, because we all exercise authority, in some ways. And so it's something that as Christians learning biblical authority, and learning how to practice it or live it, and understand it is completely irrelevant. It's completely something that you can put into practice, like right away. So that's part of the reason I really, really liked this subject a lot. But I'd like to start guys just with the kind of maybe picking back up with the kind of where the culture is at on this subject of authority, and why it's got such a negative connotation, kind of how do people think about authority? In our current culture, before we jump into kind of what the Bible says about it. So yeah, what are your experiences with that are your thoughts on that? I mean, we mentioned mentioned some words already here, but
I think people in our culture equate authority with power. And so it's thought of in a bit of a negative lens. I think it's, you know, equated with decision making rather than deliberation and care for one another. So a generally has negative negative tones, not respectful, submissive kinds of tones. And so it's, you know, it provides kind of polar opposites. I think when people disagree things that authority becomes a decision by power rather than by debate and you know, what's best for the whole those kinds of things are seen and So many different ways in society and politics and this sort of thing. So that's why we laughed at the beginning. It's a great, it's a great word from a biblical standpoint. But in practice, it's a it's a, it's a tough, power hungry kind of connotation.
Yeah. And I'll add to that just connected to, I think the idea of oppression and subjugation and right, even enslavement. Yes, you have authority. That's what you're doing. Right? Right. It's very, very negative.
Right. Right. You know, I think about authority in the home, you know, the word that describes that as patriarchy. And, you know, that's, that's the authority of the father or the husband in the home, that's entirely negative, like you even bring that word up. It's like, oh, my gosh, do you support? The patriarchy? Right? I mean, that's to try going out there and saying, Hey, I really want to sit here and defend the patriarchy. You know,
I remember going to ASU graduation, like 10 years ago, and the commencement address, the last sentence was down with a pay down with
the patriarchy, right, like, drop.
Really, and I
think that captures, you know, kind of a lot of attitude towards the towards authority at whatever level, I mean, that's authority in the home, but you know, at whatever level, at the same time, guys, here's the interesting thing. There's this really negative connotation with authority. And John, you rightly said, authority and power are closely related terms, and there's a negative connotation with power. But at the same time, people will do almost anything to get it. And so there's this irony, isn't there? Right? I'm going to do almost anything to get in to get into that position of power.
It's not negative if I have it.
Right, right. Well, I kind of think it's, it's, it is still negative, but it's like, somebody's going to have it. And if it's not, you know, it's not me, somebody else is gonna have it, I'm gonna have it, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna make people bend to my will rather than me being bent to somebody else's? Well, you know, it's, so it's still all negative, but it's kind of who's going to do the bending of the knee, you know, so,
yeah. And on the flip side of that are, you know, we may not speak highly of authority, we don't like it. But you go into a meeting, and nobody knows who's going to make a decision. Finally, and everybody's floundering are yes or no, if there is no authority, there's no order. Yes. And nobody quite knows what's going on. Right. So we honestly, we cannot live without it.
Or you bring up a great point what I think in our because of the negative view that we have of authority, a Christians especially I think, but not exclusively, I think we think the righteous thing to do then is to just shed authority, right? Or just act like there's no authority, I'm not going to be the authority shouldn't exist, shouldn't exist, right? We're all going to be equal, everyone's going to be absolutely equal in the home. And you see this, for example, I see this with in families with, especially young parents, I've seen this many times, they don't like to discipline their children. Because that's a position of that. That's, like I say it's a that's a responsibility of authority, essentially as disciplining, and they really don't want to do that. They want to treat their kids as equals. Right. That's, that's their instinct, because authority is bad, right? And then the kids get out of control. And the house is a mess, you know?
No, no. Yeah. I mean, the foolishness of a three year old begins to rule the household.
Exactly, exactly. You know, you're really Yes. And, you know, yeah, so I've seen that, like, oh, or you're sitting in a meeting, and, you know, nobody wants to take a position of leadership, because that's bad, you know, or whatever it is, you know.
They don't know anyway, it doesn't work.
Exactly. So it doesn't work. You've got you've got these different reactions to authority today, it's negative, not having authority or treating everyone is kind of perfectly equal is somehow positive. Or this fight for power and authority. It's, it's really fraught. I mean, it's a really challenging kind of time to talk him to even talk about authority. I did, I did some reflection on kind of how we ended up with such a negative view of authority, guys, and I'd like to share a few thoughts with you and get your reactions to it. I. I was thinking about this in terms of historic shifts in the West, and I heard somebody explain it, it really helped me a lot. They were explaining these shifts around kind of the question of who has ultimate authority who has ultimate authority. And they went back to, let's say, the Middle Ages, or you know, even the time before the Reformation, and in the culture largely in the West. The question was answered this week. thought, you know, God has ultimate authority. And then the Catholics would say, and that authority was vested in the church, right? So the church was kind of a close second and the Pope, right. I mean, that was that was ultimate authority. That was how the society was ordered around that basic idea. Reformation changed it a bit. It said, God has a supreme authority. So that was where there was agreement there. But then it wasn't the church. It was God's word. Right. So the God's word, this is really the the Reformation was kind of a fight over authority, in some ways is this authority below God vested in the church or is invested in God's Word, you know, and, and, I mean, that's another long discussion we don't need to go into.
Luther even took it to the man holding God's word, and reading it and interpreting it so that each person became now the priesthood of the believers. Yeah.
So Right. So it was kind of the hierarchy of authority went God, His word, the individual believer, individual believer without the priest being in there anywhere in the church. Exactly. This is the priesthood of all believers idea. Yeah, super radical, really revolutionary lead to democracy really revolutionary. Exactly. That'd be another fun discussion to have all the ripples from that, that shift in authority, but but for now, I will say that whether it was Catholic or Protestant, they still had God and authority. It was God and authority. God existed, he was the supreme authority. Now, during the Enlightenment, during the Age of Reason, right, that shifted, as Europe began to secularize, and we kind of said, Hey, we don't need God through science and reason, you know, we can understand all of reality, and we'll just dispense with this God of the Dark Ages, and superstition and all this stuff. So we moved Europe moved in a very secular direction. Okay. So then the question of who has ultimate authority shifted, it's not God anymore. He's out of the picture. He's not unreal, he doesn't exist, whatever. Who has authority now, ultimately, science, right? Because at least out of the Age of Reason, all that exists is matter. And it's the scientists that define kind of reality for us, they are the ones that kind of study matter and study the way the world works, you know, so go ahead. And the idea that that reason was the authority Yeah, reasons, human reason, human reason, human reason, or human reason and science?
Well, and you got your human reason from science. Exactly. I mean, natural law was still there, but it was interpreted through human reason.
Exactly. And that that held sway through, let's say, you know, all through the 1800s into the 1900s. And even today, right, people still make appeals to science like science, that's going to settle all the questions. Right, Dr. Fauci I am the science End of discussion, right? That's the ultimate authority. Right? So that's, that's, that's not gone away completely. But it is being eclipsed with this idea now that well, how do you know, this postmodern idea that, you know? And the postmodern idea is this idea that, you know, how can we really trust the scientists, it's this kind of radical relativism that says, you know, ultimately, we can't trust anyone in authority, that authority, we have to kind of count on ourselves and ourselves alone, we define what is real, this kind of radical individualism of of post modernism. And so, so we're seeing a shift today to that, you know, to this idea, that authority resides with the individual, you know, this idea of human autonomy, I'm a lot of myself, I define reality. I'm the final say, you know, and, and, like, for example, I think you see this, particularly clearly in transgenderism, right? Doesn't matter what science says about human biology, it doesn't matter. Certainly what the Bible says about the subject or what God says that's completely outdated. It's what I say that's what counts, right? That I define the reality I define if I'm male or female, it's much that's you know, that's a very postmodern view of authority. So
I don't know about the rest of you but I see this also reflected just in general civility of the population now and there's more and more people speaking out like you know, you can't tell me what to do right I am my own boss or correct you know, and so there's there's disturbances on airplanes are way up because it used to be know if you're on the airplane that the pilot and the stewardess are in charge. And now you know, the passengers in charge
Yeah, kind of see the says that's the big thing Who says you're in charge?
is breaking out on airplanes, and I saw the some person being carried off by policemen the other day from an aeroplane I'm going Oh, my goodness, what's going on? Yeah, no, yeah. And there's just this sense of, I'm in charge. You can't tell me what to do.
Right? And I think now we're getting close to what we were talking about earlier, this kind of very negative view that we have of authority today, it comes out of this post modernism in some ways, because, you know, it's, it's, again, it's disconnected from God, and everyone's their own little authority. And so we just kind of fight over authority. Now it's, you know, and, and it's not sustainable, right? Ultimately, every society has to be ordered around somebody's view of reality, right? Some instance, every institution has to be shaped by somebody's view of reality. And then the question only becomes who's right who's whose view gets to define society and shape our institutions, right, whose view of reality
right, I don't know if this ads with God, but this morning, I was listening to sports on the way to the office. And I was thinking about how this is kind of a dilemma in modern society today, the breakdown of authority, except in sports. And they were hard, they made a change in the baseball rules now that they, the pitcher has to pitch faster than he did, you know, a year ago. And so that's being challenged. But because it's now a rule in sports, it's like, the whole thing is, well, do they have the authority to enforce that? And, and but in sports, it's like, you have to have authority. Because, you know, if you break the rule, you lose the game. And it's funny how we have going on, I
want to I want to start, I want to stop there for a second. But before we go into sports, because I think sports are just games in general, are are really important window, understanding what authority is why it's needed, what the purpose of it is.
So rule by authority.
I agree. Yeah, Luke and John, jump in. So you made
a pretty big statement a second ago, and just kind of moved on from it. You said, we always have to have authority, I think a lot of people would say, Do we really? You know, why do we need that. And when you look around, I think sports, again, are a perfect example. It's ingrained in us as humans, we always need order. And therefore we always need some kind of authority structure to live in to, I think people have tried throughout history, and societies have tried to rid themselves of this, but you really can't.
You can't, you can't get just chaos, right? You can't you can't do just like in sports, just like we're in society in general, or a human family. If nobody has authority, it's chaos, or if everyone has authority equally, which is just the same way as saying nobody has authority, I guess. Yeah. John, what are you gonna say, you know,
it, you know, it may be it may be that in some realms, like entertainment, whether it's sports, or music, or whatever, these kinds of things were rule changes or authority expressions are maybe more accepted, because they're about entertainment or whatever, so that they're things that I enjoy, and you're telling me, I'm going to enjoy them more. So it might be a different realm than say, in personal choices and things. You know, another point that I just wanted to make is that the, you know, the, the effects of authority, while we might fight against it, it's also causing more fear and mental anguish and mental health issues than ever, the lack of authority and the lack of direction and the lack of clarity. And so, you know, at the same time, we want less control over our lives, we want more control in our own individual lives. Look at the effects of that, in terms of the mental health, anguish, especially among the young. So it's, you know, it's amazing, the, the, what happens when, you know, when, when the right kind of authority is, is pushed aside, I can come back to that maybe
I want to just put a pin in what we're saying now, because we haven't fully defined authority. And that's okay. I think we'll, we'll we can define it as we go along, kind of piece by piece, but an important, you know, an important purpose of authority is order. You know, it's just, it's like you said, Dwight, it's the rules of the game like baseball or any game, you can't play without, you can't enjoy a game and have all the fun and the enjoyment that comes out of a game without rules, and you can't have rules without authorities that uphold the rules, right? And going
to John's point, you can't feel secure. Yeah, unless you know, you're operating within those rules. That's where you have this sense of order around you. Yeah, we don't feel secure, psychologically. We freak out.
Yes. It's, it's, it's how we're made, because we'll touch and we'll touch on this, but God created an ordered universe in order for us to thrive in, you know, to chaos, way back in Genesis chapter one and made order out of that chaos, you know, because he's the supreme authority, and he established the rules of creation, if you will, you know, go ahead. Wait.
Well, I've sent him another illustration of security. I remember the backlash and when when the Soviet Union fell, because the older generation now lacked the security
yes of defined authoritarian rule. Right. And it
was, it was unsettling. Yes. Terribly unsettling. Let's go back to stuff Elon
now there's a book, I think it's by that famous conservative writer Darrow would know the name of it. Anyways, I escapes me right now. But he had a famous phrase said orders, that is the most basic human need of all. And I kind of I thought, That's interesting thought about that. But just the need that we have for order, just to your point there, Dwight about the collapse of the Soviet Union. So authority is authority, the way I understand authority, and kind of its simplest way is it's the right to issue commands or rules or laws, that others are obligated to obey. You know, I mean, it that's kind of at the at the essence of it, you know, and to punish violation, I guess, that goes along with that authorities have the right there. They have the right to punish violation. So and right. equals power it Yeah. And power is very closely associated with authority for
right. Yeah.
Would you mind? Would you mind saying that again, one more time did that definition?
Yeah, it's, it's kind of the idea of the right to issue a command or a rule or a law and to punish violations. And so. So, like, just think of a parent in the home, right, they have the right as a parent over their children to, to lay down the law to issue a rule and expect that their children will be obedient to that. And if they're not to punish them all that is completely clear picture of what authority is, you know, and within that sphere, although it can exist in the workplace, and it can exist in the school or in the state as a whole. Right? Or it's, you know, it certainly exists in the military, right, wherever you have authority or art, or sports, you know, yeah, go
and it can be in a body. It doesn't have to be an individual. I think of legislators making a law. Yeah. Together. Yeah. And then here's the, you know, the enforcement of that law.
Yeah. We think of it entirely in social kind of relationships. But interestingly, I think, you know, at least the Bible says, you know, there's, there's a personal aspect to this as well, you have authority over yourself, right? You can this whole idea of kind of self governing or self authority, if you will, that you have the right to issue commands and orders of yourself and to punish yourself, if you violate those. I mean, this is kind of the whole idea of human agency or human will that we have that capacity, we're not animals, right? We don't just function by instinct, or by the compulsion of whoever is our owner. We can self govern. Go ahead, somebody who's going to jump in there.
Yeah. Oh, I was just thinking about discipline in the area of self government. Yes. Like, that's, that's really what discipline is, is, you know, giving yourselves rules giving yourself you know, laws, you know, framework to live life by and that's, that's a discipline life. And God calls us to be disciplined in
discipline. Yeah, discipline yourself, self discipline, you know, when I mean, that's how progress is made, you know, in a lot of ways, right? It's just this kind of idea.
And in that's key to master, or maybe not master, it's key to, you know, exercise before moving into other areas of authority, you have to have authority over yourself and be self discipline before you can expect to be given any more responsibility than that.
Exactly.
Yeah, I think of the founders of the United States, and you know, they were coming out of the, you know, King, what is the King James?
And the King James Bible, you mean? No, no, who is
the King of England? Sorry, Edward Charles, I don't know.
During the during the revolution, King George King,
I'm sorry, King George. Sorry, all
crazy King George man.
But but, you know, they were saying we're going to move away from a centralized authority to one which empowers the American to have authority over their lives. Yes. But there was a very clear understanding that that meant self government, yes, it wasn't going to be just chaotic, do what you want. But we are going to have a nation of self governed people,
because that's how they are created. They're created to self govern, they're given the freedom to self govern, let's say the liberty that God given liberty to self govern, and together we can live in order. Yeah, but they were also very realistic. Like John Adams said, that's only going to work if people are under a higher authority, God's law and can self govern Under that law, if they get rid of God. And they just go off and, you know, try to impose their will on other people, you know, then it's going to fall apart. So But you're right, that that experiment that they did Dwight it that had never been tried in human history? As far as I know. No. Yeah.
And now it's spread around the world. Exactly. And everybody tries it, and most people fail. Yeah. And we're kind of failing right now. Yes, exactly. I made a point. Earlier, not in the podcast. Ask but just we were talking. And, you know, I think that to me, when I look at the Bible, I think that's the hallmark of God's authority. And that he created. First of all, he created the heavens in the earth. So he had all authority over everything. Yes, complete authority. Yes. And then he creates man in his image. And the first thing he says is, I will delegate authority to mankind, every individual
Yes, to rule to reign to have authority over this earth over
all the things that I have created. Yes. So there was immediately this delegation of authority without relinquishment of authority. Yes. And yet there was an understanding of what what was expected, you know, so anyway, it was it's,
well, it's really a powerful biblical idea of authority. And I want to I want to move there, for sure, Dwight, I want to and especially that point of authority, you know, because in our very fallen world that we live in now, this fallen, postmodern kind of world authority is something that you, you either you know, you, you hate it, you distrust it, or you're, you're you're going to do anything to get it, it's the Ring of Power, you know, if I can get that ring of power, I'm going to make people bend to my will. And so it's, it's something to be hoarded. Right? Because I don't trust you, if you had authority, I don't know what you would do. To me. There's a complete breakdown of trust. But in the biblical worldview, it's different. You know, it's all about love and trust and sharing of authority is not hoarded, it's shared, actually. And you see God's sharing, right out the chute authority with with Adam, even before Eve's, you know, comes into existence. And you know, him, you name the animals, I created them, you name them all, I'll call them whatever you name them. That's, that's an amazing sharing of authority, you know, that God does there. So it's
just ironic. And I hope this doesn't distract but that that the modern person today and it's a post modernist says, I want authority over my life. And God in Genesis one said, I will give you authority over your life. But here's my expectation. And so to come under my authority, it's like it's actually the the idea of wanting to govern is a godly is a godly thing. It's a godly desire. Absolutely. And yet, it leads to today, it's just so distorted, so fallen, so broken, that we have to go back to a more centralized, yeah, we have to default to it.
A couple more things about the kind of broken kind of a sense of power and authority that we have today. You know, we talked about the shifts between kind of the pre modern worldview, the modern, and the postmodern, and how those shifted around who the question of who has ultimate authority, and, and now we're living in a time where that's shifting from each individual has kind of ultimate authority, sovereignty, autonomy, which is unworkable, because somebody's ideas are going to have to shape the society, somebody's got to have authority, you know, where everything falls apart, you know, there's no order. So it's just this fight for power. Right now. And you know, where we're morphing into is kind of this idea of this powerful elite or oligarchy, kind of amassing the power to impose their views of authority on everyone else. That's, that's kind of the world that we're living in. And there's a Marxist twist to it that I think it's important, though, and I didn't see this until, you know, recently, as I was looking into it from my social justice book, but the Marxist twist goes something like this. And it's kind of an ironic thing. But it's, you know, Marx said, The world is divided into these two categories, and only two, you're part of one or the other, you know, there's oppressors and the oppressed, right. And the oppressors are using their power to oppress their victims in order to amass power, wealth, whatever it is. Selfishly, right. So there's the oppressed, and there's the victims. Now, what he wanted to do is a social revolution and turn the tables, so the victims, then can grasp a hold of the power. And, you know, his idea was that ultimately, we don't want anyone having authority. And Marx was very anti authority. He wanted this world of complete kind of equality, this utopian idea of everyone having complete equality. And that's why he didn't like wherever Marxism was tried to try to destroy any centers of authority, like the family or the church. You can't have any centers of authority in the society, it's gotta be just can't be any authority. Now, as the kind of the step to get to that ultimate vision, you got to have somebody with authority to kind of seize all power and authority and resources and then redistribute them. So it's kind of a con in some ways, because those people once they get it, they never let go of it. Right, you know, the Chinese Communist Party or the dictator of North Korea or whoever I mean, it's just they, they, they ultimately have all power. Okay? But this idea of victim and oppressor. So in this kind of Frankfurt School critical theory, it's actually an I've seen this. It's the victims now that if you can claim victim status, then it comes with this kind of empowerment, right? Like, you. It's how can I explain it, you have to listen to me. Because I understand things in a way that you don't because I'm victimized. That's called standpoint epistemology. But anyways, it empowers my point here is and we get into this deeper, but it's it empowers victims. And victims are identified by group affiliation. And so if you're either a person with colored skin, or if you're a female or part of that LGBTQIA group, you're a victim based on that group identification, and that victimhood in infers upon you power authority to kind of say things the way they are. And then if you're not in that group, if you're an oppressor, you just need to sit down, shut up and listen,
because one of the questions about authority that we always ask at the worldview level is what is legitimate authority? And now they're there. That's changing the definition of legitimacy. Yeah. So legitimacy is now are you oppressed?
Yes. Right. Are you one of those oppressed category? People?
If you're an oppressed cat, you now have legitimate authority? Yes, if you're an oppressor, you have no authority. So I mean, it's just, it's the question of legitimacy, which is terribly important. And authority. Yes. And that's been changed. So that, yeah, so
that takes us that takes us back to the definition to the beginning of the definition said the right to do a certain thing in, you know, as in the definition of authority. And so the question about, where does that right come from? Is it an earned or respected are based on knowledge is that a self imposed kind of thing, that's what we're talking about here in terms of the oppressed, it becomes self imposed, we are the victims, therefore, we have authority, we have the right to exercise authority, nevermind the fact that we haven't earned anything, or we haven't earned any respect or have any knowledge on how to exercise that authority. We have it because we are oppressed. And then a third way I can think of that the right might exist, is through tradition, or some kind of a universal expectation, or something. And you know, we can easily get into scriptural truth on that downstream. The other point I wanted to make is we today, we divorce authority from responsibility. Totally. So be careful what you ask for, okay, take authority, but then you are responsible for the outcome, good or bad of what happens, we want to have authority without responsibility. So the misuse of authority leads to bad outcomes, and but we don't want to take the responsibility for them. So there's, there's a high calling to good authority, including the ultimate the ultimate responsibility for what the outcomes are.
Yeah, absolutely, John, and that's when we look at biblical authority, we see that so clearly that the person in authority, they exert their their position of authority exists for the good of those under their authority. In other words, that's the it's a responsibility. And it's an accountability, they're ultimately accountable to God for how did they exercise their authority for the good of those under their authority. But that's gone. Now, that's not part of this very secular view of authority that's dominant in the culture today, there isn't like you say, there is no responsibility that comes with it. It's just that ring of power that I'm going to fight to get. And the ironic thing is this Marxist twist, it's, it's now it's now given to groups based on victim status, which is why people want like, they want to claim victim status in the worst way, you know, I think have a couple of thoughts on that. One is right now to be a white man, a straight white man is to be the the most oppressive, the most oppressive person that exists, which, for our young kids in school, that are literally being taught this, it's, it's a huge weight of guilt that we're putting on a group of people. And they'll do almost anything to, to be to get on the other side of that and say, No, I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person. And I think this is one of the reasons you have this skyrocketing rate of young people who are particularly white claiming to be transgendered, because all of a sudden, just that one act or decision puts them on the other side. Now, they're a victim, they're oppressed victim, because they're part of that LGBTQ victimized group. And all of a sudden, they're virtuous, you know, and now they've also got authority. So it's a mess right now.
Yeah, it's definitely a mess. Here's what I want to get about that dead, though, is that flow from Marxism to now with this intersectionality kind of power ranking thing? Yes. Marxism is the perfect example of authority without a God, were the only authority. It's like, it's like a ladder, and everyone's scrambling to get to the top. Yes, in Marxism, you put one person at the top, and then everyone else can't even be on the ladder, because I don't want anyone even close to me. So it's, it's I got the ladder now I have ultimate authority at the top of you know, the communist, whatever, government. And now I don't want to delegate that to anyone. So I'm going to remove all other areas of authority as much as possible, so that no one can take my authority from me. So that's why they get rid of, you know, everyone that's smart, get rid of the church, get rid of scientists, all those kinds of things. And that's, of course, what you would do in your fallen nature, because you're fearful that someone might take it from you. There's there's no delegation. So then why when this way, and intersectionality are we giving authority to victim groups? That doesn't seem to work in that system?
Yeah, good question, Luke, I think you have to understand that Marxism is a revolutionary ideology. And so it's always about the oppressed group, overthrowing the oppressor group that's, like fundamental to it. Now, the idea is, and once those tables are turned, yeah, then we want to try to eliminate any kind of sense of power and authority. And, you know, so then we're going to take away people's, you know, whatever prerogatives they have of authority, you know, education, or whatever it is. Yeah.
Okay, that makes sense.
Remember what the end game is, the end game isn't really order through everybody having authority and being equal and everything, the end game, understands human nature, that it's going to be chaotic and therefore swoops in the state in order to control and limit everything, and then everybody has outcomes or just sometimes even equal outcomes. They're just miserable outcomes. So yes, that's that's the the purported equality of Marxism is only the beginning to get people going on that. But that's not the end game that they seek its ultimate power in the state, or some controlling mechanism.
That makes sense. Okay, exactly.
I think we see this two guys, when like, just recently at Stanford University, there was kind of the most recent example of this where you've got an authority, in this case, a federal judge, very high level federal judge coming to speak at the School of Law. And the students were absolutely disrespectful and catcalling and screaming and they wouldn't let him talk. And we've seen that now at universities all over the place where there's just no respect for authority, they have no problem shouting them down being completely disrespectful, they see everything through that lens of power, and this person's evil because they've got the power in their oppressor. So I'm in all my rights to be completely disrespectful. And, you know, I think that helps me to make sense of what we're seeing, you know, in society right now with this, this crazy
doesn't in this case, got the system, one of the assistant Dean's was really kind of egging all that on and even do even participating in it herself. And so that person has been put on leave of some kind now pending an investigation. But the point is, is that unless the consequences are significant, it doesn't really mean anything. And they've already said they're not going to have any consequences on the on the students. So yeah, it's gonna continue.
Yeah, it's a mess. It's really a chaotic mess right now, because we've abandoned God. And now we're into this really crazy and unsustainable, sustainable kind of views of power and authority. And I think we a lot of people look at that. And they go, I don't want anything to do with that authority is bad. It's just negative, bad. But I want to shift our conversation now let's shift Yeah, sorry.
paint us a picture of biblical authority. Yeah,
let's talk about the Bible. Because the picture that comes out of the Bible and authority is so beautiful and powerful. And, and, guys, I want you to really help me to put this to paint the picture here, because there's, it's just, it's a very beautiful, very textured picture that kind of emerges from the Bible. You know, to me, the one that touches me the most is Jesus's interaction with his disciples right before he goes to the cross on that road from Jericho to Jerusalem. And there, it's an interesting passage because the disciples are fighting with one another over authority they want you know, they they know Jesus is coming into Jerusalem in their minds, they imagined him and setting up his kingdom. earthly kingdom. He's going to kick out the hated Romans, and he's going to establish his own Authorities on rule from Jerusalem. And they want positions of power, they want to be Vice President and Secretary of State in the new administration. So they come and they kind of ask, Hey, Jesus asked, you know, do whatever I asked you for, what do you want me to do? When you come into your kingdom, you know, I want to sit at your right hand, you know, and then the disciples, you know, over here each other to kind of like jockeying for position, they start fighting. And then Jesus's time out, you know, he says, stop. And then he goes on. And he explains what biblical authority is, in this very powerful way says, something along these lines. And this is more than one gospel, those were those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, meaning human authorities in this fallen world. exercise authority, they lord it over other people, you know, so Jesus is very clear about what this fallen authority looks like this power to subjugate people and to kind of enslave them and use them for selfish purposes, you know, that he goes, you know that this is the way authority functions in the fallen world. But then he says, Not so with you not so with you. And that's, that's a word to them, and to every Christian, if you want to be great meaning if you want to have authority in my kingdom, this is what it means. It means that you have to be willing to serve, and to give up your life for those that you are that you are an authority over, he turns the tables completely. And he says, authority doesn't eliminate authority doesn't say authority is wrong or bad. Because later when he comes back on the Sea of Galilee, he says all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. So he claims all authority, all power. But in that instance, he says it is, you know, if you want authority, if you want power in my kingdom, it means sacrificial service, even to the point of death. And of course, Jesus modeled this in almost everything that he did, you know, we see it clearly with him washing his disciples feet and their reaction against that lower, you know, you're in authority, you don't wash my feet, I wash yours, no, not in my kingdom, I wash your feet. So this revolutionary kind of upside down or really right side up view of authority, that it's, it's still, it's still authority, it's still the right to issue a command and expect obedience to the command in order to create order and to provide kind of the rules of the game back to baseball there, Dwight, but, but it's for the good of those under authority. Always. It's other seeking. It's other serving. John, I think you mentioned that too earlier. This, it's this responsibility. This is I think this is the most important thing to understand about biblical authority in some ways. So
really, is even even when Jesus talked about the relationship between the Old Testament law and the New Testament covenant, he, you know, he said, I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. So that's an expression of authority. The law was authority in the Old Testament, and he came to fulfill it, and how did he fulfill it through love and service and sacrifice? So even that expression is related to authority, and ultimately taking that responsibility for his godly authority?
Yeah, exactly.
As you were talking, Scott, I was just thinking, Who do I know that? You know, practice that kind of authority? Yeah. And I, I picture, my dad came to my mind. He was a pastor of a church and a father of four children and a husband. And I just can't think of one time when he misused his authority, and didn't use it to actually elevate the rest of us, to help us become who we are today. Wow. I mean, he, he disciplined us, he His word was law. But he was so kind and so giving and so generous and so sacrificial,
he would he would have laid down his life for you. And he did. Yeah. No,
he would sacrifice himself and his, his pleasure, his comfort. Yeah. As well for us as kids, because that's what he was going to do. So I mean, yeah, it's amazing. It is a really, really good thing.
It's really beautiful and completely life giving Dwight just it's, it's wherever, like your dad followed Christ's example. And whenever Christ's example of authority is put into practice in a home, a church, a city, a nation, it's quite revolutionary. I mean, it's quite powerful,
you know? Yeah, it sticks out. And it's because it's almost it's almost like you said that it's like the the upside down or the, in this case, it's almost the opposite of the way we think of authority. And in fact, in our selfishness, you know, we at the beginning of this, we were talking about how people hate authority, but they always want it It's like, no, in our selfish flesh, we shouldn't really want authority because it means you're the first one to serve. It means you have responsibility when things go wrong and accountability. Yeah, and accountability. And it's like, no, this is this is, this is a high calling it's shivali shouldn't be that like racing to get this position. That means, you know, you're, you're the, you're sacrificing for those under you. Yeah. But what it creates is such a healthy and beautiful environment for everyone that you're serving.
It's its authority combined with love, you know, and love, ultimately, is this idea of where, you know, this willingness to lay down your, your good for another, you know, to really elevate the other and to serve the other for their own good. So it's, it's a really beautiful, beautiful picture. I think biblically to, you know, I'll move on, guys. But I think another thing that's very clear on the Bible is, you know, this kind of, there's a hierarchy of authority and all authority exists with God. I mean, he's the creator of all things, creator of heaven and earth. And he has this rite of kingship because of that, if you will, in the sense that everything belongs to Him. And so he, he, he orders he orders he, he orders the world, the physical world, through natural law, if you will, you know, laws are an expression of order, you know, because they're essentially a command, a law is a command. So he issues commands in the natural world, obeys His commands, you know, there's the laws of gravity and all the laws of physics. And then there's the moral law, right? So anyways, God's got all authority. And then to I picking up in your point earlier, he doesn't God doesn't hoard authority. He, he hidden his character, he, he delegates it, you know, he delegates it to the human beings made in His image. And he gives us a position of kingship in his kingdom. We have authority authority over creation. But again, it's an we have an accountability back to him as the supreme authority. And you see what Jesus when Jesus said, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, who gave it to him? God, the Father gave it to him. So to exercise on his behalf, you know, so do we see
him giving authority to the 12? Exactly gave authority to the 72? He said, Yes, in my name, and yes, yes.
You know, so yes. But the word is always being pushed out and spread out. It's not something selfishly hoarded for good for the good of Yeah, true authority. And I mentioned, you'd mentioned your dad, I'll mention my dad, Dwight, because I saw him put this into practice in his workplace. He was a civil engineer, he worked for the state of Oregon, in the, you know, over in a highway department, essentially, or overseeing the construction, maintenance of roadways and highways. And he had, he was a supervisor, he over a district, kind of the Central Oregon district. And in every little town and village and Burg, you know, in Oregon, there's, you know, employees of the highway department that are responsible to maintain the roadways. And so when it snows, they get out on the plows and plow the roads and you know, everybody, you know, there's all these people, the way that typically authority was exercised, and that structure is that those people on the very bottom down there, they were the closest to the roads, they were in the villages that you know, they were the closest to the conditions on the roadways. But they didn't, they didn't feel like they had authority. So they just waited around in their, you know, houses sipping coffee until they got the phone call, right to go out there and plow or, you know, fix the road or whatever, they wait for the hire up to tell him what to do. And my dad said, No, this isn't right, they're closest to the problems, they can see them, they need to be empowered to go out and fix them without asking for permission. So he changed the structure. And he actually won awards for this by pushing by delegating authority downward. And he said, You're You're responsible at first. It's funny, they didn't like that. Because Because that's responsibility. I mean, now it's on me if something goes wrong with these roads, right? Like, I'm happy if I don't have to be blamed for the bad things that happened, right. But they later came to love it because they felt when you're when you're empowered in that way, and trusted in that way. There's a sense of pride that goes with it, like, these are my roads, you know, or whatever it is. Yeah. And the
end result. Yeah, was better road that erodes the people of Oregon and happier employees. They
had good roads. Yeah, no, it's true. Anyways, it's just an example. But the Bible is that's what that's authority in the Bible. It's shared and it's pushed down. It's not hoarded, it's not centralized or consolidated. You know. Now, it doesn't mean that God, God still has ultimate authority. Right. So, yeah. But,
again, he has ultimate authority and he has ultimate responsibility, but that empowerment leads to the good kinds. of outcomes, and we're grateful to see the examples in the Bible of various structures of how authority is rightly used in, you know, in the workplace and in the family and parents, parents and children in the church, etc, these are these are all expressions of how authority can be properly used and delegated. And, you know, and empowered to have the kinds of order that we all know are necessary for, for good society a functional,
right, right.
And, and we've all traveled enough to see countries where it isn't practice. And, and the result isn't flourishing in order.
Give me Give me an example that comes to your mind why, yeah.
You know, you don't want to name a country, but Well, no, I mean, I worked for food for the hungry and spent a lot of time working in developing countries and off there, I remember times where we would think something should get done, and we'd look around and nobody would have authority to do that. And no one had told them to do it. So nothing got done doing a housing project in Bangladesh, once we had this problem, nothing got done, because there was no delegation of authority down to the people who could do it. Yes. And so it didn't get done.
And the structure of authority in that culture was such that authority had been centralized and been central. And so people below that didn't feel empowered at all to exercise authority. They didn't know how it wasn't taught, right? He wasn't expected, etc, would actually get in trouble, they would get in trouble, right? Because
the idea of delegating authority is now to lose your authority, whereas God doesn't lose any authority when he delegates such an important point. Yeah, most people like delegated I've lost it. Now. I'm out of control, and somebody else has it. No, no, no, no. Yeah, that's not
Yeah. And it gets to the concept of incentive. There's no incentive to take responsibility and to take authority, where there's nothing but downside as as outcome. So these things all go together in a properly functioning society under a biblical worldview.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's funny, because I'm, I'm currently reading Nancy Pearcey, his upcoming book, that she gave us a early release copy of because we're going to have her on the podcast here in a few weeks. And in this book, there's a bunch of studies done on on the books about men and masculinity. So a couple of the chapters, she's obviously talking about the role of husbands in the family. And they've done some extensive studies recently, sociologists doing these studies, and who are the happiest, you know, where are the healthiest families, the happiest wives, you know, the most contented children the most, you know, stable marriages. And the studies keep coming back with the same answer. And it's easy, you know, it's these Christian households, which is, we never hear this, which I think is crazy. But it makes total sense. It's like God's framework for how to live inside the family, which we all know it, it's in the Bible, it's pretty clearly laid out. It actually works at work. And, you know, other worldviews that aren't based in the Bible, and this correct definition of authority will usually use that authority to hurt people. And in the family, we see that with, in a lot of places, you know, the denigration of women in children, because authority is used wrong, which gives us this terrible taste of authority. So you see it in the Christian households, that things actually work. Shockingly, the biblical worldview works because this, this understanding of authority is implemented by the father, delegating, you know, motivated out of love giving freedom to those under them. And the structure actually, yeah, it pays off. So once again, the biblical worldview works the best. Unfortunately, reality.
Yeah, no, it's really good look, a couple other, you know, colors I want to mix into the picture here that comes out of the Bible on authority. I think a really important guys. One is this idea of authority and equality. The Bible brings those together in a way that in a fallen world, they tend to be separate, meaning that in a fallen world, the person that's in authority, they have the power and there's this kind of presumption that they're somehow in a position of superiority, and then the person who is back to your, you know, illustration of Bangladesh, Dwight, if you're, if you're if you don't have that power, you're kind of considered to be inferior somehow. The Bible says no, it says, All people have an inherent equality in terms of their worth and their dignity and their value. There's no hierarchy of, of value. Everyone's equally valuable, equal dignity. You will then it but that doesn't, that equality of our dignity or our value doesn't take away roles of authority, you can still be in positions of authority or submission. But you have equal value. This is really important, I think just in terms of really healthy functioning authority, because the person in authority doesn't view themselves as somehow inherently superior. And they view those under their authority, in some ways, is the same as them with, you know, with just as much dignity just as much worth and just as much value. You see, you actually see this in the Godhead, I think it's really powerful. You have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And yet at different times, clearly, in the Bible, they put themselves under the authority of the other you see this most clearly with Jesus, when he's on Earth, you know, and he is clearly submitting himself to God the Father, He makes statements over and over again about, you know, whatever the Father has commanded me, I do exactly that, you know, we're here right before Easter. And, you know, we think about Jesus submitting to the Father's Will to go to the cross, you know, like, that was something he was going to do. And because it was, you know, that was the command of his father. So he was under the authority of the Father. And so the the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, are in this position in some ways of hierarchy and authority. And yet, they're equal, right? It would be heretical to say, Oh, God, the Father is somehow more of a God than God, the Son, they're equally God. But they also are in a position of authority and submission at different times over one another. And I think that gets carried into the human realm biblically, where, yes, we are in positions of authority at different times. Right? You know, everybody, everybody is at different times in different circumstances. But that in no way means that you're any way superior to those under your authority in that instance, that you're in authority. That makes sense, guys. Yeah, it makes sense.
So much so that it's, it's almost feels like the most difficult paradox Bible. Because people really struggle with that, who doesn't struggle with the idea that somebody is in authority, and they're not superior to them? Or they're inferior? Everywhere? That's,
that's just it's kind of presumed it's presumed? Right? It's such a deep assumption. So exactly.
I even for me, growing up, I had to remind myself No, just because their authority, they're not superior to it. Right. You, you are Dwight, you are equal. You have equal dignity, you know? Yes. You don't have to bow. Yeah.
Go ahead, John. Yeah,
that's, I mean, that's because I think sometimes we we look at authority as positional, rather than a role grant. We put our identity or something into something rather than a role. And I don't think somebody can be a good person in authority unless they also understand and have experience and are probably good at being under authority. Yes. Great. So they know what the experience is like. The opposite isn't necessarily true. There's people that just aren't called to be an authority, at least not in a work sense, or whatever. But they might be wonderfully under authority and submit and do really well. So it's,
I think, yeah, that distinction with a role makes so much sense. I'm just thinking of I love my basketball analogies. And on a basketball team. All the players on the court, the five players, they're equal to each other, there's no there shouldn't be a superiority there, they should see each other as equal and yet, in their specific roles, there is periodicity, the point guards, best ball handler, you know, the bigs are usually the the best rebounding. And they, they understand that in that role, I have authority, but on the team, I do not. There's not the superiority and a team that doesn't do that. And you know, the point guard thinks he's the best player on the court, they're not going to be that good. And not going to play as well.
Great, great illustration, Luke, there's so many great illustrations coming out of sports for how authority should be practiced. Well, or, or, or not. Well, but yeah, so the Bible brings these powerful things together. Equality, kind of this eek. It's like an inherent equality, equality of dignity and worth, equality of essence, if you will, and yet it No way, you know, undermines authority and submission. And John, you brought up another really good point, I think, authority should always be talked about with its other bookend which which is submission and you're right to say that in certain circumstances, like a workplace, not everyone necessarily has the wiring or the personality to be a good boss. So let's say, but I don't think that that in any way, some people carry that out. And they say, I'm just not good at being an authority anywhere. I think that's false. Because everyone's going to be an authority. If first of all, everyone has authority over creation, right? And that includes themselves. We there's no escaping the exercise of authority, we all have to learn how to do it. Well, if you're a Christian, even if you're not a Christian, you've got roles of authority, you got to learn that exercise. Well, biblically. And equally submission. We're always in positions of submission. And that also has to be learned and done. Well. That's a learned skill to be a good follower, if you will. So I think both of those, those are high, both of those are high values. And the Bible, both authority and submission, are held in value in positions of value, which I think is interesting.
Is this this idea of respect for authority? You're respecting their position, you're respecting the authority? Yes. But it doesn't mean you're seeing them as superior to yourself.
No, that's right. That's right, when it's when it's exercise in a healthy way. I think our founding fathers in the United States again, I'm not saying we're far from perfect, especially now, but but they they tried to build the nation around some really biblical ideas, including this one, that all the people are equal, right. Yeah. Equal in authority, equal indignity with freedom to self govern. So but there was going to be positions of authority, you know, right. Well, and but the authorities were there to serve the people because they were the ultimate authority. I mean, it was so
even some of the writings, I don't know what the Madison who had been talked about the fact that we would pick a normal civilian, to be the President of the United States, they would serve as the top authority. Correct. And it wasn't hereditary or family based. Yeah. Back to becoming a farmer. Yes, exactly. Because they were still the farmer. They just had this role. Now,
they weren't in any way superior to this lower class, or whatever it is. Right. Right.
And for a time, he will rule but then he goes back to being a farmer, it's very
biblical idea. It's very powerfully biblical idea. I think this is this is that comes straight out of the Bible. So I want to move on, guys. But I don't want to cut off any other thoughts you might have on this, this point of equality and authority, because I think that's that's uniquely biblical idea that you don't get in fallen ideologies, or fallen world systems. There's many other things I could say, I think I'll probably just say one other thing that I That, to me was very powerful as I was looking at authority in the Bible. And that is, again, it's related to how God delegates authority, but he delegates authority in particular ways, in other words, in particular spheres, if you will. So God delegates authority in the civil sphere, to rulers and governors and civil authorities. And you see this with Jesus when he's before Pilate, for example. And Pilate is in a position of a civil authority, and he's treating Jesus as if he's under his authority. And, you know, he says to Jesus, don't you realize I have authority to put you to death, that's, that is the authority of a person in, in that role of kind of civil authority, they have the right, they have the sword, if you will, you know, they can punish they can put people in prison, even capital punishment. That's God given authority. So he's right there. Jesus acknowledges it. Right. Jesus says, you are correct. But you wouldn't have that authority unless it had been given by God. Right? All authority comes from God, it's, you know, it's from God, and we're accountable to God. So there's civil authority, there's authority in the family, that's another really important unit of authority with fathers and mothers having authority over their children, husbands having authority in that marriage relationship, the headship idea. So those are roles of authority. And in the church, right, there's, there's elders that have God given authority over local churches or in local churches. And I think you see expressions of this as well in the workplace or any institution, edge, you know, schools, universities, there's legitimate authorities, right? So the Bible sets up spheres of authority and the way that those spheres of authority have to work with each others, they have to understand the proper sphere of authority and respect it, not usurp it, right. So this the state, for example, has to recognize that the proper authority in the home or it resides with the parents, and that includes the upbringing and the raising of children. And that needs to be respected, that shouldn't be usurped. The state shouldn't kind of come in and start telling parents what to do with their children, or even down to the level of the sphere of kind of my personal sphere of authority over my own thoughts and actions, you know, this kind of self governing idea that that's kind of a sacred sphere of authority. The Church doesn't have a right to kind of violate that, you know, state doesn't have a right to violate that, you know, you've got to be, you've got to respect that. And you can't use serve that. So the Bible sets up this kind of picture of authority where authority is very decentralized. And it's kind of kind of balanced out, you know, and checking kind of this idea of checking the authorities check one another. And I think that works well in a fallen world, right, where we don't want the consolidation of power, or, again, our American founding fathers were very cautious of that. And that's exactly what the Bible sets up. Now, that said, in a fallen world, these boundaries, aren't it no fallen view of authority under will respect those boundaries, or legitamate them in any way? It just, you know, it just doesn't believe that those authority, those boundaries exist, right, that comes out of the Bible. But the biblical picture is very much one of understanding these spheres and these roles, and respecting them and not usurping others. So I think this is a very, very powerful kind of view of authority that comes out of the Bible thoughts on this one, guys.
And it's very delicate, very delicate, very delicate, because I think, yeah, spirit authority is so biblical. And then there's the place for when does a higher authority step into spirit authority only steps in should ever only step in when there's a complete breakdown of authority in that sphere? Yeah. I think of the family. Yeah, if a father is abusing his kids, and just doing horrible, there is a place for the society in general to step because there's
chaos there. There's no authority, because yeah, because they failed red sphere. But
if that sphere is functioning, you don't step don't
step in don't, it's got to be respected. Yeah.
Including your human thought in either. It's almost like, you know, if you don't think right, the government would want to say you can't you can't be here because you don't think right. Well, that's
horrible. Right now we have Christians have an obligation to understand these fears, I think and to protect them, we have to be on our guard to protect them. Because in a fallen secular world, people are going to come in, and they're going to kind of through all sorts of ways try to you know, gain authority in that sphere, you know, and it has to be protected. Yeah, go ahead, thank
parental authority in the sphere of school, and education is one of the biggest attack areas really got that we've really got to protect, and, and maintain, aside from the fact appropriate fact that people make decisions not to have the kids go to public school, in an increasing frequency, it's still something that we as a society, have to protect the, you know, the role of the parent and again, hold it to high standards, and hold it to eye accountabilities and high responsibilities. And ultimately, that that quality comes down to marriage quality as well. So all of these DoD instituted, institutions are have to work together for all to work together properly.
Yeah. And one of the it's, it's so fragile. And I think, our I'm glad that we talked about superiority before this, because under God, all these realms of authorities that each have their sphere, have to recognize that they're not superior over one another. That gets everything really confusing, is when the government steps in and thinks, Well, my role is my role is superior to yours. So I can just kind of use her but it's like, No, there's not the superiority ranking. We're only even even playing field. We're all equal under God. Yes. And therefore, yeah, so it's a lot easier to recognize how to stay in your lane, if you recognize that thing. Yeah.
And I'm gonna just say something else we need, we need to look in the mirror just as much as we look, you know, look at societal trends, that the church, even even the church really needs to carefully look at itself and make sure that the church's programs, strengthen the family and strengthen the roles of the family and parenthood and all of this and not look at Sunday school for kids is some kind of a thing that, you know, that the church is responsible for ultimately, it you know, it's the parents that are ultimately responsible for the, the, you know, the appropriate teaching and learning of the children and any kind of program that really separates family from, from that, as you know, deserves to be really critiqued. And so it happens in our, in the church as well as outside of the church.
It's such a great point, John, and you know, I think that's a dynamic we see throughout society is where, let's go back to the one you just mentioned there with, you know, the parents have the authority, God given authority to disciple and to bring up their children and even churches need to understand that and respect that they can support parents in that role and they can equip them they ought to this is the, you know, this is their role, they should equip them to do that. But very often what you see is you see parents, they don't you know, because authority comes with responsibility. Our fallen nature, in some ways wants to kind of abrogate it like, I don't want it, you know. And so I'm going to push it off to the church, you take it you, you know, you disciple my kids. Now, what's the proper response of a church? In that case? It should say, No, this is your responsibility. Oh, I'll help you. I'll equip you to to carry it out. But what happens wrongly is the churches go, Oh, you don't want to do that? I'll do that. You know. And so all in all, encroach on your authority, you see that like, in our in the government right now, where I think of the House of Representatives, for example, and the Senate, they've lost so much authority visa vie, the executive branch of the government, because they haven't wanted that authority. They've, you know, they they don't want to be held accountable. So they've abrogated it to the executive branch and the executive branch has grown into this massive behemoth, because they're, like, very happy to step out and say, I'll take that on, you know, so yeah, it's, it's, those are examples of it not working correctly, but it points to how it should work. You know, it's an understanding that there are God defined roles of authority. And they both need to be they need to be understood, they need to be embraced, we need to encourage one another, like the church should encourage the parents know, you fulfill your responsibility of authority, I'm not going to take that on from you, but I'll help you to do it. My wife, Kim did this. When we got married, I didn't, I had a real mixed up crazy view of authority was very culturally shaped was very negative, you know, I was I'd consider myself a feminist. And so I certainly didn't want to be in a position of authority. I didn't want to be the patriarchy, it's all evil. Right? I had all these ideas, right. So I was like we're equal. But what that meant is, I'm going to let you make the decisions. So and then she was the one who kind of said, like, she could have said, Oh, great, I'll do that I'll kind of, you know, I'll take advantage of your weakness and your unwillingness to exercise authority and kind of all grab the reins of power here. But to her credit, she said, I'm going to actually stay in my lane loop to use your analogy. And I'm going to help you to exercise the authority that God's given you. So she kind of used her position of submission to help me learn how to be an authority. I really credit Kim with, with, with helping me learn what it meant to be have authority in the home because without her, and you can see the same dynamic and workplaces too. You know, sometimes you have a boss who's very insecure. And they don't feel like they should be in authority. And sometimes, rightly so. Like, even here at the DNI, I've got people working for me that are more, Dwight, I'm looking at you. I mean, John, you two that are more experienced, qualified, wise, whatever it is, like, you know, so. But to you guys is credit you come and say no, Scott, you're you've got position here. And so how can we help you to exercise that position here? So it's really beautiful, that I know we're getting we're running late. I just feel like there's, as I'm thinking about authority, there's still one, there's many things we could say. But I do think there's another important thing to put on the table. And that is, authority is legitimate. In the Bible, let's say in, in, in the biblical worldview, it's legitimate to the degree that the orders, the laws, whatever is issued by the authority is in alignment with God's law, that that, that God's law, and you can think of the 10 commandments or whatever you want to think of there. It trumps I mean, that's, that's the ultimate authority. That's the ultimate law. And human authority is legitimate, only to the degree that it isn't alignment to God's law. I just think that's another thing that's really important to say, because in a fallen world, there isn't God, there isn't God's law. You know, the, you know, I'm a law unto myself, that's this kind of autonomous idea, or, you know, if you're the dictator, you know, I make the laws, I make the rules around here, you know, and if I say, you know, something, it goes, No, it has to be in alignment with God's law. And you so many examples of this, I think of, you know, Martin Luther King, Jr, who went to jail over this because he was under a regime in Jim Crow in the south where there was all sorts of unjust laws that discriminated against black people. But they were it was codified as law. And, you know, he he felt like it was illegitimate because in God's word, in God's law, people are Aren't you no superior, inferior based on skin color? Right? So I'm going to violate those laws, you know. And then he went on from his letter from Birmingham jail to say, if if a man made laws out of alignment with God's law, it's it's not a legitimate law. You know, it's not a law at all. And it sets up a ground for disobedience for civil disobedience. I think the Bible has grounds for civil disobedience. And that's true at every realm. So if I'm issuing a command to my wife in the home, that's out of alignment to God's law, it's immoral. It's calling on her to do something that violates her conscience or is a moral, she's under no obligation to, to obey that command, because she's under this higher law. She and she's answerable to a higher law. And, and in fact, in some cases, it's it's required that we disobey you know, in Nazi Germany, they had laws that forbade you from helping Jews that were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps. That was a law that was issued by civil authorities. You had an obligation, a positive obligation to violate that law, you know, to help the Jew, Thou shalt not murder. Right, that I mean, so you had a conflict between God's law, Thou shalt not murder in the regime, which was murdering innocent people. Thoughts on that one, guys? I just think that's again, another really important piece to put on the table there. So
yeah, I just think of Abraham Lincoln recognize that and he said, once, you must remember that some things legally right or not morally right. man's laws cannot make moral what God declared immoral. Perfect quote for that, Luke. Yeah. And I think it's really good to recognize that as as being under authority in the areas of submission that we have, because we also all have areas of submission their lives to, you know, keep an eye out for that, yes. For when, when roles of authority are not being when when when those authorities are stepping out of their God given lanes, to call that out and appointed out. And I think especially as Christians, since God's revealed his his law to us, we should wish to kind of embrace that role, and to be the first one sometimes to step up and speak out.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. You know, how we respond to unjust authority is really telling to how we are as individuals or even organ organizations. Because, you know, as they say, you know, you're, well, it's only really in hardship, when you really show how you're what you're really, really made of. And also it's, it's, there's a sequence that I heard that applies to Christian counseling that I think applies here, too. It says the emotions respond, the intellect evaluates, but the will chooses. So if we, you know, if we're being under unjust authority, we have to carefully consider we know that God ultimately has won the victory, and our place with him and eternity is assured. And so we have to really carefully consider and really be patient and figure out how we deal with unjust authority. And I'm really talking about this more as a kind of individual choices. Um, at the same time, I echo what you say that we are, we are absolutely, to, to go against unbiblical unjust law, and we should, we should work together as the church to do that.
I think it's a really good clarification, John, that the Bible, the emphasis on the Bible, in roles of submission is to submit and to be, you know, to be to not, you know, to be obedient, you know, and not, you know, not be quick to kind of rebel, right against the authorities. Like, that's kind of very much last resort kind of things. I think that is very much the emphasis that you see in the Bible and even in Christ himself, you know, you know, of course, God had a purpose in the cross, you know, and he knew that but you saw him submitting to that unjust authority, you know, with pilot and others. So, I think we have to be it requires a lot of discipline and a lot of wisdom and counsel and things like that before we we shouldn't be too quick, I think to rebel. Guys, I think I'm going to wrap this up because it's just boy, it's I mean, that whole every one of these points we could just really go into in great depth of civil disobedience is an example of that. But I just like to end by encouraging all of you who are listening, you know, this, these Biblical words and they are so beautiful and powerful and just we just been talking about one of them authority and then when We understand these words and we, we try to order our lives and live them out. It leads to flourishing, it leads to thriving. And that's what the DNA is all about. It's about the power of God's word to bring about flourishing in our lives in our communities and our nations. It's what it means to disciple the nations and the words, these Biblical words are so important in that. And this is one that all of us can apply. So I just would like to encourage each of you listening to think of your own roles right now, what roles of authority are you in right now? And how are you exercising that authority? How are you understanding it? How's it different from what we've been talking about here? In relationship to biblical authority? Or what roles of submission Are you in? as well? So this is an area that is ripe for application. Okay. So I just want to encourage you to don't just take this as an academic discussion, but really use it as an opportunity to think how can I exercise authority or submission in a way that really is biblical, because it's going to lead to good things. Guys, any final thoughts as we wrap up?
Now just grateful to participate? Yeah.
Great, great insights, guys. Thanks for joining. And thank you all for listening to another episode of ideas have consequences, this podcast with several mentions.
Hi, friends, thank you so much for listening and for listening all the way through. Because of that, you get to hear a special announcement that myself and the team are really excited to start sharing about more. And that is, we have a new book coming out soon, which is going to be focused on a specific list of key biblical words, that our current culture is actively redefining to the detriment of themselves. And us as well, if we don't understand and hold fast to the true, biblical meanings of these words. One of these words is authority. Hence the reason we wanted to share about it today. A few other of these important words include marriage, truth, freedom, and sex. And take a moment to think about how contradictory God's beautiful definitions of these words is with your current cultures common understandings of these. And again, this book is on its way, and we'll make sure to give you updates here on the podcast, as well as on social media and our website. As this book heads off to publishing. We're also going to release a mini video series that will go along with the book and unpack each of these words as well. As I'm sure you've heard us say many times here on the podcast words matter. And whoever controls the words controls the culture as already illustrated in this concept of Newspeak in his book 1984. So join us as we reject the counterfeit definitions of these words, knowing that if we live in the meaning that God has given to these words, we're going to live the free and flourishing lives that he has designed this for. As always, ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. Thanks again for listening and have a great rest of your week.
