Purpose And Power Of Authority (29 page)

In the various realms of life, we have the right to hold someone in authority accountable to whoever is his higher authority, whoever has delegated power to him. This is essential for restoring legitimate authority to the earth. No one can be above authority, or he will misuse and abuse others. Parents, politicians, pastors and priests, and business leaders are in positions to either help or hurt others by their attitudes and behavior in their positions of authority.

For example, what contributed to the economic crisis that began in the first decade of the twenty-first century was that corporations were not held to responsible business practices. A reinstatement of authority in the form of safeguards and regulations is helping to address this problem. This type of reinstatement of sound principles is at the heart of restoring a culture.

People must especially understand the benefits of true authority if it is to be reestablished in the world. We have been taught the dangers of false authority for so long that we often don’t know that it is a distortion of something that is positive and life affirming. When people understand the true nature of authority and submission, it will become clear that there are more advantages to submission than to rebellion.

The benefits of personal authority have been highlighted throughout this book, but particularly in chapter 8: originality, awareness of intrinsic value, personal fulfillment, confidence, no competition, no comparison, no jealousy, no fear, internal motivation and passion, and authenticity. The primary purposes of authority, outlined in chapter 6, are also advantages to authority that address the crisis in our world today. True authority brings order, maximum production, preservation, representation through validity and defense, safety, promotion, freedom, identity, and reality.

In effect, living in one’s authority leads to a clear and uncluttered life: When you understand authority, you know who you are, what you are meant to do, and whom you can appeal to when a problem or need arises. Thus, authority is the source of order and peace. It is the substance of simplicity.

Key #8: Discover Your Personal Authority so that You Can Delegate Authority

Of course, another essential key is to make sure we discover our own personal authority so that we will be qualified and equipped to delegate true authority to others. We can’t help to restore others if we haven’t been restored ourselves.

Make it a priority to ask the Creator to clarify your personal authority, and answer the questions in the Personal Authority Profile section at the back of this book. In this way, you will not only experience personal fulfillment but be able to show others how to enter into their true authority, as well.

A ninth key to reestablishing legitimate authority is to allow people to pursue their areas of authority and to encourage others to do the same.

Authority gives us total freedom within the boundaries of our personal domain and therefore lets us be who we were created to be without limitation. What are the boundaries? We are not to infringe on others or their authority, or we will be trespassing. If we have a clear idea of our authority—as in key eight, above—then we will know when we are overstepping another person’s boundary. Again, we must acknowledge that everybody is a leader as he carries out his God-given authority on the earth, and that we are an authority only in the area of our personal purpose.

We can also enable others to pursue their gifting by creating environments for them to find and release their personal authority. Parents can make a special contribution in this regard. If a child discovers early in his life what his personal authority is and what his position and role in the family is, and if he is taught what his position and role will be when he is an adult, then he will have clear guidance in how to live his life.

As people discover and start to exercise their personal gifting, the whole structure of interdependent authority will begin to be put back into place.

Key number ten brings us full circle to an acknowledgment of God as our Author. We cannot just recognize the Source of our authority and not be answerable to Him. In the end, He is the one to whom we will give a report of our lives and how we have used the authority He has given us. Paul said, “It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11–12).

Reestablishing legitimate authority in the world will naturally include responsibility and accountability, and these qualities should begin with us. We therefore must be conscious of the fact that we will be judged and made to give an account for our lives before our Creator. And, as we discover, enjoy, and fulfill our personal authority, we can remember that…

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.(Hebrews 6:10–11)

Chapter Fifteen

In the last chapter, we saw that to reestablish legitimate authority on the earth, we must acknowledge the absolute authority of our Creator and identify specific laws and principles on which we should base our lives. To help you to begin to do this, this chapter provides foundational Scriptures that correspond to the nature of authority in four basic realms of human relationships: the family, government, the church, and business. Each of these areas involves important interactions between people that need guidelines for the proper exercise of authority.

As you review the four realms, please keep these points in mind:

• Authority can be compared to electricity: the same force that is used to empower people has the potential to destroy them if it is not regulated and submitted to the right purpose.
  

• Authority produces and maintains order—in families, in societies, in nations, in the world—because it establishes the reference for all relationships in life. When someone is functioning according to authority, he knows where he is supposed to be and what he is meant to do based on the authority he has been given. It is never a matter of someone being “greater” or more important but of what each person’s authority is for the well-being, protection, and security of all involved. It is also a matter of creating an environment in which each person can thrive in his personal authority and make a contribution to the community.
  

• Authority and submission are interdependent. In relationships, people both give and receive. When you give, you are exercising a certain degree of authority; when you receive, you are operating under a certain degree of submission. Authority doesn’t function without submission, and submission is invalid and meaningless if it is not in the context of true authority. In fact, submission is dangerous without genuine authority because what is sometimes called “submission” is actually a belittling and oppression of others.
  

• Authority, power, and position are interrelated. Authority is delegated right, or permission. Power is ability, might, or enabling strength. Position is one’s place in relation to order. Your personal authority is your domain, or “home,” in the order of things and is the key to your power and effectiveness.
  

• When you understand the purpose of authority, you know that you need to respect, cooperate with, and love others; that others are able to give you something you lack; and that you are able to supply something others lack.
  

• Since it is authority that releases authority and power, understanding the role of authority in each realm of life gives us the opportunity to exercise the full potential of our personal authority.
  

The following is not a comprehensive manual on these four realms of authority, since an entire book could be devoted to each area. Rather, it is designed to refer you to noteworthy Scriptures that pertain to each realm so that you can begin to apply them in your life in conjunction with the other principles of authority in this book. However, I have included a somewhat more in-depth discussion of the realm of the family because there has been much confusion and contention in society about the roles of men and women, their inherent makeup, and their similarities and differences, and these issues need to be noted in relation to authority.1

What was the first area of authority that God established on earth? It wasn’t “religion” or the church or even the state—it was the family. One of the reasons the family is the most important realm of authority is that it contributes to all the other realms of authority—the future participants in the state, the church, and business are first raised and trained in the context of a family. Therefore, the quality of the leaders in all the other realms depends on what the family produces. The kind of children that come out of our families determine the kind of society we will have.

William J. Bennett…once said that the family is the original Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Society has yet to invent a better means of raising healthy, well-adjusted people than by placing them in loving and intact families that live under godly principles.…The family, church and government occupy separate spheres of life, but depend on each other.”2

Why is authority really needed within a family? Again, we return to the primary purposes of authority. Authority is needed in a family for order, maximum production, preservation, representation through validity and defense, safety, promotion, freedom, identity, and reality.

What is the nature of authority in the family, and how should those relationships be conducted? The structure within the family that carries out the above purposes of authority is (1) the husband as leader, (2) the wife as coleader, and (3) the submission of the children to both parents. Let us look at the scriptural basis for this order, because a misunderstanding of these roles has led to the tragic misuse and abuse of the woman in marital relationships, in family relationships, and in society, both today and throughout much of human history.

The Source of Authority for Husband and Wife

When our Author created human beings, He began with a man, Adam, whose body He formed from the ground, and whose spirit and soul were drawn from God Himself. Moses recorded, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

The male was created first, but he was not meant to live in isolation or to fulfill his authority on his own. He was intended to do so in collaboration with the female. The woman is therefore a coleader who works alongside the man to accomplish what they were both created to do.

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”…So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh
of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken
out of man.”(Genesis 2:18, 21–23)

The word “rib” in Genesis 2:22 is the Hebrew word tsela. It does not necessarily mean a rib as we understand the word. It could mean “side” or “chamber.” The point is that God drew the woman from a part of the man because the “receiver” has to be exactly like the “giver,” or the source. Just as man was created as essentially spirit in order to receive love from God and be in relationship with Him, the woman had to be of the same essence as the man in order to receive love from him and be in relationship with him.

We must realize that while males and females are of the same essence, God actually made them using different methods. The Bible says that the man was “formed” of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word translated “formed” is yatsar, meaning “to mold,” as a potter molds clay. However, God “made” the woman (Genesis 2:22). The Hebrew word translated “made” is banah, which means to “build” or “construct.”

When Paul wrote, “Man did not come from woman, but woman from man” (1 Corinthians 11:8), he was referring to this passage in Genesis. God took the woman out of the man and “built” her. If God had gone back to the soil to fashion another person when He formed the female, she would not have come from the male, and she would therefore not have been made of the same essence as the male. God took exactly what was needed from the male to make the female.

The woman was so much in likeness to the man that, when God presented her to him, his first words were, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

Note that since God made the second human being from Adam and not from another mound of earth, all people who have ever lived essentially came from Adam, who can be considered our earthly, biological source. None of us is independent; none of us can say that we are “self-made,” because we all were born in relation to someone else who came before us—most directly from our own parents, but then all the way back to Adam.

Adam’s Timing in Creation

In chapter 3 of this book, saw that an author or creator is always the source of the authority of his work. The source of a product has the legitimate right to state the framework of the authority he puts into his product and the way the product functions best. This framework is what we call the principles or laws governing it and through which it operates. Men and women were created by their Source with complementary designs that reflect their individual roles in the larger purposes of authority for which they were created by Him.