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Authority of Scripture

To obey God and His Word, one must first believe in His authority and the authority of His Word.  I believe in God’s authority and the authority of His Word.  True New Testament churches submit to the Bible as their final authority. God and His Word also function through a hierarchy of authority.  He uses men.  In the first century, God spoke and ruled through apostolic authority.   Peter and Paul were uniquely God’s instruments.

The Pharisees and Sadducees opposed the authority of Jesus.  Jesus also attacked their faux authority.  The Pharisaical view of circumcision and eating with Gentiles arose from their traditions, not from God’s Word.  Jesus said, They “teach for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7).  Their teaching was devoid of God’s authority.

In spite of their insubordination to scripture, Jesus did not debunk the office of the Pharisees, just the opposite in Matthew 23:2:  “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.”  According to Jesus, the Pharisees still sat in Moses’ seat.  They held the office.  They lost authority, however, by not obeying the Word of God, including that written by Moses.

In Galatians, the gang of false teachers, who traveled to Antioch from Jerusalem and said they associated with James, borrowed from the Pharisee’s tradition.  These men mixed certain rituals and traditions with a true gospel to concoct their false one.  The Apostle Paul writes against them in Galatians 2.  They had no authority, either scriptural or ecclesiological, to overturn the doctrine and practice of the Jerusalem and Antioch churches.  They looked out for themselves, not for God’s will or pleasure.

Pastoral Authority

God gives pastoral authority.  Pastors need it for fulfilling the important God-ordained task of overseeing a church.  God instructs members to obey pastors, assuming in scriptural and even non-scriptural matters.  Pastors shouldn’t expect obedience to something unscriptural.  Someone in a church may view a practice of the church to be unscriptural.

Our church did fundraising for our school.  A church member challenged a method we used.  He thought it was unscriptural.  Our principal didn’t think so.  I wasn’t sure.  We dropped the method and lost money.  It was the right thing to do.

When a pastor says, “I want everyone there at 9am,” that is a non-scriptural matter, but he has authority in it.  9am then means 9am.  A member should take that seriously.  If he wants everyone there at 9am, everyone should put their selves under that authority, the idea of “submit.”  This unifies a body, all the body parts working together.  Defying the authority as a pattern fits the definition of factious, even for not showing up on time.

Some of what I’m addressing relates to a pastor dealing with a pattern of disobedience.  He wants to help someone.  To do so, he comforts, exhorts, instructs, intreats, warns, and admonishes, the approach depending on the person and his response.

To deal with a matter well, a pastor must listen.  He must hear a matter before he answers it (Proverbs 18:13).  And even then, he wants to edify, correct, strengthen, and restore.  Jesus said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” praying to God the Father.  The goal is to rely on God’s Word.

Forum for Challenge

Proving Everything

Depending on the Word of God does not mean depending on an opinion about the Word of God.  “A pastor thinks this, so it is true.”  It might be.  I hope it is.  However, scripture also says (1 Thess 5:21-22):

21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.  22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:31-32:

31 For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.  32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

The spirits of the prophets were subject to the prophets.  A forum for challenge exists in a church.  The Bible is the final authority.

Helping People Change

Room to Grow

Certain times I led toward a change of position in our church.  Just because I took a new position, I knew that didn’t mean that everyone would believe it.  It might take time for everyone to come along.  Unity also matters in those occasions.  Our church had taken a different position for awhile.  I wanted everyone to change, but I didn’t require everyone to change.  The bottom line during those times was not causing “divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine” (Romans 16:17).

Opinions and what Paul calls doubtful disputations (Rom 14:1) necessitate sorting.  Not everyone applies scripture exactly the same.  Sanctification occurs and tweaks viewpoints.  Every disagreement is not a threat to or defiance of authority.  It’s not rebellion.  When it takes even pastors years to change on something, they can’t turn around and expect someone else to change in days or hours.

Harmful Approaches

Through many years, I have listened to numbers of various positions of pastors.  We almost never agree on everything.  Nevertheless, pastors will talk with great confidence and authority when they state their positions. Pastors might treat an issue like they’re Teddy Roosevelt after just climbing San Juan Hill.  They’re raising the flag at the top of Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima.  Bluster and bravado or a stern countenance don’t equate with authority.

I may hear a man mock my position in his preaching, sometimes setting up straw man arguments.  I might smile at the audaciousness of it, but mockery is not especially convincing.  Calling people a liar definitely doesn’t persuade.  Neither does characterizing the difference in an extreme or insulting manner.

Sometimes someone says God gave him peace.  He may add, “I prayed about it.”  Or, “I fasted over it.”  If you disagree, somehow you oppose answers to prayer and the practice of fasting.  A man expresses a feeling of peace.  Scripture nowhere uses a feeling as a harbinger of truth.

Pastors can find many various means to provoke change.  Someone might notice a modulation in the tone of voice.  Cheeriness is missing.  It isn’t friendly now.  The eyelids are half mast.  A pastor can send a message in the spirit of mean girl syndrome.  Someone in is now out.  If a person was a fish, he can’t swim in the small pond anymore.  He’s relegated to the smaller adjacent puddle until he apprehends the message sent.

Longsuffering and Patience

“God is longsuffering toward usward” (2 Peter 3:9).  “Charity suffereth long” (1 Corinthians 13:4).  I think of the fellowservant in Jesus’ story in Matthew 18:29, who cried, “Have patience with me!”  I don’t see a biblical pattern of cutting off people with a different position, cancelling them with little to no due process.

A kind of political cancellation and making phone calls, applying social and economic pressure, is not the method of pastoral authority.  People will have difficulty seeing Jesus in an environment of possible expectation of punishment.  Scriptural conviction can motivate loving service that will please the Lord.

God gives and uses authority.  Romans 13:1 says, “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”  At the same time, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).  Especially church leaders should know that the final judgment of Jesus Christ, that’s what matters. “Ye masters,” forbear “threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven” (Eph 6:9).

Everyone of us will give an account to God (Romans 14:10).  And God says, “destroy not him for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15).  Christ didn’t give authority to take His place as Lord or destroy the people He died for.

More to Come