Fire On Your Head

Knowing exactly what authority is and what it is not, is absolutely critical in a world where we face it everyday. When a policeman flashes his lights behind you and tells you to pull over, by what basis does he have the authority to make you do what he says? When your child in the backseat orders you to stop at the supermarket to get ice cream, by what basis does the child not have sufficient authority over you so that you can continue driving on a clear conscience? Because people give us orders on a daily basis, it is essential to determine what our filter is by which we discern which authority is valid and demands obedience.

We live in a world where authority and submission are two very distorted terms and neither of them are very attractive words. We hate the thought of domineering authority, and we hate submitting to that authority. However one thing all humans have in common is that we desire to have authority over others. This paper will attempt to redefine these two terms from a biblical standpoint so that we can have a fresh and healthy understanding of what it means to submit and what it means to have authority and what it means to really be Christ-like in the area of leadership in the 21st century.

Authority Redefined: The second mile

Firstly we must look at what Jesus says on the issue. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 is a startling passage. One with demands on humanity that such a minute percentage of Christians actually adhere to. In verse 41 Jesus says “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.” At first glance this seems to be simply a passage on generosity, which it is, however Jesus was specifically dealing with authority in this passage. The Roman rule over Israel of the 1st century was a very oppressive and dominating government. Craig Keener says in his commentary on the situation: “Because tax revenues did not cover all the Roman army’s needs, soldiers could requisition what they required. Romans could legally demand local inhabitants to provide forced labor if they wanted and were known to abuse this privilege.”

In the same way in Matthew 27:32 when Simon was forced by a Roman soldier to help carry the cross that crucified Christ, they could at any time force anyone into service by hypothetically making them walk a mile with them. Nothing was more hated or unjust in the eyes of Israel then their Roman oppressors and here Jesus seemed to be encouraging allegiance and submission to these brutal soldiers. “But wont it then look like we are helping our enemies fulfill their agenda?” such questions must have been circling through their minds. Instead Jesus commanded allegiance above and beyond what the oppressive Romans would ask of them!

Is Jesus actually teaching ultimate submission to all authority, even ungodly authority such as that of Rome? Surely not! That would be simply ridiculous and contrary to scripture elsewhere. What if the preaching of the gospel was outlawed, as it was later in the century? Surely in that case rebellion against authority is required. There must be another solution. Let us look at another passage from Matthew that seems to teach the exact opposite of such an idea.

Authority redefined: Christ Calls for Anarchy

In Matthew 23 Jesus utters probably the most profoundly offensive rebuke against a group of people than that of the entire New Testament. An entire chapter is devoted to this sharp judgment against the pharisaical religious authority system. In verse 8 he says: 
”But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your [Leader], and you are all brothers …Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. (NASB)”

What a radical thought! Essentially Jesus said “You are all brothers and you have no leadership authority over you except for me!” If taken literally, almost 100% of our current Christian congregations are disobeying this command! Let us attempt to see what Jesus was teaching about leadership by looking at another passage. Matthew 20:25-26 says “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you!” Here Jesus is issuing another painful attack on authority. The most honest interpretation of the passage (both from the words used and the grammatical structure of the Greek) is that Jesus is not only condemning the misuse of evil authority here but simply the act of “exercising authority over” people! So what is the answer? In Matthew 5 Jesus seems to demand recognition of all authority, and here he openly condemns the use of authority! Jesus provides the answer in the verse directly following his statement in Matthew chapter 20. It all has to do with our understanding of submission.

Redefining Submission: The Autocratic Slave

Jesus says in Matthew 20:27 referring to leadership “whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave” Here Jesus is directly equating authority with slavery. Those who have authority according to Jesus are those who are powerless to execute any authority on a human level. “Looking at the parables of Jesus, we have a window on the position of the slave in society. The slave owes his master exclusive and absolute obedience (Matt 8:9), for no one can serve two masters (Matt 6:24). His work sometimes earned neither profit nor praise, for he was only doing his duty (Luke 17:7-10).”

Slaves are those disgusted and despised individuals; those at the lowest place in society. If one word could describe this group of people it would be “submission”. Slaves submit; by definition they can do no other. So in equating authority with slavery, essentially Jesus is equating leadership with submission. They are the same in His eyes. It is a radical paradox. Do you want to lead someone? Submit to him. Do you want to exercise authority over someone? Be his slave. For according to Jesus we “are all brothers” and we have no leader but Him. Ephesians 5:21 says “ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Paul is teaching that we mustn’t simply submit to our leaders, but to “each other”. Submitting to “each other” means everyone submitting to everyone. That’s the gospel; being slaves to each other. There is no one in the body that we must submit to that isn’t submitting to us in return. There is no pyramid structure with a man or a group of men at the top. The gospel teaches that there is Christ on top and then a group of slaves on an equal level serving Him and serving each other.

Having understood this, the passages we discussed earlier make a lot more sense. Why should we obey an ungodly Roman soldier who demands us to go with him a mile? Because it’s an opportunity to submit to him and be his slave! What a great opportunity to show the love of Jesus and to be “first” in the eyes of the kingdom even though you are last in the eyes of the world.

Why according to Matthew 23 should we call no one a leader? Because there is no human being on earth who demands submission that in turn is not commanded to submit to you in return. Even the head of the biggest denomination or the president of the United States, is commanded to submit to his brothers and ultimately to us! It’s a level playing field.

Slavery: The answer to both Submission and authority

According to Jesus this difficult subject of submission and authority can be summed up with slavery to God and service to men. Let’s look at Jesus’ example. The ruler of the universe who has “all authority” (Matt 28:17) and “Upholds all things by the words of his power” (Heb 1:3) came to be the ultimate servant of humanity. Luke 22:27 says “who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” If Jesus came as a servant how can we, in our organizations and church structures claim to exercise authority over others in the name of Christ when Christ himself never did while he was on earth? Isn’t it odd that in the gospels there is not one example of the ruler of the universe exercising or lording His authority over another individual? Not even one example of Him making someone do something they don’t want to do from his own authority.

” if we look at the life of Jesus, we find a very different model of authority. No-one could deny his effectiveness – nor that he changed the world – but he never lorded it over anyone – or forced people to accept his teaching. In Jesus, people encountered the authority of a love that was prepared to give its life for them.”

We have transformed Jesus’ teaching into something it was never intended to be. What Jesus came to uproot and turn over in the gospels we have quickly “Christianised” and placed in our church structure. We have embraced the way the gentiles do leadership when Jesus said so strongly in Matthew 20 “Not so with you!” Look at our examples of church “leaders” in the New Testament, the apostle Paul being the most prominent. Did he lord his authority over his church or did he lay his life down as a slave for his flock? The latter is clearly the case. The man poured out his life through pain, suffering, persecution, manual labor, weeping in prayer, travailing in intercession. He was not their Lord; he was their slave. A leader in our current western church structures might demand such things from their followers, instead our New Testament examples are revealed as ultimate servants.

Application: Ultimate obedience and Necessary Rebellion

Through this teaching we can know which authorities to obey and recognize and which authorities to disregard and rebel against. In saying there is no authority except from God (Romans 13:1) or there is no Leadership but Christ, the New Testament is making a sweeping statement completely illegitimating all other worldly authorities claiming authority in themselves. We should look at worldly authority as an opportunity to be a servant and to lay your life down, however it may happen that the Lord commands you to do contrary to that which they command of you. Why is it that the apostles were called revolutionaries and rebels, accused of organizing nationwide rebellions and upturning cities? Because they recognized that there was no authority from God and that it is always necessary to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). We can discern when obedience is required and when disobedience is required, simply by being a slave. There is no authority valid on earth except for Christ’s; our responsibility is simply to be the servant of all.

When the government says you cannot pray in schools. We must react by not recognizing that authority as legitimate, and ask the question how can I best be a servant and slave in my school? As a slave to God and men, prayer is absolutely essential and so rebellion to that rule is necessary. When the government says do not preach the gospel. We must react by saying I do not recognize that as a legitimate authority on my life and in order to be the world’s servant I must disobey. When a policeman pulls you over, you can best be his slave by obeying. When your child asks for ice-cream, you can best be her servant or slave by disobeying her command knowing that it would spoil her appetite before dinner!

Conclusion

The answer to being the best leader in a congregational setting or any other setting is simply by being the ultimate slave. In the same way, being the ultimate follower of God and other human leaders has the same answer, ask yourself how you can best be their servant and slave. Submission means consistently putting others needs and benefit before your own. The moment you look at your needs as more important than others you have disqualified yourself from being a Christ-like leader or follower. If our congregations and church structures were to embrace this principle, we would see a people resembling the church Jesus came to redeem, and the Jesus people would truly begin to arise.

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11:20-24, ESV

This text will be the basis of this post. In case you have any doubt where I’m going with this, this is a blog study on faith, and on confessing and speaking the Word of God.  There’s power in our words, and it’s important to be confessing the right things with our mouths.

There’s this erroneous sacred cow in many Christian circles that it’s rude to teach people to have more faith than they already do. Many teach and preach that “all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains.” Not so. If it took faith the size of a mustard seed, we’d have all the mountains moved already. The parallel in Matthew’s Gospel–where Jesus makes the statement about one having faith like (not ”the size” of) a grain of mustard seed can move a mountain–immediately followed the incident where the disciples were unable to cast a demon out of a boy, and He told them they failed to do it because of their little faith. So likewise, this passage in Mark is NOT saying faith can be small and accomplish major things.  In a way, this entry is a continuation of the thoughts I began to unpack there, but tied into the theme as of late on the words we speak.

Notice first of all, that in Mark’s account, Jesus curses the fig tree and then keeps going on his way to the temple which He cleanses. Then, according to verse 20, they passed by it the next morning and saw the results of the word Jesus spoke. He didn’t lay a hand on it and proclaim a lightning bolt to zap it. He cursed it with His words. There’s the power of life and death in the tongue, and we can use it for blessing or cursing (James 3:9-11). This is an example of it being used for righteously cursing something.

Sometimes people’s main objection to faith for divine healing, is lack of instantaneous results, but we need to remember something: the fig tree didn’t demonstrate any outward evidence that it had been cursed and no longer bearing fruit. According to this account, it may not have been noticable until a day later. Sometimes speaking the Word of God over our circumstances doesn’t yield a noticable result right away, but in the Spirit the prayer has been answered and the outward circumstances are already in the process of changing. Maybe the cancer in that person’s body has been removed, and now the body needs normal healing to recuperate from all the damage that the stupid curse has caused. At any rate, we walk by faith and not by sight, and sometimes appearances don’t tell the whole story. Like the fig tree, the roots of a problem can be dealt with but the branches don’t look dead right away.

That leads me to my next point. Do you really think you’ll have the guts to speak to a mountain in your life if you only have a little bit of faith that your words will move that thing and cast it into the ocean? Of course not! If you’re going to speak to the mountains in your life, you better have your bathing suit on because you’re going to get wet! Most of us ARE our own problem when it comes to faith for the impossible. Most of us are ‘functional atheists.’ We give the Word of God lip service and generally have a mental ascent that certain doctrines are true, but we live our lives as though God doesn’t really do what the Word says He does. There’s many people who “believe” in divine healing, but I’d never waste my time going to them for prayer if I needed a miracle in my body because I know they already have ruled out the possibility anything will happen if they pray, and would just pray out of respect or to be nice, but not out of the place of being convinced that their prayers bear fruit. Whooops–I’m getting sidetracked.

Let’s tackle some observations I’ve made about the text. As usual, I’m reading from the ESV:

• Jesus mentions speaking three times.
• Jesus mentions believing/expecting/having faith three times
• It appears that believing that what one says will come to pass is a prerequisite for it to come to pass.
• The people who can move mountains are the ‘whoevers’. I dare to believe this applies to every believer. Are you a whoever?
• Doubting is a pre-requisite for making sure the thing you ask doesn’t come to pass.
• Both believing, and speaking are necessary to yield the result of the mountain being removed and cast into the sea, and not one aspect over the other.
• Jesus mentions speaking to the mountain, and not to God about the mountain

What else do we know about faith?

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) How do you have assurance for the things you’re hoping for? You find out God’s will. How do you find out God’s will? You find and meditate on passages of Scripture that deal with the specific mountain you’re speaking to. For example, if you need healing, you meditate and study Bible passages dealing with healing.  If you are having a hard time believing your needs will be met, you study passages where God promises to feed the sparrow or clothe the lilies (Matt 6:25-34), and remind yourself of what He says He will do. You give yourself assurance by knowing His Word from reading what is written in it.

As it says in 1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests we have asked.”
The best way to know His will, is to read it. The Bible is His will in detail. This passage says we know we have what ask IF we’re praying according to His will.

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:6-8

Do you have confidence and not doubt in your heart? Faith is knowing it will happen, when you have no outward evidence to believe this from. That’s what makes it different than hope. Faith is certain, whereas hope doesn’t know for sure what will happen. Also, this part in James here should be used every time someone insists nobody needs more faith or that we all have the same amount. If I’ve heard it or been told it once, I’ve been told it a thousand times: “How can you say someone doesn’t have enough faith for something?” Easy, if they have faith for the thing, it will come to pass. BUT, faith requires perseverance. Most people have an “I-believe-God-could-do-that-and-I-hope-that-he-will“, but that’s not faith–faith requires the tenacity to keep going for it until it happens. Hope begs God to come through, not knowing if He will or not. Faith is certain that He will, with no doubting. James says if a double-minded man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, then don’t you think the opposite of double-minded, a single-focused man will?  If faith is not faith without works (James 2:14-26) , then neither is doubt really doubt unless it is accompanied by it corresponding works (actions opposite of faith). Faith requires action, and doubt requires action in order for it to be doubt.

Pit bull faith.

I remember not long ago, I was reading in the newspaper or online something somewhere south in the USA, how a pitbull attacked a man, and the neighbors came and were beating on the dog and trying to get it to let go of this guy’s arm. It would not let up and they kept beating on it and grabbing it and trying to force it off of this guy it was attacking, but to no avail, and he was bleeding all over the place. Finally someone got a rifle and killed that dog and it still had it’s teeth sunk into the guy’s flesh!

You need to be like a pitbull in believing God and having faith for the impossible, and determine that you’re not letting go of the promises in His Word until you see them come to pass in your life. I know that sounds blasphemous to some of you. Incidentally that’s part of the reason I’m not a Calvinist (as it’s popularly taught and understood): because there’s things that are not ‘willed’ to automatically happen with no involvement–or let me use the word ‘initiative’–on our part, but we need to go for it. God has done his part and now it’s up to us to persevere and receive. Remember the PERSISTENT widow in Luke 18? The first verse says Jesus told them that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. The problem is most of us hardly ever pray, and DO lose heart.

Steve, this stuff sounds really “name it and claim it, blab it and grab it” to me.

I know. But if you want to see an example of believing in your heart and saying with your mouth and believing what you say will come to pass and then having it come to pass that you probably have already done, then remember what the Bible says in Romans 10:9-10: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Romans 10:9-10 is simply Mark 11:23-24 applied specifically to salvation. The human soul getting born again is the ultimate moving of a mountain! You believe, you speak, and what you believe and speak ACCORDING to God’s will, happens. God’s will is for all to be saved (2 Peter 3:9), therefore, someone coming to Him in faith, confessing with their mouth, and believing in their heart, causes them to receive what they are promised by Him to receive from having believed and confessed according to His instruction in the Word about it. You have to meet the conditions of the promise in order to receive the promise, and God would not promise you something if he had no intention of giving it to you when you meet the conditions He lays out.

God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34) which means He doesn’t favor one person’s request over another or respect them more than you. God won’t withold from you something if He promises it in the Word–that’s why it’s in there, so you CAN know what He promises. “God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17).

So all  believers and followers of Christ reading this–you have already put this principle into practice in your life by initially getting saved. It’s just that few of us speak to mountains and believe in our heart they will move when it comes to other areas of our lives. We’re afraid we’ll be selfish. We’re afraid it will work. We’re afraid we’ll go off into practicing this in weird areas of our lives like cars and big houses like some other ministers do. We’re also afraid we won’t ask for the right things or that God will say ‘no’. He won’t say no if you’re praying according to the promises in His Word. The promises of God in Him are ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ (2 Cor 1:20). If you get the answer ‘no’, then either a demon is speaking to you or you’re praying differently than what the Word of God gives you any right to believe for. If you’re praying contrary to the Word of God, and have no promise from Him to stand on, then you are in presumption or foolishness or both, and I cannot guarantee you what will happen.

That’s why constant Bible reading and meditation is important. It renews your mind so you can know what the will of God is. (Romans 12:2)

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy a class from our Fire For Life Summer School a couple of years ago, where I taught more on this subject:

Faith & Healing:
Download mp3 (right click and save)