restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations
Humble Mantles of Authority
I always enjoy watching elders in the church as they wear humble mantles of authority, an authority they exercise not through overbearing attitudes or unilateral actions but through genuine, loving relationships.
Have you ever noticed how the important people in our lives exercise vast relational authority over us? If we understood relationships better, wed have a better understanding of the power of love.
Of all the people we should love purely, it is the people we lead. Is it any wonder, then, that elders in the New Testament were chosen from within the congregations they served? Outsiders could hardly be expected to earn the level of acceptance within the group so desperately needed for leadership. An elders relationships with his own family and his own neighbors and friends had to be deep and real if others were to accept his leadership.
Dont misunderstand me. Im certainly not saying that a man cant be an effective leader unless he has grown up in the community in which he serves. But in focusing on leadership from within the Scriptures are holding up a red flag of warning that pastoral authority is another name for relational authority (Heb. 13:7). You may call it pastoring, mentoring, facilitating, nurturing, training, directing, or discipling. Whatever we call it, its root is the same. We experience relational authority far more than we name it so.
Back to the question of authority, then. How does the risen Lord Jesus lead His church, of which He is the only Head? By the relational essence of Pentecost, by the long, slow process of helping us to trade in our vacillating instability for rocklike, Spirit-filled maturity, by enabling us to love like God.
In the face of this basic biblical principle, why do we cling so obstinately and irrationally to our theology of status?
November 6, 2007
David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.