On Whose Authority?

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things which all perish as they are used), according to human precepts and doctrines? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.

Colossians 2:20-23

I have a problem with “authority figures”.

I do not like other people telling me what I can and cannot do. I particularly do not like other people telling me what is better or best for me.

Who could possibly know more about what is best for me? Who knows more about the life I have lived and the path I have chosen? There is no one on earth who knows more about me than me.

I am the “authority” on me. I know what I like. I have a pretty good idea of what I need. Anyone else is just guessing.

Only I know my hopes. Only I know my dreams. Only I know my demons.

At the same time, I am no authority of any kind on anyone else. I know nothing of others. I do not know what other people like. I can only guess at what other people need.

I know nothing of other people’s hopes. I know nothing of other people’s dreams. I know nothing of other people’s demons. Unless people tell me these things, I am not going to know.

Just as I am the only “authority” on me, you are the only “authority” on you. It would be foolishness in the extreme to pretend otherwise.

I will confess that it often seems there are those who indulge in exactly that foolishness. Whether on social media or in the real world, it seems there are an abundance of people who are quite at ease with arrogating to themselves a pretense of “authority” about what is best for someone else.

We are inundated with them at election time when they run for office.

We may encounter them at work, or in school, or even in church. Indeed, many who aspire to be pastors and ministers of the Word of God seem to be primarily concerned with spreading the Gospel according to Saint Ego.

I will confess also that when it comes to my own ability to figure things out for myself I am equal parts cocky and arrogant. I am a proud man—even a prideful one—and that of which I am most proud is the organic supercomputer between my ears!

Yeah, I like to think I’m a smart cookie.

Do I know everything? Not at all. I am knowledgeable and I am smart—but I am smart enough also to know that I am not God. Only God knows everything, and only God can know everything.

God is the one entity who most assuredly knows more about me than I do.

I have no problem questioning the presumed authority of any man, and I have no qualms about accepting that God is always the ultimate authority.

God created the world. God created mankind. God created me. That means He gets to call the shots. He gets to make the rules. He gets to decide what obstacles will get thrown into my path. He gets to decide what obstacles get thrown into your path.

We don’t have to like that. We don’t even have to be happy about it. However, no matter how much we dislike it, no matter how unhappy we might be about it, we are not ever going to change it. In all things, God is always in control, and we are not.

Yet if we are not in charge of our own lives—and we are not—how is it that some believe they should be in charge of the lives of others? If God is the one calling the shots—and He is—how is that some believe they too get to call the shots?

Ultimately, I can only guess as to why that is, although I am fairly convinced that human ego and human pride figure prominently in the reasons why.

However, we do not need to look to our own ego to know that the authority claimed by others is at best mere wishful thinking on their part. In Matthew 16, Jesus warned His disciples to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees,” and they quickly surmised that He was cautioning them against the problematic and likely false claims of spiritual authority made by the Pharisees. Jesus was emphatic on the point: there is no authority save God alone, and all authority on earth flows from God alone.

Even in the Old Testament, we see the signs that human authority is not to be trusted or even sought. The closing verse of Judges, “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes,” tells us that when the people of Israel first settled in the land of Canaan, God was government enough for them. Human authority was simply not needed.

Similarly, in Acts the Apostles in Jerusalem acknowledged that Gentiles who wished to convert to the Christian Faith had not been raised with all the particulars of Jewish Law, and had not even been circumcised. Thus they acknowledged in Acts 15 that converting Gentiles should not be weighted down with rules for them imposed by men, but merely they “abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.”

The focus for the Gentiles, and for all Christians then and now, was to be on God. Gentile and Jew alike needed to be seeking out God’s Word, and seeking to apprehend God’s Will, that they might faithfully follow God’s Law. As the Gentiles had not grown up as Jews, the insistence by some that Gentiles fully embrace Jewish Law was ultimately recognized as an imposition by man and not by God.

Earthly authority might make such insistence, but God, the only true authority, had not established such a requirement.

As was true in the time of Judges is still true today: when men follow God’s Law, man’s laws are superfluous. When men reject God’s Law, man’s laws are irrelevant.

Ultimately, this is the problem I have with human “authority figures”: They are simply not needed. They are simply not relevant.

God has not left any blank spaces for human authority to fill. If God wants me to learn from someone, He will put that person on my path. If God wants me to teach someone, He will put that person on my path. Otherwise, God will have me attend to whatever challenges He sees fit to send my way.

Yet whether I am serving as master or student, that which is to be either taught or learned is, fundamentally, the truth—and truth does not hinge on which person is teaching it. Things are true in this world not because any person says they are true, but because God has established that they are true.

This is true in the world of science.

This is true in the world of history and economics.

This is even true in the world of politics.

In all things, God is the only arbiter of truth. Only God can be the arbiter of truth.

As only God can be the arbiter of truth, only God can ever stand as an authority on anything. People can only point to those things which are true and point away from those things which are false.

What is always false is when a person points to a human doctrine, a human precept, and says “you must”. If anything, if it is a human doctrine or a human precept, there is a very good probability that, in reality, I “must not.” Only in the singular circumstance that a human doctrine aligns with God’s Word, God’s Will, and God’s Law am I well advised to go along with a statement of “you must.” Wherever the human doctrine deviates from God’s Law, the “you must” very quickly becomes “you must not.”

We are called above all else to love God with all our heart and all our mind and all our soul. By definition that means we are called to love Truth above all else. If we are seeking God, we must also be seeking Truth, for Truth can only come from God.

Yet as we are called to love God, and to seek God, as we are called to therefore seek after Truth, we are also called to be skeptical of what mere mortals will assert as “truth”. People get things wrong. People make mistakes. People even lie.

As we are called to love God, to seek God, and to seek after Truth, we are also called to reject human authority, for human authority is demonstrably not Truth.

We are called to follow God; that does not leave room for following any human authority.

My prayer this day—and every day—is that I can keep my focus on God. My prayer is that I can resist the distractions and deceptions of human “authorities”. My prayer is always that my eyes and my heart will be opened to the Truth in all things.

My prayer for you is that you too will be able to keep a focus on God. My prayer for you is that you also will be able to resist the distractions and deceptions of human “authorities”, and that your eyes and your heart will be opened to the Truth in all things.

We are called to follow God. We are called to seek out Truth that we may truly follow God. Whenever we are presented with something claiming to be Truth, we do well to ponder a simple question: On whose authority do we accept it as True?