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God's Nature and Church Leadership
The prevailing sentiment today is that authority is primarily a bad thing.
This cultural vilification of authority has its roots in multiple kinds
of soil.
- The abuse of authority by wicked people has given rise to a distrust
and eventual discarding of the concept altogether.
- The radical backlash against the structures of modernity has given
rise to an environment in which the most obvious thing to do with authority
is to question it.
- Freedom is a wonderful thing for which we should be very thankful -
none of us wants to be without it. But parts of our culture have deified
freedom to the extent that authority is almost categorically perceived
in some circles as antiquated, necessarily oppressive, or even evil.
But we see good authority relationships modeled for us by God.
- Within the Trinitarian Godhead, the Son willingly submits to the Father,
though equal with Him in divine essence. And the Spirit is willingly sent
out by the Father and the Son with the mission of glorifying Jesus (John
5:19; 6:38; 7:16-18; 14:16; 16:7,13-14).
- As God relates to man, He exercises His authority with perfect justice,
wisdom, mercy, and love (Ps 9:7-8).
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