Year 4, Day 252: Acts 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Authority

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

What a chapter to look at authority.  Let’s look at each of the three major stories.

First, we have Paul and the disciples of John the Baptizer.  They are out and teaching with God’s authority.  It’s clear that they are doing so, because they are bearing fruit.  It’s also clear that they are doing it under God’s authority because Paul doesn’t chastise them.  Rather, Paul meets with them, senses their common spirit, and then invites them into a greater relationship with God!  Paul invites them into a greater authority.  From this story we can learn that we don’t have to understand everything God is doing to have authority from Him.  We can go and do His will under His authority and as we grow we can learn and gain more authority.

Second, we look at the sons of Sceva.  What a horrible example, but a great one to examine!  The sons of Sceva see what Paul is doing and they seek to copy him.  But notice that they do not imitate Paul.  Paul was in a relationship with God through Christ.  That is from where his authority came.  The sons of Sceva copy Paul’s actions without imitating the relationship with God.  Thus, when they try to live out of that authority, things go tragically wrong.  What can we learn from this?  We learn that if we aren’t careful we can end up copying and not imitating.  We can end up trying to live out of an authority that we don’t truly have.

Third, we look at the riot in Ephesus.  Here in an exercise in worldly authority.  Nothing about the riot in Ephesus is about spirituality.  The riot is about money.  A small group demonstrates authority over the crowd and gets them into a mob mentality where the mob doesn’t really even know what is going on!  And the day is saved by a political leader who makes a political argument.  From this story we learn that spiritual authority is not the only authority in the world.  In fact, worldly authority often wrestles against the spiritual authority that comes from God.

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