Year 6, Day 318: 2 Chronicles 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.

Jehoshaphat returns from battle and he is greeting by a prophet.  The prophet tells him that he has done some things well, but he has also neglected some of his duties among the people.  In other words, the prophet is reminding that he is an example before the people.  People are going to look to him and imitate him because of the position he has in their life.  This is going to happen whether or not he wants them to.  This is going to happen whether he knows them or not.  In a sense, this is going to happen to him well beyond the scope of his control.

Jehoshaphat realizes this and once more heeds the words of the prophet.  He goes out and appoints leaders to help him manage the people.  This largely parallels what Moses did when Jethro, his father-in-law, came to him and spoke to him about managing the people.  Jehoshaphat appoint leaders who will be able to know the people and oversee them far more personally than he can.

However, in the midst of this process he receives another warning.  He is reminded that he has an incredible amount of authority upon him.  He isn’t just judging over people.  He is judge over God’s people and exercising God’s authority over them.  He needs to be exceedingly careful, because people will see his authority as an extension of God’s authority. 

That’s just how it is when we are in relationship with God.  When we are in relationship with Him, He desires us to go out into the world and spread not only His grace and love but also His wisdom, truth, and righteousness.  We are to be His representatives.  We do go out with His calling.  We go out with His approval.  But we also go with His authority.  That is an incredible blessing.  It is also an incredible burden to remember as we go forth to be His representative to the world.

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Year 6, Day 307: 2 Chronicles 7

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.

 Much of this chapter has to deal with what I spoke about in the last chapter.  God responds to Solomon’s prayer.  If the people obey, they will have God’s protection.  If the people abandon God, they also forfeit His protection.  It is about obedience as I spoke of yesterday.

Rather than repeat myself more than I have already done, I am going to take the opportunity to talk deeply about a seemingly insignificant detail in this chapter.  Do you remember who did the offerings?  Solomon did!  Now, this should initially strike you as unusual.  After all, aren’t the priests supposed to do the sacrifices?  What on earth is Solomon doing here?  He’s not a part of the line of Levi.  Being David’s Son, he’s of the line of Judah!

This is why I wanted to talk about this point.  This detail is inserted into the Chronicler’s account to show that the Chronicler has an eye for the Messiah.  More importantly, the Chronicler has an eye for the authority of the Messiah.

Think back to the chapter where David took Jerusalem and established his kingdom there.  Do you remember that in those chapters we have a reminder that David is a priest in the order of Melchizedek?  If you don’t, remember in Genesis that the king of Salem (the town that becomes know as Jerusalem) is called Melchizedek and he was a priest of God.  Therefore, the tradition is that the king of Jerusalem is a priest of God, even though they might not be in the line of Levi.  Therefore, David and those of his lineage who are kings of Jerusalem are both priests and kings!  They are priests and kings under the direct authority of God.

Why is this important?  Fast forward a thousand years.  Jesus comes on the scene.  Jesus is heralded as the “King of the Jews.”  Jesus is also in the lineage of David.  Therefore, we can claim that Jesus likewise shares the authority from God as being both priest and king.  David had the authority and lived it out.  Solomon had the authority and lived it out.  In the same way, Jesus has the authority and He absolutely lived it out.

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Year 6, Day 201: Matthew 27

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.

There are many reasons why Jesus died.  From the perspective of the Father, He died so that we can have true relationship with Him again.  From Jesus’ perspective, He died because it was the Father’s will for Him to die.  From the perspective of His disciples, He died because they were sinful and they needed His blood to redeem them.  But Jesus didn’t only die for good reasons.

From the perspective of the religious elite, Jesus died because of the concept of authority.  Jesus’ authority came from the Father.  That’s why he taught the way He did.  That’s why He made disciples the way that He did.  That’s why He debated the way that He did.  That’s why He performed miracles the way that He did.

The problem is that the religious authorities didn’t get their authority from the Father.  If they did, they would have accepted Jesus.  But they were getting their authority from themselves and the culture around them.  This caused them to clash.  That’s why Jesus died from their perspective.

How do we see this in Matthew 27?  Who is it that comes up with the plan to kill Jesus?  The religious elite, that’s who.  Who is it that convinces the people in charge to kill Jesus?  The crowd that was stirred up against Him.  Who is it that takes Jesus’ life?  The Roman soldiers who are paid by the government.  Nowhere in this story do any of these people turn to the Father and check to make sure that their decision was in line with the Father.  They are getting their authority form the other people around them.  That’s a dangerous thing to do.  When that happens, we usually find ourselves acting contrary to the will of the Father.

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Year 6, Day 191: Matthew 17

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.

When we talk about authority in spiritual circles, we talk about where it begins first.  Authority comes from God the Father.  When we look at this chapter, we have a great illustration of this in the story of the transfiguration.  In this story, God Himself looks down and says of Jesus, “This is my son.  With Him I am well-pleased.”  Clearly we can see – and show know and believe – that Jesus’ authority is rooted in the Father.

Of course, authority isn’t just something to brag about.  Authority is something to practice.  What does Jesus do immediately after His authority is affirmed?  He goes out and heals a boy.  He takes an incident that has stumped His disciples and proves that the authority that has been given to Him by the Father is for real.

Furthermore, Jesus then takes His authority and deflects away challenge to His authority as well.  When He is questioned about the tax, He tells His disciples that since they belong to the Father, they truly don’t owe tax to live in the Father’s world.  However, to make sure that He doesn’t ruffle any feathers, He gives Peter some instructions about how to pay the tax, although the tax paid is done through supernatural means.  When challenged, Jesus shows authority in answering the challenge as well as through making sure the disciples stay right with the people.

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Year 6, Day 182: Matthew 8

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.

Matthew 8 is a great chapter through which we can look at the issue of authority.  Jesus demonstrates that in each situation where He is called to act, He has the authority to act.  In each situation where He has the authority to act, He has the power to act.

Of course, the easiest two places to see this in action is Jesus’ command over the storm and Jesus’ command over the demons.  Jesus can exert the Father’s authority over nature as He is called to do so.  Jesus can exert the Father’s authority over other heavenly beings when He is called to do so.  Naturally, of course, Jesus can exert the authority of the Father over humanity as well.

However, what is really neat to see here in this chapter is how people respond to the authority of Jesus.  Other people who respect and care for authority will respond.  The centurion comes to Jesus.  He understands and knows authority.  Notice that he doesn’t even need Jesus to come to his house.  He trusts that Jesus’ word is good.  He trusts that Jesus’ authority is true.  The centurion puts his faith on display by recognizing Jesus’ authority and responding properly.

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Year 6, Day 177: Matthew 3

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.

One of the greatest things that I love about John the Baptizer is his humbleness.  Here is a man whose who calling was to point to someone else’s greatness.  He’s completely and totally okay with that calling.

I think the reason that he is okay with this fact is that he knows from where his authority comes. Look at how John talks about Jesus.  He knows that Jesus is greater than him and he is okay with it.  He knows that he isn’t worthy of untying the sandals on Jesus’ feet.  He has no trouble understanding his place because he knows where he resides with the Father.  He knows that if his authority comes from the Father, then he needs to invest in the will of the Lord.  His own ego has no place because his authority is coming from the Father.

If we look at how this plays out when they meet, we get an interesting perspective, too.  Jesus comes to be baptized.  At first, John doesn’t agree.  He knows his place.  Jesus is superior.  However, when Jesus explains the service that John would be doing to Jesus, John agrees.  Again, John gets his authority from God.  Even though John knows that Jesus is the superior, when God explains that His perspective is different that John’s, John concedes and abides by God’s will.  John not only displays that he can talk and teach about having an authority that comes from God, he can live it as well.

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Year 6, Day 90: Jeremiah 37

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.

This is a neat chapter in which we can view authority.  At first pass, who does it look like has all of the authority?  Of course, the answer is Zedekiah.  After all, isn’t he king?  Isn’t Zedekiah the one who locks up Jeremiah?  Isn’t he the one who gives edicts and decrees?  Isn’t he the one to whom Jeremiah is brought when he is accused of deserting?  At first glance, it looks like Zedekiah has all the power and authority in the story.

However, look at what Zedekiah does.  Zedekiah comes and asks Jeremiah if there is any word of the Lord.  Even if Zedekiah won’t humble himself to God, he still is capable of demonstrating that God has authority.

Furthermore, if Zedekiah actually had authority over Jeremiah, would Jeremiah be able to speak to the king in the manner that he does?  Of course not!  If Zedekiah had any authority at all, Jeremiah would be in trouble.  Another way of saying this is that since Jeremiah speaks this way to Zedekiah, Jeremiah is enforcing the idea that he really has no authority over Jeremiah’s life.

So often this is true in the world.  People think that they have authority.  People pretend to have the power to rule over others.    But nobody has authority outside of what God has ordained for them.  In fact, we really only have genuine authority when we humble ourselves before God as we have seen Jeremiah do in this whole book.

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Year 6, Day 54: Jeremiah 1

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.

Jeremiah 1 is a great chapter.  In this chapter we hear the beginning of Jeremiah’s calling.  We hear how God calls Jeremiah.  We hear how God tells Jeremiah what he is going to be to the Hebrew people around Him.  God tells Jeremiah that he will build up, tear down, destroy, overthrown, and plant.  God has big designs for Jeremiah.

Of course, we also hear God tell Jeremiah to shut up.  When God comes to Jeremiah and tells him the plan, Jeremiah gets a bit nervous.  I can’t really say that I blame him.  Jeremiah is young.  He’s living in a time that is anticipating Babylonian conquest.  What’s not there to be nervous about?

But what I really love about this chapter is that God focuses Jeremiah away from his doubts and onto the power of God.  After all, it is God who will empower Jeremiah.  It is God who will enable Jeremiah to do what he will do.  If Jeremiah is looking to his future and looking at his own ability, he has every reason to be nervous.  But when Jeremiah remembers that God is king of the universe and Jeremiah’s authority to do these things comes from the king of the universe, suddenly he has nothing to worry about.

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Year 5, Day 359: Isaiah 9

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.

It is comforting to have a familiar passage like Isaiah 9 before us on such a memorable day as today.  The people who dwell in great darkness have seen a great light.  For unto us a child is born.  The government shall be upon His shoulder.  Counselor.  Wonderful.  Everlasting.  Prince of Peace.  He will sit upon the throne of David.  These are all descriptions of authority and the characteristics that good authority brings.

If we look at the opening section of Isaiah 9 we do really get a sense of the authority that is given to Christ.  He is the Messiah.  He is the one to rule.  He is the one God sent to us so that in the midst of this world of sin we might know what it is like to dwell with God. 

He has the authority in this life to take what the world gives to us and to turn it into something else.

However, we must also look at the rest of the chapter.  Yes, God’s Messiah is the Prince of Peace and a Wonderful Counselor.  But that is the perspective of those who listen to Christ and follow God’s Word.  If we find ourselves disobeying God and contrary to His holy will, we will find ourselves in judgment.  God has shown time and time again that those people who ignore the warning that He sends will be cast into bondage as they get the consequences of the choices that they make.  If we do not turn to Him and ignore him instead, we will get what we deserve.

That is the dichotomy of Law and Gospel.  The authority of the Gospel is that He loves us and desires to forgive us.  He is the wonderful counselor who is the Prince of Peace.  But we don’t have to accept Him.  We can choose to turn our backs on Him.  We can go our own way and violate His ways.  Then we will feel the authority of the Law as we face our consequences.

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Year 5, Day 338: Ecclesiastes 8

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.

I’m going to talk about authority, but not in the sense of the opening verses where we are told to obey the king because of God’s ability to work through the king.  Instead, I’m going to talk about authority in the context of life and death.  This is the second topic that Solomon addresses in this chapter.

Solomon addresses the age old question.  Why is it that righteous people often die before their time, yet unrighteous people prolong their life through their misdeeds?  After all, only the good die young, right?

Solomon puts this idea into context.  Yes, the unrighteous might be able to prolong their life now.  The unrighteous might be able to continue to live longer because of their ability to plot, manipulate, scheme, cheat, etc. 

But is the narrow spectrum of the years of this life really how we want to determine the final answer?  Won’t God give a far more superior answer?  Won’t eternity give a better perspective on who really prolongs their life with God?

That’s authority.  We think that we have authority in the here and now.  And on a very limited scale, we do have some authority.  But on an eternal perspective, God has the authority.  Only when we live in and through Him do we get to live knowing an authority that is eternal.

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Year 5, Day 324: 1 Timothy 3 & 4

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.

I was about to write another post on character, which I don’t think would have been difficult.  But as I write an awful lot about character, I thought a post on authority would be just as meaningful.  In truth, I think both posts end up drawing the same conclusions just from a different perspective.

1 Timothy 3 is largely a chapter about Timothy establishing expectations for the early church leaders.  Leaders are supposed to live up to the standards that God establishes for godly living.  But this makes sense form an authority perspective.  If we are going to have any meaningful authority in this world, won’t we be receiving our authority from God?  If we are living out the authority of God, shouldn’t we be living up to His standards?  Who will believe our testimony or respect our authority if the witness of our life doesn’t match what God expects of us?

1 Timothy 4 is largely the same information.  In this chapter, though, Paul is directing the teaching at Timothy rather than leaders in the church in general.  But here Paul takes it a step further.  He specifically reminds Timothy to not allow anyone to discredit him because of his youth.  He reminds Timothy of the prayer and prophecy that was declared over him at the time of his commissioning. Timothy isn’t leading because of his innate giftedness or even because of his training.  Ultimately, Timothy is leading because of the authority bestowed upon him by God.

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Year 5, Day 264: John 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority, King

• 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.
• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is an omnipotent king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

As Jesus prepares His disciples for the time to come, He takes some time to make sure that they understand the world.  Jesus’ opening words in this chapter are haunting.  There will be people who think that by persecuting the disciples that they are doing the work of God.  In other words, human beings can become so twisted in their thought process that they become convinced that they know what the will of God is and they stop checking with Him.

This is both an issue with authority and King.  We will start with God as King.  If we truly believe that God is King, we will continue to check in with Him.  We will continually study God’s Word.  We will always approach life with a perspective that I might be wrong – which will keep us humble.  We will always approach life with a perspective that we have something to learn.  All of these attitudes in a Christian come from believing that God is King, not me.

When we are humble before the King, we will then be able to work out of God’s authority.  When He is King and I realize that I may make mistakes, I realize that my authority isn’t worth much unless it comes from Him.  When I am always pausing to make sure that what I am doing is from God, I’m truly working out of His authority rather than out of my own.

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Year 5, Day 255: John 7

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.

Authority is one of the main themes that runs through the book of John, so it is clear that I will be writing about authority as much as I write about challenge.  This chapter of the Gospel of John is all about the authority of Jesus in comparison to the authority of the religious elite in Jerusalem.  In the end, we can say this much: they seek to kill Him, but they cannot arrest Him because they don’t have authority over Him.  His time has not yet come; they could not arrest Him.  That is a demonstration of their authority.

However, Jesus gives us a very powerful statement about why He can do the things that He is able to do.  The one who has access to God’s authority is also the one who seeks to do God’s will.  In other words, if we desire to be able to act with the authority of God, then we need to submit to Him and pursue His glory.  If we pursue His glory, then it makes sense that He will share His authority with us.

This is exactly the tension of the Gospel of John.  Jesus can do what He does because He is obedient to the Father, following His will and seeking His glory.  The religious elite cannot do what they desire until God allows it to happen because they are pursuing their own will and seeking their own glory.

In the end, we have a simple choice.  Do we want our own glory with limited authority?  Or would we rather seek the will of God and live in whatever portion of His unlimited authority that He desires to share with us?

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Year 5, Day 253: John 5

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.

John 5 is all about authority.  This story begins with Jesus healing on the Sabbath.  Of course, that sets up a huge conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders around Him.  But this conflict is all about the idea of authority and where Jesus is getting His authority.  Jesus claims His authority is coming from the Father – which makes the religious leaders even surer that Jesus is blaspheming!  However, Jesus also makes sure that He asserts that the authority of the religious leaders is coming from Moses, not the Father.  Of course, this doesn’t sit very well with them, either.

Jesus makes it very clear that the only authority for Him is the authority that comes from the Father.  This is a fundamentally huge point.  There are many sources of authority out in the world.  We often try to be our own authority.  We often have authority based on someone else.  Sometimes we try and make authority out of a position or title that we hold.  But Jesus is right.  The only legitimate authority is the authority that comes from the Father.  All other sources of authority will fade, pass away, or diminish.

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Year 5, Day 226: Psalms 92-93

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.

Psalm 92 and Psalm 93 are great authority psalms, but they aren’t authority with respect to the typical discipleship frame of reference.  Often when we talk about authority we are speaking of our authority that we receive from God because He is the king.  Each of these psalms today gives us a perspective on God’s overall authority.  These psalms give us a perspective of God as King and His ultimate power.

In Psalm 92, we get an overview of the greatness of God.  He is the one who is exalted because we cannot ever truly fathom His depth.  Just when we think that we are getting to where we might find an answer, we find that the answer we seek merely opens up questions to further depth!  Yes, we do get answers.  But the answers are never the end of the road.  The answers simply open our eyes to how many more questions that there are to ask!

Furthermore, in Psalm 92 we get another glimpse of the tension between the success of the unrighteous and the concern of the righteous.  The psalmist does a great job in making sure that our perspective is correct.  The unrighteous may prosper here on this earth for a time.  But their time of prosperity is often short-lived.  We often see people rise and then quickly fall.  But even in those instances where we see a person rise and never fall in this world, we know that eternity is completely different.  Just because a person is prosperous here in this life doesn’t mean that they will have it made in the life to come!  Only those who are in God – the righteous – will know eternal prosperity.  God truly has the final and ultimate say.

When we turn to Psalm 93, we find that it is a clear psalm about lifting up God and His greatness.  God’s throne is forever.  God’s throne shall never be moved.  God’s Word is trustworthy.  God’s holiness is befitting only for God and the things that belong to Him.  God has the ultimately authority in this life because He is the only one worthy enough to have such power.  He is the only one who is that righteous and trustworthy.  That is why the authority is His.

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Year 5, Day 180: Psalm 36-37

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.

Psalm 36 really is about authority.  Look at the contrast that we are given between the first and second halves of the psalm.  In the first half of the psalm, the psalmist speaks about those who seek their own desires.  They plot and plan trouble thinking that they will never be found out.  They relish in the fact that nobody can truly know the depth of depravity that exists in their mind.  They are their own authority.

On the other hand, we have the second half of the psalm.  Here the psalmist speaks about the life of those who give authority to God and God’s ways.  God’s love is precious.  His ways are steadfast.  He is a fountain of life.  Rather than seeking our own depravity, God when we give authority to God we find life and love and security in life.  This is why is it good to look to the Father as the source of our authority.  It’s just not worth trying to be our own authority in this life.

Psalm 37 largely picks up where psalm 37 left of in comparison of the wicked versus the righteous.  There are too many comparisons to mention here, but I’ll list a few poignant ones.  When we are our own authority, we fade like grass, we look for others of whom we can take advantage, we experience the emptiness of our abundance, we know the limit of our days, we know greed, and we don’t know true wisdom.  But when God is our authority we will know justice as the noonday, we delight in relieving the oppressed, we know the fullness of God, we know that our days are endless with God, we know the joy of giving, and we have the benefit of genuine wisdom.  I don’t know about you, but that is quite an impressive list.  I certainly think the benefits of submitting to God and letting Him be the authority in our life far outweighs whatever we might think we are giving up!

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Year 5, Day 158: Mark 11

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.

Authority is a great concept to look at in Mark 10.  We open up this chapter with Jesus telling His disciples to go and find a colt so that He can enter into Jerusalem according to the tradition of Zechariah 9:9.  Jesus is acting on the authority of the Father through the Father’s word.

Then Jesus clears the temple.  This is one of the few acts of righteous anger that we ever see Jesus do.  Because there are so few, this act becomes the iconic reference to defend the actions of people who act violently in the name of God.  But we need to understand this passage in proper perspective.  Jesus does this righteously because God has genuinely called Him to do it.  It isn’t righteous because God is the subject.  It is righteous because God is the origin of the act.  Jesus is righteous because He is acting out of the authority of the Father, not because He is protecting the Father.  God does not need our protection.  God needs our humble submission and willingness to do His will in His authority.

Then Jesus curses the fig tree.  Again we see the authority that the Father has given to Jesus.  Jesus has authority over even nature.  Jesus can wither the natural world, cursing it when it lives apart from God’s will.

Finally, we come to the place of Jesus’ challenge.  I find that this passage is the great capstone to a chapter where authority is at the core.  The religious leaders come before Jesus and ask where He gets His authority.  In turn, Jesus asks them where John the Baptizer’s authority came.  The religious leaders know that they are trapped.  If they say from God in order to please the opinion of the crowd, then Jesus will ask why they didn’t listen and obey.  But if the religious leaders say that John acted out of his own will, they will offend the crowd.  Because the religious leaders care about the authority and the power given to them by the crowd at least as much if not more than the power and authority given to them by God, the religious leaders stumble.  The key here when looking at authority is to make sure that our authority and power come from God.  As Jesus says elsewhere, we cannot serve two masters.  If we aren’t serving God wholly, we probably aren’t actually serving Him at all.

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Year 5, Day 156: Mark 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Authority, Power

• 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.
• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.

Once more we see that authority and power run together.  And this is such a good topic to cover on a chapter that immediately follows Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ and the Peter’s rebuke of Jesus’ teaching that He will die.

In this chapter we have two examples of misguided authority and a lack of power.  In the transfiguration, Peter gets all caught up in the moment and flustered.  He wants the moment to last forever.  So he suggests building three tents so that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah can just hang out here forever.  We can’t fault Peter for wanting the moment to last any more than we can fault him for wanting to protect Jesus and thus rebuking His teaching that He will die.  But in the end, it is misguided love.  Peter’s human love for Jesus interferes with God’s love for humanity.  The Father needs Jesus to move on after the transfiguration happened.  Peter’s authority in making his suggestion about the tents comes from himself, not the Father.  Thus he is powerless to do anything about it.

In the following stray we have a man with a demon-possessed son.  The disciples are powerless against it.  Jesus comes in, takes over, and the boy is freed from the possession.  Jesus has power and authority in this situation as well!

The greater question – and the very question that stumps Jesus’ disciples – is why they were powerless.  Jesus’ reply is simple yet multi-layered.  This kind of demon only comes out through prayer.

So what could this mean?  Well, Jesus could be saying that their technique was wrong.  Rather than commanding the spirit out, they should have prayed it out.  More deeply, I believe what Jesus is saying is that their preparation was wrong.  They weren’t prepared to handle the spiritual battle and thus the demon won.  But that leads us to what I think is the deepest explanation.  After all, what is prayer besides communication with the Father?  I believe Jesus is telling the disciples that their authority is not yet coming from the Father and therefore their power was lacking.  As our relationship with the Father grows – as our communication with Him improves and we learn to listen better – our power and authority will grow.

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Year 5, Day 154: Mark 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Approval, Authority

• Approval: We all need to feel as though we are accepted.  When we seek the approval of God, our Up is in the right place.  But when we seek the approval of other people besides God, we open the door to pursuing false gods and risk putting someone or something other than God in our Up position.
• 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.

I think in many ways the concepts of approval and authority go hand in hand.  After all, if God is truly in our up position, then we will seek God’s approval.  If we are genuinely living with God in our Up position and seeking His approval, then we will also be living with His authority governing our lives and actions.

As proof of this, look at the last two stories in this chapter.  With the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus is clearly living out the authority of God.  He doesn’t even need to be present with the sick girl to cast out the demon from her presence!  With the deaf man, Jesus pulls him aside and is able to cure whatever was wrong with him as well.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t do this act for the praise of men.  In fact, He actual forbids them to make a big deal about it.  Jesus is doing the will of God.  Getting His approval and authority from the Father is enough for Him.

However, what about the people in the region of the Decapolis.  Jesus tells them to keep quiet about the action and they do not.  They were disobedient.  We don’t know why, only that they were zealous in their disobedience.  My guess is that the people were chasing after the approval of others around them.  They wanted to share the gossip about Jesus.  They wanted to be seen as someone who saw the miracle happen.  They wanted to be the center of their community’s attention and get their fifteen seconds of fame.

Now let’s return to the first set of stories in this chapter.  Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for paying more attention to the traditions of mankind rather than the commandments of God.  He does this in two contexts: food laws and honoring ones parents.

The fundamental issue is why the Pharisees would from God’s perspective pay more attention to human traditions than God’s own Law.  The answer is simple, I believe.  The Pharisees were looking from approval from one another.  They could justify each other’s eating habits.  They could justify each other’s giving to sustain the religious institution instead of caring for one’s parents.  In seeking the approval of the religious leaders around them, they were also seeking to increase the authority through which they lived, too.  The Pharisees cared more about the traditions of mankind because their approval and authority were rooted in the human hierarchy around them.

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Year 5, Day 137: Galatians 1

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 I love about Galatians 1 is that Paul is very much a no-compromise apostle in his writing.  He is blunt that his authority comes from God.  He does not get his authority from a counsel.  Neither does he get his authority from an individual or a financier.  Paul gets his authority from Jesus Christ.

This is a really powerful comment.  Who do I serve?  Who do you serve?  Am I only able to speak truth because other spiritual people have approved of me?  Or does my truth come from God the Father and the king of the universe?

I don’t know about you, but I know this is easily answered but difficult to live out.  It is easy to call out that our authority comes from God alone!  But it is difficult to stand up and live it out.  How often does my opinion of myself come from the approval of others?  How often do I think that I can only have God’s wisdom if I am taught it by other people?  We should get our authority from God.  Salvation comes only from Him; the same is true for wisdom and authority.

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