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Biblical Thinking for Building Healthy Churches [email protected] | www.9marks.org Tools like this are provided by the generous investment of donors. Each gift to 9Marks helps equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for displaying God’s glory to the nations through healthy churches. Donate at: www.9marks.org/donate. Or make checks payable to “9Marks” and mail to: 9 Marks 525 A St. NE Editor: Jonathan Leeman Washington, DC 20002 Assistant Editor: Alex Duke Layout: Rubner Durais For any gift of $300 ($25/month), you’ll receive two Cover Design: OpenBox9 new 9Marks books published throughout the year. Production Manager: Rick Denham All donations to 9Marks are tax-deductible. 9Marks President: Mark Dever CONTENTS 7 Editor’s Note: Authority and the Fear Factor by Jonathan Leeman 10 Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift by Jonathan Leeman GOD’S GOOD GIFT 14 The Shift from Authority to Preference—And Its Consequences for the Church by Os Guinness 24 The Nature of Church Authority by Jonathan Leeman 29 Is There Such a Thing as Church Authority? By Greg Gilbert What is the Nature of Pastoral Authority? 41 — A Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist Pers- pective Methodist by Matt O’Reilly Presbyterian by Kevin DeYoung Baptist by Benjamin Merkle Delighting in Authority: How to Create a 49 Culture of Happy Complementarians By Whitney Woollard 57 Is It Self-Serving to Teach on Your Own Autho- rity?—Two Responses By Bob Johnson and Jeremy Yong Views of Authority from around the World 62 A Brazilian Perspective by Tiago J. Santos Filho A British Perspective by Mike Gilbart-Smith A Chinese Perspective by Joshua Fang How a Roman Catholic View Compares to a 73 Protestant View by Gregg Allison GOD’S DANGEROUS GIFT Authority, Not Authoritarian 79 by Taylor Turkington Don’t Be a 9Marxist 86 by Jonathan Leeman Authority and Its Abuse 101 by Shai Linne 112 Redeeming Authority for those Who’ve Only Know Its Abuse by Mez McConnell The Abuse of Authority in Prosperity Gospel 117 Churches by DA Horton GETTING PRACTICAL How Scripture’s Authority Shapes What We Do 123 on Sundays by Brian Davis The Sword and the Shepherd’s Staff: Reporting 127 Sexual Abuse to the Authorities by Travis Wussow A Pastoral Response to Millennial Autonomy 132 by Kevin McKay A Healthy Church Member Is a Humble Fo- 137 llower by Thabiti Anyabwile Church Membership: A Single Woman’s Pers- 145 pective by Chelsea Patterson How New Elders Earn Authority 149 by Clint Humphrey On the Authority of a Sending Church, 152 by Ken Caruthers Editor’s Note Jonathan Leeman he topic of authority befuddles Westerners today. We don’t like the idea of authority, but it’s difficult to get away from Tsince our lives are suffused by it: hospital procedures, buil- ding codes, traffic laws, parental responsibilities, marriage co- venants, student requirements, office rules, the laws of state, the grammar of language, the meaning of words—on and on we could go. Authority is the glue and gravity that enables people to live together. Apart from authority, all of life would be determi- ned by the preferences of the moment. There would be no tradi- tions, no predictability of behavior, no stability of meaning, no shared morality. Behind every authority structure, after all, is a moral evalua- tion. When we say, “You must do this” or “We must obey him,” we are saying it’s right to do so, and wrong not to do so. We are making a moral claim. The trouble is, we are a society that has destroyed its own ability to say “right” and “wrong.” We have no moral vocabulary left beyond the exaltation of personal desire and identity. Which means: it’s nearly impossible with today’s vo- cabulary to justify any claim to rightful authority. Yet how, then, do we organize our lives together? More crucial- ly, how do we enjoy anything of transcendent value that’s worth protecting over time? You protect something with rules. How, in Summer 2016 | Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift 7 other words, do we live as anything other than beasts whose only law is writ in tooth and claw? To decry all authority is to decry anything of transcendent val- ue in human life. It is dehumanizing. Of course, there is a danger in another direction as well. If every set of moral evaluations comes with a matching pair of authoritative structures, who gets to say whose evaluations and structures are right? What if “he” uses “his” evaluations and structures to oppress me? History offers a heart-breakingly long list of such abuses. One group of people creates a moral narra- tive that enables them to rule over another group of people, ex- ploiting them for personal gain. Reacting to this exploitation and abuse, we become anti-authority and anti-morality. (The irony, of course, is that we assume no individual or group should be abused and exploited because we have inherited the belief from Christi- anity that all individuals are worthy of respect; but now we’re like the rich spoiled children who love the inheritance and despise the parents who earned it. But that’s a conversation for another day.) Yet we cannot finally escape moral evaluation and authority structures. Life is simply impossible without them, putting West- erners into an unresolvable bind. What’s the solution? A solution can only be found by pointing to the gospel and the people of the gospel, the church. This is the string that, when pulled, untangles the knot. The church’s moral narrative starts with a word of forgiveness. And those who have been forgiv- en can no longer lord it over any other person. Still, Jesus is king, which means his rule must bind these people together and govern their lives. In the local church, then, we find a society where heaven’s moral evaluations and authoritative structures are put on display. Any authority exercised in a church should be for the good of the members and the nations. Too often, of course, it’s not. The goal of this 9Marks Journal is to consider the topic of au- thority as God’s good and dangerous gift. What is the church’s 8 | Biblical Thinking for Building Healthy Churches authority? The pastor’s authority? And what will keep churches and pastors from misusing their authority? Pray with us that this Journal would be used for good and not ill among many congre- gations. Pray with me that both your heart and mine would be wise to our own potential for self-deception, and that each of us would use whatever stewardships we’ve been given for the good of others and the glory of God. Summer 2016 | Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift 9 Authority: God’s Good and Dangerous Gift Jonathan Leeman uthority is better than you think and worse than you Athink.1 It is God’s good and dangerous gift. WHAT IS AUTHORITY? The issue of authority goes to the heart of your existence and mine. You and I were created to rule. The idea is there in Genesis 1. God created Adam and Eve in his image, and then he gave them “dominion” over all the earth. He even tells them to “subdue” it (Gen. 1:28). How does humanity image God? By exercising au- thority. Authority is not just power. It’s the moral right to exercise power. It’s an authorization. You might say that authority is the God-given moral right to make choices. Some have the moral right to make choices (exercise authority) over whole kingdoms, some over the thoughts inside their head. Yet everyone has some authority, some domain they rule. Why did God give us authority? To create. To author. Author- ity authors. It creates and empowers and arranges and organizes 1 Andy Crouch says this about power in his excellent book, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. 10 | Biblical Thinking for Building Healthy Churches and builds and encourages. This is what God did with his author- ity: he authored a world. And this is what he means for everyone created in his image to do. A GOOD GIFT Good authority doesn’t just work from the top down, but also the bottom up. Let me be the platform on which you build your life. I’ll supply you, fund you, resource you, guide you. Just listen to me. Good authority binds in order to loose, corrects in order to teach, trims in order to grow, disciplines in order to train, legis- lates in order to build, judges in order to redeem, studies in order to innovate. It is the teacher teaching, the coach coaching, the mother mothering. It is the rules for a game, the lines on a road, a covenant for lovers. Trust me, and I will give you a garden in which to create a world. Just keep my commandments. I love you. Good authority loves. Good authority gives. Good authority passes out power. King David, who knew a few things on the topic, offered this: “When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.” (2 Sam 23:3–4 HCSB). Good authority strengthens and grows. You know this if you have ever had a selfless and lov- ing parent, teacher, employer, coach, pastor. What a glorious gift God has given by making us each kings! To rule in his image for his own glory.