Copyright
© 2007 Ron Schwartz
All rights reserved.
Spiritual Authority
Part
4. Case Studies In Spiritual Authority
June
4, 2007
Ron and Karen Schwartz
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Case Study #1: The First Family Unit
Genesis
3:1-6 KJV
1
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God
had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden?
2
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of
the garden:
3
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath
said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and
he did eat.
What
does this scripture say about spiritual
authority and the family? As
defined in an earlier part of this series, spiritual
authority is the authority of the Spirit of God in our lives.
Our goal should not be to replace the authority of the Spirit in our
families but to help enable it. Only
then are we successful parents and spouses.
The spiritual authority
in this passage came from God who instructed Adam about the consequence of
death for disobedience, and the promise of life for obedience.
The
family unit is not a hierarchy of spiritual
authority but of natural
authority. Paul tells
us that “the
head of the woman is the man (1 Corinthians 11:3).”
This is a “physical” hierarchy.
Matthew
19:5-6 KJV
5
And [Jesus]
said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
6
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath
joined together, let not man put asunder.
The
family must be viewed as a single “physical” body, not two individual
bodies. As a result, it is able
to function well and adapt in our physical universe.
Most wives intuitively understand the natural order of the family.
And because this hierarchy pertains to the natural order, she is able
to have her own unique fulfilling spiritual relationship with God.
What
happened with Adam and Eve is very common.
Like most wives, Eve’s opinion of Adam was colored by his natural
authority over her. She
saw him not as a spiritual being but as the “physical” man that he was.
The Serpent approached Eve not from a position of natural
authority but as a spiritual
authority. There was
no way that Adam could compete with that.
Even though he knew the mind of God on the issue, Eve had more respect
for someone coming from a position of spiritual
authority than one coming from a position of natural
authority. Adam lost
out because of his natural authority.
Consider the series of events that took place to bring about the fall
of mankind.
1)
A foreign authority replaced Adam as the head.
God
didn’t tell Eve not to eat of “the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17).”
He told Adam just before He made Eve.
It was Adam’s responsibility to protect his home by keeping his
family away from this tree. The
Serpent knew that Adam would not disobey God, so he approached the wife.
Eve listened to the Serpent with great interest.
The Serpent challenged Adam and made him question whether he heard from
God and understood God correctly. Up
to this point, there is no indication that Eve was unhappy or unsatisfied with
her husband until the Serpent planted the seed.
Eve
found herself between two men. One
was simply her husband, a person who exercised natural authority.
But the other was obviously a wise spiritual leader (“the
serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field”).
He was obviously a spiritual authority.
Why shouldn’t Eve listen to the Serpent?
He talked with impressive wisdom and authority, and her husband was
obviously spiritually inferior. The
serpent spoke as though he knew what God wanted and intended.
Perhaps her husband was jealous and just wanted to hold her back.
Eve
became dissatisfied with Adam’s leadership and lost respect for him when
someone else injected himself into the family as a spiritual
authority. The new
spiritual authority implied that Adam’s leadership kept Eve from becoming
like God. Adam was limiting her
spiritual development. Adam was
clearly holding her back. Therefore,
when the Serpent promised to fulfill her spiritual aspirations, she promptly
spiritually divorced her husband and took the headship of the Serpent.
When Eve accepted the spiritual authority of the Serpent, she divorced
herself from the spiritual authority
of God and the natural authority
of her husband.
Just
like Eve, many women are unsatisfied with their husbands.
They see their husbands for the natural
authority they have that God gave them, and they want them to be spiritual
authorities like their pastors.
For most men, this will never be
the case. Nor was it meant to be.
Most pastors inadvertently take the position of the Serpent by
superceding the natural authority
of the man and assuming the spiritual
authority meant for God.
Like
Eve, most wives have pastors who seem wiser and more spiritual than their
husbands. Most wives regard their
pastors in much the same way Eve did the Serpent.
And, like Eve, they lose respect for their husbands because of their
pastors. Even knowing the esteem
and admiration that women have for them, most pastors have little concern that
many women have replaced them as their “head.”
Most pastors enjoy it. This
unholy union is nothing short of spiritual adultery.
What
should women do? First, eliminate
your husband’s competition. Your
husband is to be your only natural
authority, and God is to be your only spiritual
authority. Men know
that they cannot compete with pastors, so they don’t try.
They give up as they see you embrace another.
Stop going to an institutional church where your husband is replaced as
your head. Find a home group or
start one of your own where your family can grow and where your husband can be
the head of your family as he is meant to be.
2)
The Serpent enticed Eve by promising that if she listened to him
instead of her husband she would become godlike.
This
is a common event in most churches. Women
perceive spiritual growth from submitting to their pastors.
They conclude that their husbands are not spiritual and do not know God
– at least not like their pastor. This
eventually causes them to complain to their pastor about their husbands, which
causes yet further division. Instead
of being directed back to the headship of their husband they are consoled.
The
damage done here affects not only their husbands but God as well.
When a woman submits to the authority of a pastor, she breaks free of
both the authority of her husband and of God.
It is comparable to weeds growing in a garden sucking the nutrients
from the vegetables. As you and
your pastor grow together, you steal from your husband that which he needs to
grow: his leadership. You
essentially sacrifice his spiritual life for your own.
Women
who do this live off the spiritual life of the pastor, not the Holy Spirit.
Their spiritual growth takes place when they are around him and other
spiritual leaders they have selected to follow.
Eve was looking for the fast track to her spiritual development and
understood that this is what the Serpent offered.
She truly believed that she had the answer.
So “she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her.”
As a result, they both died. You
may believe that you have the answer for your family’s spiritual
development, but if it is submitting to the spiritual
authority of a man, thereby sacrificing the leadership of your
husband or his spiritual development, you are as deceived as Eve.
Healthy spiritual development never divides the family.
3)
Adam did not assert himself as the guardian and head of his
family but allowed a foreign influence to govern his home.
Adam
was also at fault. He could have
challenged the Serpent’s influence with the Word of God.
This is what Jesus did when He was tempted.
Adam could have fought for his family.
Did
you ever wonder why Eve was at this tree in the first place?
Eve was tempted because she was somewhere that she should not have
been. If Adam believed God that
the tree would bring about her death, why didn’t he take Eve away from the
tree? Adam could have prevented
the temptation, but he didn’t. Instead,
he assumed the submissive role of the female, like his wife Eve, and listened
to the Serpent.
This
is exactly what happens in institutional churches and many house churches that
have simply recreated the institutional church in the home.
Men are made feminine. They
become another wife and submit
themselves to the system. They
allow their wives to go to churches where they will be tempted to take on the
headship of someone other than her husband.
Most men are simply confused by the system.
The current church system that elevates pastors/priests has been around
for centuries. Most men don’t
question the authority of the pastor. There
are vast numbers of men who would like to be the pastors of their homes but
are either told they are not qualified or they do not know how to go about it.
So they sit idly by as the Serpent moves in, assumes the headship over
their wives, convinces the wives to disregard their husbands’ instructions,
and breaks down the family unit.
Men
must understand that they, not their pastors, have been called by God to be
the heads of their homes. Institutional
churches are designed to replace the husband and thereby gain control of the
family. Just like the Serpent,
they do it through the wife. Christian
men must stop acting like submissive wives when it comes to providing
leadership for the family and assume the role God designed them to fulfill.
They must take their families away from the spiritual influences that
would
1)
replace them as the heads of their families and
2)
replace God as their spiritual authority.
Case
Study #2: The First Church
There
is a predisposition among Christian teachers to presume that most Christians
want to grow in their relationship with God.
This is simply not the case. Most
evangelism is done utilizing the tools of fear and trepidation to compel
sinners to repent. How does this
translate into spiritual aspirations? It
doesn’t. Their salvation
experience is enough to satisfy their fears of eternal torment and thereby
breeds apathy and compromise.
John
9:28-29 KJV
28
Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses'
disciples.
29
We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence
he is.
The
Jews were “born” into their relationship with God, and for many that was
enough. This is not unlike
contemporary Christians who are also “born again” into a relationship with
God. Many are content with simply
being saved. Additionally, the
Jews measured their spiritual growth by their knowledge of the scripture, not
in the depth of their actual spiritual development.
It was this knowledge that prevented them from seeing God when He came
to them. Once again, this is not
unlike contemporary Christians who have come to know God through books, study
aids, seminars, and teachers. These
manmade opinions and influences are enough to satisfy their conviction to grow
spiritually without the need to actually grow.
They allow Christians to satisfy their innate need for spiritual
development by inflating their minds while they continue to live in the
darkness of sin.
Christians
pursue God if they truly want to grow spiritually.
The light of God’s Spirit exposing the darkness in their lives does
not make them uncomfortable.
None Dare Call It Idolatry
Exodus
19:16-18 KJV
16
And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders
and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet
exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
17
And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they
stood at the nether part of the mount.
18
And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it
in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the
whole mount quaked greatly.
In
this passage, we find that when God descended before the people, they feared
and trembled. Who enjoys being
afraid? Who enjoys being
terrified? No one.
Exodus
20:18-20 KJV
18
And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of
the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they
removed, and stood afar off.
19
And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not
God speak with us, lest we die.
20
And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and
that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
The
solution they found for their fear was to put someone between them and God so
God would no longer be a threat to them.
By placing Moses in between God and them they essentially made Moses
into an idol, and idolatry breeds more idolatry.
Exodus
32:1-4 KJV
1
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the
people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us
gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
2
And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears
of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3
And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and
brought them unto Aaron.
4
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool,
after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O
Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Here
the Hebrews built their idol at the foot of the mountain that burned with
fire, that sounded with voices and trumpets, and where the ground shook.
They built their idol in the presence of God.
When Christians hide behind pastors or priests, they plant seeds of
idolatry. As that seed grows,
they eventually find that, like the Hebrews, what they are worshipping is a
substitute for God. They are like
the Hebrews who stood in the presence of God but lifted up a man and listened
to him rather than God.
Many
churches/Christians use the ideal of spiritual
authority to justify having a pastor/priest stand between them and
God just as the Hebrews did. There
is a problem with this. When
anyone stands between God and His people, God’s people don’t come to know
whom God really is. Consequently,
they must use their imaginations to define and describe God.
As a result, they create God in their own image.
They stand in the presence of God while creating golden calves and
assume the golden calves are God.
In
the 3,500 years since the first golden calf was fashioned, God’s people –
His church – have continued to set men between them and God.
As a result, they misunderstand who God is and mistake others for God.
Perhaps
no other culture has ever embraced their religion more strongly than the
ancient Jews. For 1,500 years,
their culture and government was symbiotically intertwined with their
religion. Their educational
system blended religion and academics. If
any culture truly knew the God they worshipped, it would be them.
Yet when the God they worshipped came to meet them, they had no idea
who he was.
John
1:10-11 KJV
10
He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him
not.
11
He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Many
Christians want to revert back to the spiritual
authority of the Old Testament.
They liked having men represent them to God as their priests.
If they don’t have to go to God, then their sin will not be exposed
and their conscience will be clear. Consequently,
churches everywhere put men as their priests/pastors in a position between
them and God. These men insulate
them from the prying eyes of the Holy Spirit.
It is easy to sit in a church and listen to someone preach, and it
satisfies the need to submit to God even if little is actually accomplished.
The pastors/priests have no idea the lives that their congregations
lead, and this is the way people like it.
But if God stood before them, there would be no hiding their sin.
Hebrews
4:13 KJV
Neither
is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are
naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Most
people are under the delusion that they attend church to be in the presence of
God, but that is not the case. God
is saying to most churches, “Behold,
I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Revelation 3:20).”
Most churches have built walls (of men) not to surround themselves with
the presence of God but to hide from Him.
Most churches serve to exalt men and shield the people from God.
It has been like that since the beginning:
Genesis
3:8 KJV
And
they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the
day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD
God amongst the trees of the garden.
Since the first family and the first church, God’s people have been setting men in positions as spiritual authority and then wondering where they went wrong. You cannot put men between you and God and believe that you have a clear understanding of who God is and what He wants. John wrote, “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:19).” The huddled masses in churches today hide in the shadow (darkness) of their pastors because they do not want to be seen of God. Like Adam and Eve, they are hiding from the presence of God. Most churchgoers do not want God. They want their substitute. They want their golden calf. It is far less threatening. They know their church is without God’s power. They know their church is dead or dying. They know their church is just a façade of what the bible describes. But that’s okay. It is far better than the alternative: abiding in the presence of God.
Amen.
kmsrjs@triton.net (use the same address for MSN Messenger)
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