Authority in Modern Evangelicalism

Steve –

So we are speaking to people who are in college – maybe high school – who have either been raised in American Evangelicalism, or are interested in Christianity or are searching for truth, or maybe you are an atheist and have really been disappointed with the way Christianity has been presented to you. If you fall in any of these categories, this show might be for you.

The by-line to our program is, “If you think you know Christianity, you are probably wrong.” And listen, if you want to know more about what we stand for, go to our website and download any of our books which are free to you to get – zero obligation – they may assist you.

Anyway, tonight we are gonna start hitting on applicable topics to you and your age and what Modern Evangelicalism teaches versus what we can say through a reasonable approach to the Bible and its contents. And tonight, let’s talk about authority.

Biblical Context of Authority

• In the Old Covenant and under the Law of Moses, authority to act in God’s name – in this case in His temple to offer up the sacrifices for sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace. – came by way of the priesthood given only to the descendants of the tribe of Aaron.
• When Jesus came and fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, He became our one and only High Priest.
• He gave authority to His twelve apostles to speak, act, and perform miracles in His name (and for His purposes) as a means to bring His church through great tribulationA real historical event fulfilled in 70 A.D.—not a future apocalyptic crisis. More.
• At His deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God., the veil of the temple was torn in two, illustrating a couple of things:
• That God was no longer working through temples made with hands but through His Son.
• That there was to be a total end of all special priesthood authorities to operate behind sacred veils, and
• That Jesus was our new and only high priest.
• From that time forward, believers are composed of a royal priesthood or a priesthood of believers with Jesus serving as our high priest.

Apostolic Authority and Church Leadership

• In the early apostolic church, the living apostles called and set certain mature believers apart (chose them out from the rest) to feed the church that Jesus was going to come back and rescue from certain destruction.
• These men (and women) were given apostolic authority to oversee His church as a means to protect it from ravening wolves and enemies that would pop up from within.
• When Jesus returned, as He had promised and as all of His apostles believed He would do, He brought destruction upon the wicked and reward to the believing, and “doing material church” was over.
• So was the authority of men over men. Notice we have no more apostles who were trained by Jesus and then died for their witness? Why? Because they were only needed to oversee Jesus' material church – until He came and saved it.
• Missing this clear and obvious fact in the New Testament narrative, religious men and women have continually tried to replicate the “New Testament church” through material means, creating and recreating elders boards, deacons, pastors, priests, and reverends who claim to possess religious or spiritual authority over others.

Summary of Authority

Established doctrinal demands of those who follow them, and then practical demands they claim are mandated by God Himself.

• Since the destruction of Jerusalem there have literally been hundreds of thousands of attempts by men and women to recreate Christ’s material Church with almost every one of them, appealing to the same manual, but differing with the others in some way or another.

• But almost all of them assume an authority from God that in the end is justified by nothing more than fanciful imaginations.

• Looking back to authority in the New Testament – whether as a deacon or an elder – it was bestowed by living actual apostles who were called and trained by Jesus Himself.

• Since the church that they oversaw through great tribulation was taken and rescued from destruction (so that the gates of hell would not prevail against it as Jesus promised (and this barely happened) believers have since been part of a world-wide body not overseen by Man and organized religions but are guided internally by the Holy Spirit working on each and every individual believer.

Today human intervention of any kind in the lives of an individual's Christianity is wholly unnecessary and always winds up being just Mans attempting to play church. No pastor will stand with their congregate to mediate them into heaven. We all stand alone before God.

Religious Crooks

Ask a Catholic where they get their authority (which they make a big deal about). They will tell you that it was passed down from Peter through some archaic line of priesthood bestowal. Ask a follower of Greek or Russian Orthodoxy the same question. Then ask yourselves: Has their authority protected Christ’s church from the gates of hell? Just look at the history of Catholic Church atrocities and you can see that their claim on authority did not protect the church from the gates of hell. Same with all of Orthodoxy.

Then we come to the Protestant faiths and the mass of men and women who claim to have authority over others in that faith-claim. Where did their authority come from? They will respond with all sorts of things but most will ultimately wind up saying that their authority “comes from, “the word of God?”

Huh?

Or they will say they receive the right to oversee the church through someone in their church electing them to the position. We then ask, “Who gave that church elder the authority then?” And they may try to go back, all the way to the founding of their particular denomination, but in the end, all Protestant authority to oversee flocks originates with Man. Finally, there are Restorationist groups (like the Mormons) who try and solve the authority game by claiming that angels (who were once men) have come back to earth and bestowed the authority to act in God’s name to their founders. But a close analysis of these claims only reveals fiction and mythmaking all as a means to imprison people under the auspices of actually possessing some authority or another.

The True Primary Source

The Greek word for the primary source in scripture is “arche.” A believer’s primary source of all things – including authority – is Jesus Christ – and nothing more ever. In this way true followers of Christ are “an (without) arche (primary source) OTHER than Christ Himself. This is the true definition of a Christian Anarchist – they have nothing at all ever between themselves and the Lord. No religion, no creed, no King, Queen, no pastor, no teacher. Just our primary and only arche, Christ Jesus. All authority to govern all believers lies in the hands of the believer themselves who are responsible before God through Christ, their high priest, by the Spirit. We are the royal priesthood, and are individually and fully emancipated from the supposed authority of all men who have tried to create their own authority that is simply just not there.

OUT!

CHRISTIANARCHYTODAY
Show 17 – Christian BS – Part I – Authority
February 27th 2018