How do we get spiritual authority?

My Step with God
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Hi friends,

This fall, in one of our Growth Groups, we studied Mark 10.

In it, James and John have the naive audacity to ask Jesus to "Allow us to sit at your right and at your left in your glory.”

They want the plum appointments to serve with Jesus!

It’s hilarious because everything about their experience ought to have helped them to see that Jesus invites his disciples to humbly serve others.

But then we took a deeper look at ourselves.

I want spiritual authority. Don’t you?

It feels good to know that we are aligned with God, serving his purposes, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

And if others recognize us as spiritual authorities, it can give us status, respect, and leadership roles.

It’s not even all bad. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:1, “This saying is trustworthy: ‘If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.’”

The Apostle Paul says it’s a trustworthy saying! It’s ok - even respectable - to want the noble honor of serving as a spiritual authority. There’s something good, healthy, and right about this desire.

But the question remains: how do we get spiritual authority?

Here’s where I see the problem immediately develop.

The model we have for leadership and authority is predominately self-seeking.

As Jesus tells James and John, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them” (Mark 10:42). But it is not so among you."

That’s the unique twist that Jesus brings.

It’s good to want spiritual authority (God made you for this)
But spiritual authority looks like service (Jesus shows us what it looks like)

This is how I sum up the end of his teaching in this passage:

On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

It’s the same principle we see in Paul’s writings. As many have noticed, nearly all church elders’ requirements are about character. Only one is about gifting (‘able to teach’). And not just sincerity but a tested character that is observable as you look at how they treat their family, their fellow church members, and the broader community.

Sometimes I see people avoiding spiritual authority because they don’t want to be selfish.

But God encourages us to seek it.

More often, I see people wielding spiritual authority for their own benefit. (That’s why they are making their spiritual claims so loudly and so visibly).

But Jesus shows us that true spiritual authority is measured by sacrificial love.

Does this tension feel familiar to you?

How do you recognize genuine spiritual authority?

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I feel that with family and friends, genuine spiritual authority is relatively easy to recognize because you can see it lived day-in and day-out. I have seen the way my granny has prayed for years over prayer requests, persevered through immensely difficult circumstances, and displayed joy, love, and forgiveness through it all and so it’s easy to trust her as she shares about the Lord.

Where I really struggle with this tension is when it comes to moving to a new place or having new hires within a church.

Talking with friends about the trends in the church toward supporting charismatic leaders who often, in the end, turn out to be, as you said,

we have struggled to know how to recognize genuine spiritual authority among those whom we have known for such a short time.

In Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthian church facing a similar struggle, he speaks of the character seen in Paul and his fellow ministers:

3 We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. 4 Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Yet, with so many people moving frequently and only in places for a short while, how can we adequately see these things in others’ lives?

I think the task is made even more difficult because, like the Pharisees, many may at least have the appearance of sacrificial love and service, but they are enacting them for the recognition of others rather than from the heart.

For me, when there is limited context from which to tell genuine spiritual authority, it has been helpful to look for the fruit of the spirit in many areas of their lives, rather than just one, and to look at the surrounding community and what accountability is in place.

While at the same time I want to work to build community and accountability into my own life, to help myself remain genuine.

In these kinds of contexts, what have you found helpful for recognizing genuine spiritual authority and for remaining genuine yourself when you are in a new place?

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