Problems are for Solving

Note: This is a post I wrote on a previous blog a few years ago that I’m bringing out of mothballs, slightly edited.

I have been reading quite a bit lately about the topic of abusive authorities. I’ve read cautions about blindly following (a wise caution), about the harm that authorities can cause when they abuse their power, and many other aspects of the damage that unwise or unrighteous rulers bring in their wake.

One thing that I have found continually missing, though, is how those who are ruled should respond to those who rule in these situations. What little is said about how to respond to the abuse of authority seems too often to be making excuses why the abused underling (no matter the authority) doesn’t need to do anything about the problem, but can get off free in the matter.

As I’ve looked at the relevant passages, I am convinced that the abuse of authority (the Bible calls it lording over people with regard to Church leaders) is truly a horrible thing. And the poor or evil leadership a ruler brings, whether in church, state or family will curse the entire group. There’s no two ways about it.

But having sinful rulers is inevitable. God will allow evil men to rise to power at times (past President Clinton is a great example)—and there is no arguing against that. Even men who are not evil will sin grievously against those under their charge. David, who was a king after God’s own heart, sent his friend Uriah to his death on the front lines so that he could steal his wife.

So what does a man do when placed under authorities who sin? All of us are under authority, or we should be, in at least three areas: the family (father), the church (elders) and the state (the magistrate). In this day and age most of you will also have rulers at work (bosses). The Bible uses the slave/master relationship to describe this. Biblically speaking, I will try to treat this as a subset of the family, even though our workplaces are not organized that way anymore.

I don’t want my posts on this topic to be long, and so I’m going to post shorter posts as I am able. You are going to have sinful rulers, likely in more than one of the spheres of authority, and there are practical steps to overcoming the sin of those who rule over you and God has not only not been silent on the topic, but He has left us with quite a few principles on the matter. I’m not going to deal with the principles in any particular order, but as I do I’ll organize them into a logical outline that you’ll be able to find under this category, or an index I’ll create later.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 4:18 am and is filed under Fatherhood, Authority Relationships, Problem Solving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.