Today in God’s Word

Today in God's Word—July 2023

East Tallassee Church of Christ

July 28, Luke 4

The word “authority” produces a reflexive resistance from some people who hear it. Perhaps those who react this way have suffered abuse at the hands of an authority figure. Some parent, school official, boss or church leader so misused their authority that the victim now recoils with anxiety and dread whenever the subject is introduced. I’ve known a couple of people like that. I’ve also known some people who were bent on rebellion and despised any sense of authority that might restrain them, much like a two-year-old’s insolent refusal to do what Mommy says.

Most of us know authority is not a bad thing. We want and need some authority structure in our lives. We’re not fans of anarchy. We know the weak will be victimized by the strong without the restraining influence of authority.

It’s interesting that Satan offered to give Jesus authority over all the kingdoms of the world. Some people think what he offered Jesus was his to give after Adam and Eve abdicated their rule over creation in the Garden of Eden. Others say since Satan always lies, he was offering Jesus something that was not his to give.

If anyone who ever lived on earth had authority, Jesus did. The crowds who heard him speak marveled at his authoritative teaching. Unlike the religious teachers they were accustomed to hearing, Jesus didn’t just quote what other rabbis had said. He sounded like the “author” himself, and of course, he was. As he responded with the word of God to every temptation Satan put before him, it was as if the one wielding the sword had forged it himself. And of course, he had done so. When demons and disease left at his command, it seemed to the people who witnessed these miracles that the very power of God at work. And of course, it was.

If anyone ever modeled both the perfect use of authority and submission to it, Jesus did that, too. Jesus, whose words and works were so

authoritative, was himself submissive to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit. He went to the wilderness when the Spirit led him there to face the tempter. He came back from the wilderness into Galilee under the Spirit’s power. When he spoke in the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus knew the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. When he went to a desolate place and people came to him and tried to make him stay with them, Jesus told them he had to go other places because that was the purpose for which he had come. He was conscious of a God-given purpose guiding his actions.

In matters of using and submitting to authority, Jesus is our perfect example. We would do well to study and imitate him about this and every other part of life.

From The Abiding Companion: A Friendly Guide for Your Journey Through the New Testament, Copyright © 2010 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.