By What Authority?

Scripture: Matthew 21:23-27 (Click link for scripture in Bible Gateway)

23 When Jesus returned to the Temple and began teaching, the leading priests and elders came up to him. They demanded, “By what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right?” 24 “I’ll tell you by what authority I do these things if you answer one question,” Jesus replied. 25 “Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?” They talked it over among themselves. “If we say it was from heaven, he will ask us why we didn’t believe John. 26 But if we say it was merely human, we’ll be mobbed because the people believe John was a prophet.” 27 So they finally replied, “We don’t know.” And Jesus responded, “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things. (Matthew 21:23–27 NLT)

Jesus was back in the Temple, the morning after the “knocking over the tables of the money changers and the stalls of the sacrifice sellers” incident, teaching the people the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven. The leading priests and elders confronted him and challenged his authority to “do all these things.” “All these things” would have included the incident the previous evening, the healings in the Temple courts, and the teaching he was currently doing. He replied to their challenge to his authority with a challenge of his own that they were afraid to answer.

Here’s how this hits me this morning: There’s all kinds of authority, from very different sources. There’s divine authority, there’s delegated authority, there’s authority granted by submission, there’s usurped authority, there’s legitimate authority, there’s illegitimate authority—lots of kinds of authority. Jesus used this confrontation to teach his disciples (and us) that authority from God takes precedence over human authority, especially human authority that’s tainted by compromise and politics and self-interest.

Before the week was out, he would pay with his life for rejecting the priests’ and elders’ authority, and his teaching and example would embolden his followers to likewise suffer persecution and martyrdom for submitting to Jesus’ authority rather than man’s. (See Acts 4:1-22 and 5:24-42, esp. 29)

Prayer:

Father, Please help my friends and me to understand that the source of authority matters now as it did then, and that like Jesus and his earlier followers we sometimes have to choose whether to obey the higher or the lower authority. Please give us courage and wisdom to make the right choices about authority, submission, and obedience. May we wisely and courageously follow our Master Jesus. Amen.