God speaks, and galaxies BURST into existence.
God speaks, and storms STOP.
God speaks, and the dead COME ALIVE from their graves.
God speaks, and the lame WALK and the blind SEE.
God speaks, and hearts CHANGE.
God speaks, and sins are FORGIVEN.
God speaks, and his people are instantly given authority to GO and PREACH.
So when God says, “BE FREE” and “YOU ARE FORGIVEN” and “GO”, don’t wait around for hands-on priesthood authority delegation.
JUST BE FREE, BASK IN HIS FORGIVENESS, and GO!
[audio:http://www.seedsfamilyworship.net/music/SeedsOfFaith_Audio/01%20The%20Word%20of%20the%20Lord%20-%201%20Peter%201-24-25.mp3]Music credit: Seeds Family Worship
WOoHOOOO!
Oh man now I’m feeling really bad about my guitar playing!
Don’t you love our awesome God?
It’s ridiculous beyond measure that Mormons want to substitute God for a man who morphed. This is the basis for the Mormon sin. Not only rejecting God, but creating one of their own and thinking that they will become gods.
On that day they will bow their knees to Jesus and be without excuse for their wholesale rejection of Him and the salvation he won for us on the cross.
Seeking to be wise, these Mormons have become fools blinded by their pride and their vain ambition.
Some time back, we had some exchanges with and LDS poster who objected that we (Evs) had no authority to “do Church stuff” (my paraphrase), because it had not been handed to us through the right priesthood.
I didn’t reply directly at the time, but I thought about the question of authority in the Bible, and the answer I came up with was, curiously, the Parable of the Talents in Matt 25:14-28.
Please bear with me.
We’re familiar with the scenario. A man entrusts three of his servants with something of value. When he returns, two of them do the right thing and get rewarded, and the third does the wrong thing and gets punished.
I’d bet that most sermons we ever hear on this parable focus on the two good servants, but their story is only half of the parable. The question I ask is what’s going on with the wicked servant?
It may be commonly assumed that the wicked servant got it wrong because he disobeyed the master’s command, but this doesn’t fit the scenario presented. The commonly understood assumption is, I think, wrong.
Firstly, Jesus mentions no such command. If there was a command, it was implied in the parable, or it was understood by the servants from the type of person they knew the master to be (which would fit with first century middle-eastern culture where the whole household would sleep under one roof).
More importantly, the absence of a command is borne out in the wicked servant’s reaction (Matt 25:24-25). If he had received a command and disobeyed it, he would have said something like “I know you told me to use the money wisely, but I was afraid of the consequences, so I hid it”. But he doesn’t. He says to the master, effectively “I was more afraid of YOU than the consequences”.
Why would the wicked servant, who lived under the same roof as the master, who understood what the master expected, be afraid?
I think it is precisely because he did NOT receive an explicit command. He was afraid to act because he had not been told to
…ctd…
So, how does this relate to “priesthood authority”?
I think that Jesus/Matthew is challenging the prevailing acceptance of “priesthood authority”, noting that the Temple-cult of the Pharisees was centralised and hierarchical. I also believe that Jesus does not intend to dismantle the ecclesiastical structure entirely; rather he comes at it sideways.
I think that what Jesus is telling us through this parable is something like “if you rely on being told what to do by an ecclesiastical/”priesthood” authority, then you’re likely to end up like the ‘wicked, lazy servant’!”.
The parable also invites us to share in the activities of the Kingdom on the basis of whom we know the Master to be. The good servants had understood that the master expected them to use their talents wisely, and did so without having to be told. Likewise, we should already know how to use our “talents” because we know the kind of Master we serve (one who is the servant of all). We should not need some “authority figure” to tell us what to do. In fact, if we hang around waiting for someone else to chivvy us along, we’re being “wicked” and “lazy”, according to Jesus.
The challenge for us is to take the initiative in the absence of ecclesiastical micro-control, and to get involved with the work that Jesus is already doing.