Who Do You Believe?

And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Luke 20:8 NASB

Authority – We all want to know, don’t we? “Who says so?” The constant insistence on recognized authority. So if I come back with the answer, “Well, I heard it from YouTube,” my claim will probably be dismissed as unreliable—even if it really isn’t. In the academic world we insist on peer review. That means we subject our statements to the verification of other men and women within our field of expertise. They are the authority. Of course, that doesn’t always work so well, does it? Copernicus was rejected by his peer group. So was Einstein. In fact, peer groups tend to be myopically concerned with their current views, usually dismissing someone whose position challenges the common core beliefs. The history of science is full of examples of men who held false theories for decades because everyone else agreed with them. We can easily see the same thing happening in theology. It’s really another instance of paradigm thinking.

But does this mean we just believe whatever we want? Do we wait for that voice from God to tell us what we should believe? Are psychological states an accurate measure of the truth? That hardly makes any sense, as history demonstrates. Plenty of people have been plenty wrong about plenty of things. When the priests and scribes confronted Yeshua about authority, they were asking the same question we ask today: “Who told you these things?” In other words, give us your pedigree so we will know you didn’t just make this up. Behind that question is the more important demand: prove to us that you are in agreement with us.   Show us where your ideas came from so we can feel confident that you have the same sources we do.

I hope that you can see just how circular this really is. It suggests that there really is nothing new, that everything we know has to be connected to everything we already know. The biggest roadblock to learning anything new is precisely what I think I already know. As long as I hold on to my firmly established prior convictions, I will ask only one question. “By what authority?” In other words, I will insist that unless you can show me that your authority is the same as mine or one that I respect, I will discard your idea as irrelevant. My past “knowledge” will prevent me from learning anything new.

Yeshua doesn’t answer his critics. In an amazingly clever rebuttal, he silences their inquiry. But at the same time, he never tells them, or us, where his authority comes from. Why? Why doesn’t he just say, “All power and authority has been given to me by the Father”? That would clear it up. Instead, he says nothing. Rather than give verbal justification, he acts! If you want to know where he got his authority, look at what he does and then draw your own conclusion. Not until after the resurrection does he provide verbal justification. Before the grave it’s all about what he does.

Maybe that’s the lesson for us. Stop talking. Just live it. Let others draw their conclusions from the way we act, not what we say. It is always possible to deny someone’s words. It’s very difficult to deny their behavior. Authority arises from action.

Topical Index: authority, truth, paradigm, Luke 20:8