So, I have been puzzling over this passage for nearly 12 years.The story is found in two places, in Matthew 8:5-10 and Luke 7:1-10. It is the story of a centurion, a Roman military commander of 100 soldiers, who comes to Jesus concerned about his servant who is lying at home paralyzed and deeply tormented. Jesus says to the man, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, "Go!" and he goes, and to another, "Come!" and he comes, and to my slave, "Do this!" and he does it." And Jesus marvels at this, and he responds to the centurion -- and this is what I have not understood -- "Truly I say to you, I have never found such great faith, no, not even in Israel."
And so what is it about this story that demonstrates great faith? What is the connection between an understanding of authority and great faith? I have puzzled over it and wondered. I had noticed the sense of unworthiness, and for a while I thought that this was the key to the great faith, that one needs to realize that thy are unworthy of Jesus' compassion and sympathy, that they must come to the understanding that one must recognize their unworthiness before they can truly receive anything from Jesus. But that did not explain this authority issue. What was the connection between the command of the centurion, and his understanding of authority? And what did the centurion mean when he said that he was a man under authority? And, once again, what does authority have to do with faith?
Well, the other day, I think I figured it out. It is understanding the power and authority of the spoken word. Great faith is found in understanding the nature of authority, that it is carried in the word of the one in authority, which in this case was Jesus, and that which is under his authority is everything in the entire, created universe. I had heard this stated in euphemisms such as , "his word goes," "we will have to see whose word will carry the day," and "he is the one who has the final say in the matter." But it has never connected with me -- and now I say to myself, "No, duh!" -- that the power of authority is in the spoken word, in the command. That is all that matters, that is all that needs to be said.
I immediately got to thinking that this is how God -- and Jesus -- exercised their authority. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. He spoke and it was done. Jesus calmed the storm by His word, He healed the sick by His word, He raised the dead by His word, He cast out demons by His word. That is all that was needed. He spoke and it was done. And that is what demonstrated great faith in the centurion, he understood this, and he knew where he fell in the authority struggle. He was a man under authority, carrying it, and administering it by the power of his word; but his authority was limited, and so he went to the One who had the authority over his situation and problem.
We have raised six children, and how I wish now that I had understood this 20 some years ago. There is no need to reason with children. There is no reason to negotiate. There is no reason to listen to backtalk, to rationalization, to justification of disobedience, to this, that or the other. All that is needed is the power of the word of authority. Usually, after all the struggle, after all the argument, after all the backtalk, after all the defiance, we finally realized this in some fashion, for we would finally end the discussion by saying something like, "I have spoken; now do it." And lo and behold, most often it was done. Not necessarily happily so; but then again, the demons did not go willingly, neither, can we presume, did the sickness and disease. But it had to go, for it was under authority, under the command, and Jesus was (and is) the Sovereign and Supreme Commander of the universe. All things are under His authority, as He is the source of all authority; it all starts with Him -- or with the Father, actually, as even Jesus was a Man under authority. Jesus understand this perfectly, when He states that He did not come to do His own will but the will of the Father.
My wife and I were talking as we went to bed last night about what our home would be like if we could start over, knowing what we know now. We agreed that if we had understood this early on, and put it into practice early on, that there would have been significantly less conflict. There would have been less rebellion. There would have been little, if any, defiance, at least in those early years. But we did not understand; or rather, I did not understand (my wife did much better at this than I did). I simply, when I was parenting, did not think this was fair. Cutting the children off in this way, without listening to them, and to their struggles, seemed to be out of line, to be disrespectful to the child. We had come under the teaching that you have to explain things to children, to help them to understand your adult perspective -- but I see now that they cannot do that, they do not, and cannot understand adult perspective. But they recognize the command, and they recognize they are under authority, and they will obey, and they did, when it finally came down to the "I have spoken."
I recognize now that the reason why I felt that this kind of parenting was wrong was that inwardly I was (and am) a rebel. I have millions of reasons within myself to justify and to explain why it is that I just don't have to obey. But it is interesting, rebellion also manifests itself in words, in defiance, in refusal to listen, in refusal to hear and obey. I had to call my parents the other week and apologize to them for 47 years of rebellion. Never had I really listened, never had I ever submitted, never had I truly learned to obey. And now that this outright rebellion is gone, I do not feel like I have to compromise anymore; I can stand my ground, as I have legitimate and God-given authority in my own home.
And it is amazing. Since it set forth this principle, I can sense a new-found peace. There is peace in understanding authority, and the boundaries, and how things are to be, and in being submissive to that, and not resistant. This is what I found in my workplace as well, to which I have spoken above; when I stopped rebelling, my soul was at peace. I am going to try to live the rest of my life this way; and I trust that I will be able to do so, by God's grace, apart from the rebellion.
Keith, you are greatly misunderstanding what the Bible says about parenting. The Bible calls us to treat others as we would wish to be treated. If you were treated as a child the way you describe above, then you were abused. If you treat your own children this way, you are setting yourself up for a very lonely old age.
ReplyDeleteThe commandment to honor one's parents does not call for blind compliance on part of the child, nor does it call for an adult to obey their parents...just to treat those parents with honor. When a child is young you can try to force him or her to comply without thought, but that does not build a successful adult...it just builds an adult who cannot make good decisions. The biblical definition of obedience is far more complex. The Hebrew definition implies that a person capable of reasoning trusts the person making the decision, and *freely* chooses to go along.
Please seek some counsel on this matter, as you seem to be heading down a path which will lead to much pain for you in the future.
Blessings to you.
I am not sure about your Hebrew sources; however, my understanding of the Hebrew concept is different. In both Hebrew and Greek (sm' and akouw -- sorry no Hebrew or Greek font here), the root word of obedience is "to hear," or to listen, and then, by implication, having fully listened fulfilling and doing that which was heard. The command appears often, "Listen," "Pay Attention." The full implication is that one does what one hears, especially when the Person speaking is God. Trust does not much enter into it. Whether or not the Hebrews trusted the God that led them out of Egypt was immaterial. Obedience was still demanded and expected, and it was punished severely when it was not rendered.
DeleteThe book of Deuteronomy, it has been argued, is the Covenant document to Israel. It contains the commands. It contains blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience. The people chose disobedience -- perhaps because they did not trust God -- and they reaped the consequences, they lost the land, and were at least temporarily cut off from the promises -- if not permanently, depending on your view of eschatology.
Fact of the matter is you do not have to trust someone in order to obey. You may not be comfortable in your obedience if you do not trust, and you may not know what you are getting yourself into; however, you can still choose to obey and let the consequences fall where they may. An example of this would be that I do not our current President, however, I am going to be forced to obey his health care directive. It is incumbent upon me as a citizen unless I can justify disobedience to it as being obedience to yet an even higher authority (i.e. God).
I think in your opening paragraph, you reacted to what I wrote about not having to listen to children. Allow me to clarify by giving some context.
DeleteFirst off, I was talking about small children and toddlers not about pre-teen / teenagers. And by not listening, I meant not listening to arguments, to backtalk, to attempts to negotiate, or to the word "No."
I am reacting here to some advice we received when we were first parents. The advice was to never say no without explanation. We took the advice wholeheartedly and obeyed it. My wife told our child, age 4, "Don't climb the tree outside because I can't get you down." Child puts chair under tree and climbs anyway. Child assumes own ability to get down from tree. Child is wrong. Child is scared of heights, can't get down, and my wife was 8 months pregnant. Child was in the tree crying; my wife was on the porch crying until the neighbor came home and rescued the child.
Now child is told not to climb tree because child is scared of heights -- another reason. Child makes decision to be scared of heights no longer. Child climbs tree, higher this time. Now, the Fire Department has to be called to get child out of tree.
Now, what is wrong with "Don't climb the tree because I said so, because that is the rule? If you climb the tree you will be punished." There is no need to listen to the child complain, there is no need to negotiate, there is no need for manipulation and going behind parents back. What is needed is obedience, obedience to the spoken command.
Certainly as a child grows older there will be more need for explanation and the like. However, parents do not need to take backtalk, they do not need to listen to sass, neither do they need to get disrespect. Their word is still law; and they have the right and privilege -- one would even say the responsibility -- to enforce it. When a parent chooses to do so, I cannot see how it could be termed abusive.
Hmmm. When I read those verses I am reminded that trust, faith, and obedience are not automatic. They are earned. When a soldier goes to boot camp he/she is not only learning how to be a soldier but he is learning to trust his fellow soldier and to have faith in his commanding officer because without those things the unit cannot function because it is difficult/impossible to entrust your life to someone you don't trust, or to obey someone you have no faith in.
ReplyDeleteThe Centurion was demonstrating his great faith in that he TRUSTED Jesus to heal his servant without requiring proof of Jesus' abilities.
As Parents we are not raising obedient little robots who will not/cannot question us. No. We are raising thinking feeling opinionated PEOPLE. People we hope and pray will be incredible men and women of faith. If they are required to be mindlessly obedient how will they ever be able to answer the hard questions in their life? They Whys and What Fors and the I Feels, and I thinks, and I wants are ESSENTIAL for a child to understand the world around them, and for gaining an understanding of Trust, Faith, Love, and Obedience.
An example my 3yr old daughter (one of 5 kids) refused to put her coat on 2weeks ago despite it being frigid outside. I could have wrestled her to the ground and forced the coat on her. Instead, I explained why she needed to wear a coat ONCE. And then let her go outside where she immediately complied with my request to wear a coat. She has not once refused to wear a coat in the last two weeks, because she trusts me that it is cold outside...Now if I had wrestled her and forced the coat issue (and called her refusal to wear it rebellion) she would have never learned the valuable lesson of trust. Sometimes we have to let go of our "authority" and allow our children to learn to trust us.
I think I can tell by the beginning of your post that you have never served in the military. There is no earning of trust; there is ony obedience. You obey your chain of command implicitly, whethe or not they have earned or deserve your respect. We were told that if you cannot respect the person, you MUST respect the position. That position is over your position in rank, hence you obey or be subject to disciplinary action. (Imagine a battlefield scene where the command to attack is issued, and the soldier says, "Sir, I don't trust you. You have never earned my respect. Sorry, but I am retreating.")
ReplyDeleteAbout your example: what would you have done if she had not come back inside? I am guessing that you would have either gone outside and gotten her and made her stay inside, or you would have gone out and insisted that she wear her coat. I know you would not have allowed her to freeze to death outside simply because she did not want to wear her coat.
ReplyDeleteA child also needs to learn to trust the fact that when you say something you mean it. When you give a command, it needs to be obeyed. If a child runs out in front of a car, "Stop!" should not be debatable. It should be obeyed immediately and implicitly!
A child needs to learn to trust the parent's wisdom and experience and authority even if they cannot understand the reason for the command. There are many long-term consequences and outcomes that children cannot understand, neither do we have the ability to be able to show them -- as in letting them go outside in the cold. Thus, at these times, the parent's word must be heeded, or the child will bring down all those consequences upon his or her own head.