We have considered briefly in the last chapter the knowledge concerning authority. We mentioned something concerning the matter of being the authority and of exercising authority. Strictly speaking, the exercise of authority is part of the work of being the authority. If an elder knows how to be an authority, surely he will know how to exercise authority. For this reason, in this chapter we will deal specifically with the question of being an authority. To know authority is for the purpose of being an authority.
Ephesians 5 mentions the matter of the husband as the authority. There it points out specifically that the husband is an authority. The way this matter is presented is quite unusual. It says that the wives have to submit to their husbands. We know that the other side of submission is domination, yet God never charges the husbands to dominate over their wives. He only charges them to love their wives. The husband is an authority; he is the head. But how should the husband behave as the head? How should he behave as the authority? Ephesians 5 clearly tells us that the way is in love.
Ephesians 6 also mentions that the parents are an authority, especially the father. But there it also says that the parents should not provoke their children to anger. Once again this is a question of love. Therefore, we can see that the husbands have to love their wives, and the fathers must not provoke their children to anger. The husband is the delegated authority to the wife, and the father is the delegated authority to the children. Yet each of the delegated authorities can only function in love and in the way of not provoking to anger.
We can see one thing clearly here: God appoints us to be the authority, yet He does not want us to take the way of discipline. In a family, if the parents lack love toward their children, but apply strict discipline only, surely the result will not be good. Good parents do discipline their children, but the way of discipline is absolutely in love. The children do not feel that the parents are controlling them. On the contrary, they feel that the parents love them, care for them, are concerned for them, and are mindful of them. They feel that the parents are making plans and arrangements for them. Within this loving care is the controlling and the authority. The same is true with husbands in relation to their wives.
There was a brother who heard a message that wives should submit to the husband's authority and that husbands should be the head. He felt that he had not been the head before, and that from that day on, he had to go home and be the head. He went home in a serious manner, with great pomp and a stern face, and assumed to be the head. Actually, you do not become the head by putting on a front or by assuming a stern face. Neither do you do so by presuming that you are something. To be the head in this way is absolutely wrong.