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No Centralized Authority? Really?

Did the books of Moses say, "Israel put their faith in God, and in his servant, the book that fell out of the sky"? What happened when Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses? Did God say, "This is really complicated, and hey, nobody's perfect?" And King David totally killed that scumbag Saul, because he obviously wasn't really king, being so unworthy and all. The "protest" of Korah's family obviously led to a glorious era of power-sharing and conciliarism. Oh, wait. With due respect, that's just silly.

I don't know where you are trying to go with that, but it seems like Israel generally always had a head, someone in charge. Whether they were good is almost beside the point. Was that power constituted legitimately, even if gained illegitimately? It seems so. It would also seem that God is the only one who can legitimately revoke it. Did I miss something? I remember the circle with the 'R'. I never saw a democratic free-for-all anywhere in the OT. Even the time of the Judges makes the point.

I'm not leaning on Catholic presuppositions for early Church history; I'm leaning on patristic ones. If you see that as synonymous, then my work is done.

By the way, how many books are in the Bible, and how do you know? Even to ask this gets us back to ecclesiology and authority. Too bad.

Comments

Timothy R. Butler said…
There were no doubt times when God had appointed someone to do something. But, it was always specific. The priests and kings were at times rejected by prophets who had authority not derived from the priests and kings, but from God. And, it is clearly not the splitting off of the Northern Kingdom from the Southern, but what they do afterwards that gets them in trouble. Even then, when God appoints new lines of kings, he also ends those lines and even continuing lines are challenged by those rogue Reformers, err, prophets.

More to the point, those most clearly appointed to lead by God in, say, 30 AD were opposed by the Son of God himself. In the subsequent years, Christ's followers -- both Apostles and not (see Stephen, for example) -- boldly challenged the clearly appointed authorities with the authority of the Law and the Prophets... and ultimately, the authority of Paul's letters. Stephen didn't say, "Well, you may disagree with me, but I have the Apostles on my side." He laid out Biblical history in his challenge to the authorities.

Paul seemed to have little regard for those who followed particular apostles, but rather for those who heard the Gospel and followed it. He would freely challenge anyone, even Peter himself, over that Gospel, noting in "rather strong" terms that even the most legitimate authorities had only derivative authority with respect to the Gospel (cf. Gal 1).
3:55 PM
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