There are few topics that have proven trickier to navigate than the topic of authority. We know we need authority to function as families, churches, and nations, yet there is something deep within our sinful humanity that causes us to rebel against it wherever it exists. We both want it and despise it.
Authority is a gift, says Jonathan Leeman—“a good and dangerous gift.” It can be used for great good but it can also be used for great evil. When used well, it can be among the greatest blessings people will ever receive, but when used poorly, among the greatest curses. The question we each need to consider is this: How do I use my authority?
Leeman thinks it’s especially important for men to consider that question, so he has written Using Authority Well: A Concise Guide for Men to instruct them and help them think it through. He has an audacious goal for the book:
I wrote this book because I want all those people in your life to thank God for how you’ve used your authority. At the end of the journey, I want them to look back at their lives, consider your role in it, and say, “I loved that authority! It made me strong” or “smart” or “wise” or “holy.” I also want my own children, wife, church members, and ministry staff to say the same about me.
For that to happen, we need to understand the authority God has given to us, know the differences between good and bad authority, and consider how authority differs from one domain of leadership to another. And that is exactly what he accomplishes through this book’s seven chapters.
He begins by defining authority and does so by distinguishing it from a near-synonym, power. Where power is the ability or capacity to do something, authority is “the moral right or license to exercise that power. It is the authorization to do something.” Authority necessarily has boundaries so that an individual only has authority over something rather than anything or everything. The moral right to exercise power exists only within a specific jurisdiction, and is not intrinsic but given: “an office we must step into—whether the office of parent, husband, citizen, church member, pastor, elder, policeman, congressman, judge, teacher, airline pilot, tollbooth operator, and so forth.” Distinguishing between good authority and bad, Leeman says that good authority doesn’t steal life but creates it, that it is not unaccountable but submits to a higher authority, not unteachable but seeks wisdom, neither permissive nor authoritarian but administers discipline, and not self-protective but bears the cost.
He then distinguishes between two kinds of authority: the authority of command and the authority of counsel. The authority of command permits the person with authority to tell people they must or must not do a certain thing and then mete out consequences for failure. The authority of counsel provides the one in authority the right to insist on a particular direction, even in a way that binds the conscience, but not to mete out consequences for failing to heed that counsel. Parents and governments, for example, have the authority of command, while husbands and elders have the authority of counsel. Both forms are crucial.
The rest of the book focuses on particular areas in which men may have authority. It helps them understand such authority and teaches them how to use it well. Leeman speaks first to men as husbands and then to men as fathers. Broadening from the home, he speaks to men as managers in the workplace and elders in the church. Finally, he writes of the authority of the single man, but is quick to say that the title is actually something of a misnomer. Really, what he wants all men to consider is the flip side of authority, which is submission. After all, authority presupposes that those under authority will submit to the ones who have been placed over them. Authority cannot function in the absence of the right response to it.
I appreciate what Leeman sets out to do in Using Authority Well and I think he does it well. He aptly explains why authority is so important to the home, church, and wider society, warns of both the costs of failing to use authority and of using it wrongly, and explains how men can embrace it as a means to honor God and be a blessing to those they lead. I’m certain that any man who leads in any way will benefit from reading it and carefully applying it to his life.
Note: Using Authority Well is a condensed version of Leeman’s larger book Authority.
