Skill at helping people grow spiritually, like skill at playing chess, depends on understanding and valuing differences.
From John Ortberg
Authority can be faked. That's why impersonating a police officer is a crime. Sometimes the outward appearances of authority can be deceiving.
Authentic spiritual authority is what puts you in touch with reality.
As a preacher who is fully human, and clearly not divine, I can't speak as Jesus did. But I do seek to speak truth that carries weight and authority. All of us who preach the gospel aspire to speak under the authority of Jesus.
I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift.
We call an obsession with having someone's approval 'co-dependency;' the Bible's word for it is idolatry. A country can be an idol. A family can be an idol.
Love of learning led to monasteries, which became the cradle of academic guilds.
Universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard all began as Jesus-inspired efforts to love God with all ones' mind.
Jesus had a universal concern for those who suffered that transcended the rules of the ancient world.
Jesus' life as a foot-washing servant would eventually lead to the adoption of humility as a widely admired virtue.
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