I’m interested in how we should all be, as  Christians,  under the “Awe of Authority,” both biblical authority and under  the authority of the church. But also, less so, I’m interested in finding a godly man by which my character  can be discussed,  refined, and taught to conform to Christ. I also like the idea of a tutor like “the great Kirkpatrick”  or “The Great Knock” as Lewis had in his youth. We Christians  are too self centered, self sufficient, self taught. Of course Paul was called for a specific  purpose in a special way, but so are we, shy of seeing Jesus face to face on a road, but called nonetheless.

The impulse I’m describing is not nostalgia for a stricter age. It is a recovery of something the New Testament assumes and modern evangelical life often quietly abandons: that a Christian is not a self-taught autodidact under the private inspiration of the Spirit, but a person under authority—first the living Word, then the church Christ has given to guard and apply that Word, and then particular godly men who help form character until Christ is formed in us.

Paul’s calling was unique in its manner (the risen Lord appearing on the road). Ours is not. We too are called, set apart, and sent—only we receive that call through the ordinary means: Scripture, baptism, the preaching of the Word, and the laying on of hands or the simple recognition of the church. The difference is not in the seriousness of the claim upon us; it is only in the drama of the first encounter.

The Awe of Authority Begins with Scripture:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ. He then binds that authority to His Word. The Bible is not a resource we consult when we feel the need of inspiration; it is the voice of the living God that judges, comforts, commands, and remakes us. Awe of biblical authority means we stop treating it as one more opinion among many, or as raw material for our own “personal application.” We sit under it. We let it contradict us. We memorize it, argue with it honestly, and then submit.

C.S. Lewis put the matter with characteristic clarity: most of what we know we know on authority. We believe New York exists, or that the Battle of Hastings happened, because trustworthy witnesses have told us. A man who refuses all authority in religion would have to be content to know nothing. The Christian difference is that the Witness here is God Himself speaking in Scripture. That is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and why sloppy handling of the text is not merely an intellectual fault but a spiritual one.

John MacArthur has spent a lifetime insisting that a pastor possesses no personal authority. His title, experience, or personality give him none. The only authority he may wield is the authority of the text he faithfully opens. When he exceeds what is written, he has become arrogant. That is the proper “awe”: not awe of the man, but awe of the Word that both he and the congregation stand under.

Church Authority Is Real, Derived, and Limited:

Scripture does not leave us as isolated Bible-readers. Christ gives pastors and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11–12). Elders are to rule, to watch over souls as those who must give an account, and the congregation is commanded to “obey your leaders and submit to them” (Heb. 13:17; see also 1 Thess. 5:12–13; 1 Pet. 5:5; 1 Tim. 5:17).

This is not Roman-style magisterial authority that can invent new binding dogma. It is not the personal charisma of a celebrity preacher. It is the authority of men who meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, who are recognized by the church, who labor in the Word and in prayer, and who themselves remain under the Word. Their authority stops where the Bible stops. The congregation retains a real role—especially in discipline and in testing teaching against Scripture (Acts 17:11). Healthy churches hold both: elder leadership and congregational responsibility.

The “awe” here is not cringing fear of men. It is the recognition that God has placed watchmen over our souls and that resistance to lawful, Word-bound leadership is often resistance to God Himself. Lewis again: “Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.”

The Need for a “Great Knock”:

I know I’m right right that we are too self-sufficient and self-taught. The New Testament pattern is older men teaching younger men, faithful men teaching other faithful men who will teach others also (Titus 2; 2 Tim. 2:2). Paul could say “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” That requires proximity, observation, correction, and time.

William Kirkpatrick—“the Great Knock”—was an atheist rationalist who taught the young Lewis to think with ruthless honesty. He would not let a sloppy sentence pass. Lewis later wrote that those years were among the happiest and most formative of his life. The Christian analog is a man who will not let a sloppy soul pass: a man who knows the Scriptures, who has walked with God long enough to have scars and fruit, who will ask the hard questions about your hidden motives, your use of time, your speech, your marriage or singleness, your money, and your actual (not professed) love of Christ.

Such men are rarer than they should be because we have professionalized ministry and privatized discipleship. We attend services and consume content, but we rarely sit across a table week after week with someone who has permission to wound us in love.

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How This Can Be Accomplished and Promoted?

Start locally and personally, then speak and write.

JOIN AND STAY IN A CHURCH THAT ACTUALLY PRACTICES THIS! Look for a plurality of qualified elders who preach the Word expositionally, who know the flock, and who are themselves under authority. Submit to them. Pray for them. Make their work a joy rather than a grief.

Ask a godly older man to meet with you. Be specific: “Would you read Scripture with me, hear my life, and tell me where I am self-deceived?” Most such men will be surprised and honored. If you cannot find one in your congregation, look to a neighboring church of like faith. Age is no barrier; many older saints still need a father in the faith.

If you are the older man like me, initiate. Titus 2 is not optional. Look for younger or peer men who will receive it. Meet regularly. Talk about the text, about sin, about vocation, about death. Model the thing you want to see.

Write and speak. I can one of these do well,  but I still need to do both, and so do you!  Write short, concrete pieces: “What I wish I had known about submitting to elders,” “The lost practice of spiritual fatherhood,” “Why self-taught Christianity produces self-made men.” Speak in Sunday school, men’s breakfasts, or letters to pastors. Name a problem without bitterness. Point to the texts. Tell stories of men who did this well.

Recover the ordinary means. A high view of preaching, of the Lord’s Table, of church membership and discipline, of singing the Word, of family worship. These are the God-ordained instruments that produce the awe I seek. Programs and podcasts cannot replace them.

The goal is not a new hierarchy or a cult of personality. It is that Christ would be formed in us, that we would stop being our own final authority, and that the church would again look like a people under the Word rather than a collection of independent spiritual entrepreneurs (the internet  is full of these).

Paul saw the risen Lord and spent the rest of his life under that authority, handing it on through churches and through men like Timothy and Titus. We have the same Lord, the same Word, and the same Spirit. The calling is no less real because the road to Damascus is now the ordinary Sunday gathering and the ordinary Tuesday morning conversation with a brother who will not flatter us. And staring at a mountain  can be refreshing,  but it is NOT church, discipleship or fellowship.

Our calling is worth speaking about, writing about, and living.

Bob

P.s. this post idea, title, and topic was conceived by me, presented to Grok, Augmented by AI, considered by others, modified by me, and I love it. I hope you do too. It’s a topic dear to my heart and sometimes, minus my snark, voice and misspellings it writes better than me.