Previously Featured Article
The Mystery of the Beast Part 3 - Earned Authority
Excerpted from JJ Dewey's forthcoming book, "The Unveiling"
(Copyrighted 2007, All Rights Reserved)
In the true student-teacher relationship authority is only recognized because it is earned. Let's say you want to learn Spanish and two teachers surface who say they can teach you. They both seem equally convincing, but the truth is that one of them knows the language well and the other one does not. If you accept either as an authority just because the teacher or someone else tells you to, then you have a 50-50 chance of getting a bad teacher.
What do you do? You test the teacher. Have him actually speak some Spanish. Give him several paragraphs from English and see if he can translate and then check out the translation for correctness. Talk to others who have taken his class and see what they have learned. Finally, you will establish in your mind that one of them can truly teach you. Once you have tested your teacher then you do not have to check up on him in every little detail; but when you have learned the basics and want to go to advanced Spanish, you do need to check again to see if he has anything more to teach you or if you need to move on to another teacher.
Thus positive authority is that which has been earned. Such an authority is ready willing and able to prove his or her credibility at any given moment. He does not fear a challenge because he is secure in his ability.
Unfortunately there are not very many positive authorities in the world today. Even those who have studied, apprenticed and worked hard at their skill are often the most unreliable authorities. Take medical doctors, for instance. According to Joel Wallach the average doctor dies at around the age of 58 while the average in the U.S. is 77. He says he got this figure from collected obituaries of doctors and averaging their death age. Other figures from the American Medical Association give the figure of 70.8 years. Either way they live less than the average. Why do we set up those with a lower than average life expectancy to be authorities telling us how to be healthy? Wouldn't it make more sense to seek out those who are likely to live to be a hundred? We go to psychologists for authority on mental health and happiness, yet as a profession they are not that well adjusted themselves.
Here's a quote from "Psychology Today":
"At least three out of four therapists have experienced major distress within the past three years, the principal cause being relationship problems. More than 60 percent may have suffered a clinically significant depression at some point in their lives, and nearly half admitted that in the weeks following a personal crisis they're unable to deliver quality care. As for psychiatrists, a 1997 study by Michael Klag, M.D., found that the divorce rate for psychiatrists who graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine between 1948 and 1964 was 51 percent -- higher than that of the general population of that era, and substantially higher than the rate in any other branch of medicine. One out of every four psychologists has suicidal feelings at times, according to one survey, and as many as one in 16 may have attempted suicide."
(Read article by Robert Epstein and Tim Bower.)
Here again we have authorities giving us advice when they have not discovered the key of happiness themselves. The average person on the street obviously has a greater concept of what makes life worthwhile. We send criminals to the prison authorities who head a "correctional" facility yet when he is released the authorities have turned him in to a more dangerous person than he was when he began his sentence. We hire politicians as authorities in making laws and spending money and they make laws that the average person realizes make no sense and they spend our money with the intelligence of a ten-year old kid who just found a hundred bucks.
We set up ministers, priests and evangelists as authorities in scripture and over our spiritual life, yet many of them do not even believe the scriptures and many little old ladies have a better knowledge than they do. Then there are many ministers who have never had a true spiritual experience or have never found God, or worse yet molest children, yet are telling others with the voice of authority how to lead the spiritual life.
We could go on and on. How many lawyers do not have a true sense of the just use of the legal system? How many bosses got their position because of who they know, not because of what they know? Such people often hurt the company and cause much grief to subordinates. Many of these people have worked for many years to earn their position of authority, but they lack just one thing. They have never demonstrated in the real world that which they claim to be able to teach.
Just because a doctor has memorized massive amounts of data and procedures does not mean he can heal. Just because a person goes to law school does not give him a just appreciation of the law. Just because a minister gets a church does not mean he is a spiritual man. Even though these people are often no better authorities in their profession than demonstrated by the common sense of the average person most of them have at least gone through some learning process. There are still other authorities that have even bypassed normal learning channels.
Thus the false authority is he who cannot demonstrate the truth of that which he claims to teach or practice. One of the main causes of false authority is the use of the power of appointment by another false authority. Another is a degree from a flawed system of learning. In saying this let me point out that even though there are many false authorities in all systems of learning that there are also a minority of good earned authorities in all walks of life.
The power of election (decision) is given to us so we can find our true authorities and place them where they can be useful dispensers of their wisdom and talents. Our elected officials are not perfect but they are much better than appointed ones.
So let us apply this to the Beast. The Beast is a thoughtform under the control of the "dragon." This thoughtform covers the entire planet. He causes all to "receive the mark" (verse 16). This is why Satan (the adversary of light) is called "the god of this world" in the scriptures. Over 95% of the religious world think the Beast has not yet surfaced yet ironically they are under the control of the false authorities (the Beast) themselves.
--End Of Article--
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