Institutional authority and Influential authority and how they interact with Genuine/Godly and Gentile authority

These two concepts are distinctly different from Genuine/Godly and Gentile Authority. I’ve talked about them a little before, but I wanted to make a post specifically on how they work. I think this brings a lot of light to much of the problems that happen in relationships and marriage.

• Institutional authority is basically what it says. The Bible distinguishes several Institutional authorities in our lives. For instance, the earthly authorities we are to obey as Christians.

1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.

God also sets up the hierarchical structures in the Church (male led) and family (husband led).

• Influential authority is more of an implied authority based on certain circumstances.

For example, go to a doctor or hospital if we’re sick because the doctors have been educated to help us treat the illnesses. We go to various teachers or tutors to help us with our school work if we need help. We can call an electrician, plumber, auto mechanic, and many others if we have problems that we don’t know that can be solved. We follow the advice of subject matter experts (SMEs) all the time when we don’t know the answers.

Therefore, Influential authority is generally based on a trust in the qualities such as education, expertise, competence, and respect for that person based on that particular area in what they’re good in.

Sexual attractiveness is also to some degree an influential authority – we’re more likely to trust someone who is physical attractive — male or female — than we are to trust someone less attraction. However, the respect gained from a potential source of influential authority can also improve attractiveness, as we often see with the teacher-student, doctor-nurse, lawyer-secretary type relationships.

In summary, Institutional authority is an overt structure while Influential authority is typically a covert structure. The latter can have visible signs, but it’s unlikely to be discerned until the person who is following or deferring to that person over others happens.

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Interactions of authority

Jesus is actually an example of both Institutional and Influential authority

• Institutional – Jesus comes from the Father and is representation of God with us. However, some people such as the disciples and other followers believed this while many of the religious leaders of the day such as the Pharisees and Sadducees did not.
• Influential – Jesus uses this method to call His disciples with the “Come follow me” phrase spread throughout the gospel. He did not claim to be God and tell them to follow Him, but instead was teaching others and invited them to come with Him on the journey.

Interestingly, this is actually a good pattern for relationships as Jesus:Church is the analogy for the husband:wife as we’ve discussed before.

Although the Bible preaches Institutional authority of the Church and family, this is generally not the way you would assert to lead the Church or family. The better way is to often build the influence you have with the particular groups through faithful service a la 1 Timothy 3 qualities in the Church or display of PSALM, masculinity, and leadership traits for men. Typically such men are promoted internally in the Church or women are more likely to want to follow a man with such qualities.

Genuine and Gentile authority can be used both ways within each of these.

• Gentile + Institutional authority where you often have dictator figures who oppress others and use the authority to benefit themselves
• Genuine + Institutional authority where you typically have more beloved secular leaders who are taking the needs of the people they lead as great concerns
• Gentile + Influential authority where you have your attractive bad boys that tend to break womens’ hearts once the women figure out the man is not going to give them what they want such as marriage, or they eventually figure out that he’s not good for them because they are treated poorly long enough
• Genuine + Influential authority where you have a solid godly relationship that both parties can appreciate.

You would think these are the only 4 options, but there are combinations of all 3 as well.

• Gentile + Institutional + Influential authority – This is where you have a dictator figure who is out to benefit himself, but he has solid influential authority through competence and charisma where he can spin it into also supposedly being good for the people too.
• Genuine + Institutional + Influential authority – This is the structure the Bible states that is for Christian families. The best marriages I know are built on this.

In my opinion, these structure also help to explain some of Jack’s confusion on the topic between the headship + tingly-respect and peaceful unity models.

• Genuine + Institutional + Influential results is the combination of godly (genuine) + headship (institutional) + tingly respect (influential).
• Genuine + Influential authority results in the peaceful unity model – godly (genuine) + tingly respect (influential) – where there can be godliness and success absent the Institutional nature of overt headship. However, this model only works as long as there is typically both godliness and influential authority. A wife who eschews Christianity is more prone to leave as is a woman who starts to become contentious if the husband is not implicitly leading well though he not be the overt leader. In other words, it works until it doesn’t.
• The additional layer of the Institutional nature of headship is not only godly, but it also ensures that husbands ideally have Christian and Church backup in case of wifely rebellion. Likewise, the confidence to use the authority in a godly manner if a wife is rebellious.

This should now make most things clear.

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In conclusion

The ideal nature of Biblical marriage should result in a marriage based on Genuine (godly) + Institutional (headship) + Influential (tingly-respect) authority.

This distinguishes between why the 3 part authority is important. The 2 part ones can be potentially successful and godly in some manner, but they are missing the extra layer of sanctification and reaffirmation that tends to make the marriages much more stronger and resistant against temptation.

Additionally, although Godliness and Institutional natures are part of marriage, they are not the way Jesus initiates the relationship with His disciples and the Church. He does this through Influential authority as opposed to the others. Men would best focus on doing that if they want a woman to be in a relationship with them.