Luke 12:48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.(ESV)
There’s a strange relationship between responsibility and authority.
Sometimes we want authority without responsibility. We want the ability to make the decision, set the direction, correct the problem, or tell somebody else what they should do, but we don’t want to answer for what happens afterward.
Other times, we accept responsibility for things over which we have absolutely no authority. We carry the decisions of other people. We blame ourselves for outcomes we couldn’t control. We exhaust ourselves trying to fix something we were never given the ability to govern.
Neither is healthy.
Authority and responsibility belong together. God doesn’t give us unlimited authority over everything around us. He gives us something much smaller and much more difficult: Stewardship.
We’re responsible for what’s actually been placed in our hands. That distinction matters.
Look back at Adam in Genesis 3. God didn’t ask Adam why the serpent tempted Eve. Adam wasn’t responsible for the serpent’s decision. God didn’t ask Adam why Eve took the fruit. Eve answered for what Eve did. But Adam still had to answer for Adam.
God asked him whether he had eaten from the tree he’d been commanded not to eat from. Adam immediately began talking about somebody else.
The woman You gave me…
He pointed toward Eve.
He pointed toward God.
But neither of them had put the fruit into Adam’s mouth.
Whatever influence existed around him, the final decision was still his. That was where his authority ended, and therefore where his responsibility began.
We see the same principle throughout Scripture.
In Ezekiel 33, the watchman is given responsibility to sound the warning. He isn’t given authority to force everyone in the city to listen. That distinction is enormous.
The watchman can’t control the response. He can control whether he sounds the alarm.
Jesus tells similar stories about servants who are entrusted with different amounts and later called to account for what they did with what they had been given (Matthew 25:14–30).
They weren’t judged according to what another servant received. They answered for their own stewardship.
Romans 14:12 makes the principle personal: each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Not our spouse.
Not our children.
Not our parents.
Not our coworkers.
Not the person who hurt us.
Not the person who ignored our advice.
Ourselves.
That should actually remove some weight from our shoulders.
You can’t make another adult obey God.
You can’t make someone forgive.
You can’t make someone apologize.
You can’t make someone listen.
You can’t make someone grow.
You can’t make someone tell the truth.
You can’t make someone love you correctly.
You don’t possess that authority.
And if you don’t possess the authority, you can’t reasonably carry complete responsibility for the outcome. But that doesn’t mean you have no responsibility.
You may not control what another person does, but you control what you do in response.
You control whether you speak truthfully.
You control whether you forgive.
You control whether you retaliate.
You control whether you continue granting someone access to places in your life where they continually cause damage.
You control whether you establish a boundary.
You control whether you keep your word.
You control whether you sound the warning when God’s clearly called you to speak.
You control what you build with what’s been placed in your hands.
That brings us back to the house (discussed over the weekend).
You can’t control every piece of material that exists in the world. You can’t control whether someone else becomes rotten, unstable, unreliable, or dangerous. But if you’re the one building, you do have some authority over where that material is placed.
A cracked board may exist. You didn’t cause the crack.
You may not be capable of repairing it. But you’re still responsible for deciding whether you use it as a load-bearing beam.
That’s stewardship.
And this principle works in the opposite direction too.
The more authority we receive, the greater our responsibility becomes.
James warns that teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1).
Peter tells church leaders to shepherd those entrusted to them without domineering over them (1 Peter 5:2–3).
Jesus teaches that greater entrustment brings greater accountability (Luke 12:48).
Authority isn’t merely permission to act. Authority is an obligation to answer for how that authority was used.
A parent has authority that a stranger doesn’t have, and therefore carries responsibility that the stranger doesn’t carry.
A pastor has authority within a congregation, and therefore carries responsibility for how that influence is exercised.
A supervisor carries authority over employees and therefore can’t pretend that the consequences of leadership decisions belong entirely to the people underneath them.
A husband or wife has unique influence inside a marriage.
A friend has influence because trust has granted access.
Every position of authority creates an area of stewardship. And every area of stewardship eventually produces the same question: What did you do with what I gave you?
Maybe that’s the question worth carrying into this week.
Not: Why won’t they change? Why won’t they listen? Why did they do that? Why can’t I fix this?
Those questions may matter, but many of them concern things outside our authority.
A better question may be: What has God actually placed in my hands?
What decisions are mine?
What words are mine to speak?
What boundaries are mine to establish?
What responsibilities have I been avoiding?
What burdens am I carrying that were never mine?
Where have I demanded authority without accepting responsibility?
And where have I accepted responsibility for something over which I never had authority?
There’s freedom in learning the difference. You aren’t responsible for controlling the entire construction site. But whatever God has placed into your hands? That part is yours to steward.
Build faithfully.
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