How to Preach (or Teach) with Authority

How to Preach (or Teach) with Authority

          For anyone who desires to preach or teach and have their message listened to, it would be advantageous to do a brief reflection on the New Testament passage from the Gospel of Luke 4:31-37.  Here it is:

Jesus then went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee. He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue, there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out in a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down in front of them and came out of him without doing him any harm. They were all amazed and said to one another, “What is there about his word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.” And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region. (Translation from the New New American Bible, Revised Edition 2011)

          The passage shows, among other things, that the people listening to Jesus “were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority.” This “authority,” indeed, is mentioned twice. Have you ever thought about what that might really mean?

          We should remember that in the Gospel we just read, Jesus was at the beginning of his public life. From other Gospel accounts, we know chronologically where to place our passage. Just before our Gospel, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan and then underwent his temptations (in the southern part of Israel.) Then he returned to Galilee, where he did his first preaching and chose his first apostles (at least according to Mark). So our passage is only the second time Jesus preached in public, or very close to it. It was very early in his public life, so it couldn’t be that the people had heard him many times or witnessed any miracles or that he had gained a reputation as a great speaker; it was too early for that. So, how could he already be preaching with authority?

          A hint that helps to answer our question comes from the Greek word for authority: εχουσια. It is a compound Greek word formed of two essential, ordinary Greek words: εκ, which is the prefix for “out of,” and εστι (or ουσια, the feminine noun form of the verb εστι) that means “to be.” Εχουσια generally means “the power of choice” or “the power of authority,” but it is derived from its core meaning of εκ + ουσια, “out of what is” or “proceeding from reality.” The literal sense of the word is that whatever just happened (or was said) is true because it has “come out of” a real source; it is real, in concordance with how things are. In the case of something said, it’s not fake news (as we might say today); it’s not mere hearsay or some dubious opinion. The audience feels that Jesus’ words are true, powerful, and proceeding from an authentic source. His preaching has εχουσια, authority, which means “whatever he is saying is backed up by reality, and by the example of his life.”

          Two qualities, therefore, gave Jesus’ preaching authority: 1) whatever he said was objectively true, and 2) people believed it was true because his life backed it up. In his masterpiece, “The Lord,” Romano Guardini puts it this way: “Because he acted genuinely, from his essence outward, not the other way around, all he did was perfect.” Hans Urs Von Balthasar, in his book “Kommt und Seht,” though speaking of other moments, states the same principle: “The word of the Sermon on the Mount could only be said because it was backed up by the gold bullion of the Cross.” Even more succinct is what St. Gregory Nazianzen said concerning St. Basil the Great: “A sermon of Basil’s was like thunder because his life was like lightning.”

          That lesson is essential for anyone who wants people to listen to them, whether priests, pastors, teachers, or even parents. People are not always convinced when we tell them what we have read from books: that might be okay, but they could read the same (this is how the scribes taught). And our words certainly don’t convince others when people know we are hypocrites – when we don’t believe and practice what we preach – or liars. People will believe what we say if they think we are a reliable source, and they will believe that if what we say is true enough so that we live it, or, even more so, that we would be willing to suffer for it or maybe even die for it, as Jesus did. Our words have to come out of something real. That is why Jesus could preach with authority.

          If we want to preach or teach with authority, there are two simple requisites: we must never lie, and we must be willing to back up what we say with our lives. That is when we preach and speak with authority.