Christian Living

Knowing One's Authority

by Terry Barlow
03/17/25
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When I first began having opportunities to referee basketball games, I had a lot to learn. I remember in one particular game I absorbed a lot of abuse from one player especially and did nothing about it. I didn't realize the authority that referees have just by virtue of being referees and wearing the uniform. I could at least have given the guilty player a technical foul, and probably a double technical ejecting him from the contest. If I had given him the initial technical it would likely have quieted him down and alerted him to the possible consequences of continuing his tirade. Tolerating the abuse though was doing neither of us any good. It is the same in the spiritual realm, we are often ignorant of the God-given authority we possesss to counter a spiritual attack and silence the enemy. 

  Lifeguards too often have to function as referees in the sense that they are charged with maintaining order and respect, and safety in the environment in which they work.  For example, to the amazement and alarm of other swimmers,  some young men were seen once leaping off a diving board hurling basketballs all the way to the other side of the pool where the basketball goal was located. When approached about the behavior the lifeguard protested that there was no rule against it. The supervisor later rightly replied that some behaviors don't require a specific rule to address so much as they require a common sense response. If a referee loses control of a contest or a lifeguard loses control of the environment they are charged to watch over, it is doing no one any good including the referee or lifeguard,  and the situation will only deteriorate into something perhaps worse than we can imagine from that point.