by 
Humans have a really big problem with authority. The Garden of Eden proved it, in that our very first sin was a sin against authority. Even basically said in her heart that, although God has the right to make the rules, she’s not going to believe or do what He told them to do.
In the consequences of that sin, she was told that she and her husband would be in a constant power struggle, which the man would end up dominating. Harmony was replaced with strife, and that strife would echo through all families and governments as the continued cry of “you can’t make me.”
Despite our aversion to it, hierarchy and authority persists all around us. Children are expected to obey their parents, wives their husbands, everyone their government, parishioners their leaders, and employees their employers. And yet we chafe with all of these when the leader doesn’t do what we want, or follow what we think is best.
This, I believe, is part of the reason that we reject slavery as the highest form of violation of our freedoms and something we never expect is right, even though America continues to have the highest number of slaves (many children!) physically, and if you add in debt, almost everyone in the country is enslaved.
Many who came to this country put themselves in temporary slavery to pay for passage. In the Old Testament, people should have been freed after a certain period of time (the next Sabaath), and ancestral land was able to be redeemed so that slavery wasn’t final.
But this culture, Americans in particular, hates submission to anyone or anything– and it’s only getting worse. We now protest the police, the government, and our history. We attempt to erase our past, question our founders, and look with contempt upon anyone that would express authority over us.
We have been divided and set at one another, and everything has been turned on its head. We are told to trust those furthest away from us and to question those nearest to us, and we are told to believe that this is normal.
It’s all about power, and those that want to have power over us and can gaslight or beguile us into believing that they are actually empowering us whilst they are the very ones that are seeking to get power over us.
The serpent was not trying to free Eve in the Garden of Eden, he was not looking to help her be as God. He was trying to gain control over Adam and Eve– God’s head of Creation– and subvert God’s rule. He wanted, and got, power over the Earth and held that until his defeat at the cross.
Authority is not bad, when it is done right and for the right purposes. When someone attempts to get you to question God given authority, ask yourself what that person stands to gain from the question. Odds are that someone that is seeking to separate you from those closest to you, or God’s given authority in your life, is seeking to get that power themselves. Evaluate all advice given as to what the person giving the advice has to gain, and how they have impacted you in the past, and pray that God would grant wisdom in whom you should listen.
