Exercising Power

If you understand our text (in the previous post) to focus on issues of stewardship and our responsibility as servants of God, then I believe this is very pertinent.

Lord Acton:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Mark Earley, commenting on Acton's famous quotation:

But remember this: power corrupts, but power itself is not necessarily corrupt. God has given power to the state to be used to restrain evil and maintain order. It is the use of power, whether for personal gain or for the state’s ordained function, that is really at issue.

David T. Koyzis chimes in:

All of us, as God’s image-bearers, are gifted with various capacities (i.e., powers) enabling us to fulfil the responsibilities of the authoritative offices in which God has placed us, the most basic of which is that of divine image-bearer.

These God-given capacities are not themselves corrupting. However, like everything else in God’s good creation, they are capable of being misused by sinful human beings. It’s not power that corrupts; it’s our own rebellious nature that does so. Acton’s saying might be closer to the truth if turned around: Human sin corrupts the otherwise legitimate use of power.