Leeman presents five principles on how good authority works. I was most motivated to read that authority is neither permissive nor authoritarian, but rather, it administers discipline. In other words, discipline is the power of authority. Applying this principle as a parent, I hope to show kindness through predictable outcomes, as well as provide an environment of encouragement and affirmation. 

How can you wield and yield to authority in a healthy way? In Authority, Jonathan Leeman, author and editorial director for 9Marks, shares how godly rule protects the vulnerable, strengthens communities, and promotes human flourishing.
Leeman writes that to have authority is to be an author—authoring a life of flourishing, trust, and freedom in others. When authority is exercised correctly, it teaches us to see what God is like. All of us have God’s word to see how God perfectly administers his authority, and we’ve seen examples of good and bad authority on earth.
Leeman admits the tension of authority of balancing truth and justice with mercy and compassion, especially in the Christian understanding of the subject. He relates this to God’s immanence and transcendence. Humans in authority need to find a way to balance both. Leeman calls this authority-in-redemption.
The book also, maybe surprisingly, studies submission. But the juxtaposition is important as they are the two sides of the same coin. As humans, we are most ourselves when we learn to be submissive.
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If we recognise that every bit of scripture is both describing and prescribing something, the question is this “descriptive” or “prescriptive”? becomes unhelpful and not a little limiting. If we always answer both, we are forced to ask how do we tell which is which? It can be more helpful to reframe our original question into two, and add a third question between them, to get to the heart of the passage. The more accurate and helpful set of questions are: (1) what is this describing? (2) why is this here? and, (3) what, therefore, is this prescribing? Let me explain.

Here is a phrase-cum-question you often hear knocking about in discussions about the biblical text: is it descriptive or prescriptive? What they mean to ask by that is something like this: is this passage simply describing a thing that happened and isn’t binding on us or is it showing us something that we ought to copy and emulate? Is it merely describing an event (descriptive) or is it giving us some instruction (prescriptive)?
You are most likely to hear this descriptive/prescriptive chat when it comes to the book of Acts. But there’s plenty of Old Testament and gospel examples of the same kind of discussion. Sometimes, though people will use different words to say effectively the same thing, this question is behind any comment anyone ever makes along the lines, ‘that was just cultural’. In other words, it’s just describing the culture of the day and its practices, not binding us into doing exactly as they were doing.
Now, before I go on, it bears saying this is a legitimate question to ask. Not everything, in exactly the form it is described in the Bible, is binding on us. Just go and read the book of Judges, for example. Particularly any of the latter half. Almost nobody reckons just about any part of what is described there – in the form it happened – is stuff for us to emulate and copy today. Most of us are pretty clear it is describing what happened, not prescribing a pattern for us to follow.
Similarly, some stuff in the Bible is evidently binding on us and everybody reckons they are clear and obvious commands to follow. Turn to Matthew 5:21 or Romans 13:9 or James 2:11. It’s hard to argue that these things are merely descriptions of events that took place, not least because they aren’t describing any particular events! Nobody to my knowledge argues anything other than these are binding commands of Jesus. They are not describing any happenings, they are prescribing how we must behave as believers.
So far, so obvious, right? But what do we do with narrative passages of scripture? Most narratives don’t have any obvious binding commands in them directed at us. Whether stuff in Judges and Kings or New Testament narrative like Acts. Most of these narrative are describing events and don’t have commands from God directed to us the reader.
The problem with saying they’re prescriptive is they’re often full of mad stuff that really doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Jesus would have us do. Which of us, for example, reads 2 Samuel 11 and thinks that is just what Jesus wants his followers to do? So, we may say, these things are obviously just descriptive. But the problem here is that they are in the Bible and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us pretty clearly all scripture is God-breathed and given to us for a reason, specifically so that we might be learn from it and be trained in righteousness. If the danger of saying narratives are prescriptive is that we might be led to prescribe all kinds of mad things, the danger of saying they’re descriptive is we think they prescribe (and therefore say) nothing at all!
But the story of the Levite cutting up his concubine and sending her body parts all over Israel is in our Bible for a reason, isn’t it? It might well not be prescribed – it isn’t something we are to emulate – but the purpose of the story surely exists to tell us something about God, his character, his people and how they ought to respond to him.
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Deuteronomy is concerned with the bond between God and His people. God acted in His gracious condescension, entered into a special relationship with them. He loved His people and redeemed them by His outstretched hand of power (see especially Deut. 7:7–9; Deut. 9:5–6; Deut. 14:2). At Sinai, He entered into this formal relationship with them. He drew near them and promised, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.” Hence, the covenant was a bond between God and man, sovereignly imposed by God in His grace, whereby He and His people gave expression to their relationship in formal terms.

The book of Deuteronomy is significant in itself, but also because of the number of times it is quoted in the New Testament. The proclamation of Jesus and His disciples drew directly from it. Jesus quoted it in His temptations (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10) and reaffirmed its emphasis on an all-embracing love to God (Matt. 22:37–38). The Apostolic preaching in Acts draws heavily upon it, especially in pointing to the fulfilment of the word concerning the prophetic office in the person of Jesus (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22). At least seven New Testament epistles contain quotations from Deuteronomy, perhaps the most significant of these being in Galatians 3:10–14. Here, Paul writes that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of which Deuteronomy speaks (see Deut. 21:23) by becoming a curse for us (Gal. 3:13).
The name of this book in English, Deuteronomy, has come via Latin and Greek and means “the second law,” assuming that the reference in Deuteronomy 17:18 means exactly that. However, what that passage refers to is the king having a copy of the law for himself. The content of the book shows that it is not a second law but a renewal of the covenant made at Mount Sinai (called “Horeb” throughout Deuteronomy, except in Deuteronomy 33:2). It is linked expressly with the gracious promises God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see, for example, Deut. 6:10–11; Deut. 7:7–9). It also marks the completion of the Pentateuch, with the emphasis on the partial fulfilment of the patriarchal promises just prior to Israel’s entry to the land that God had sworn to give them.
There are three special matters that readers should know about the book of Deuteronomy and its teaching.
1. Deuteronomy is a covenantal document.
As a covenantal document, Deuteronomy is concerned with the bond between God and His people. God acted in His gracious condescension, entered into a special relationship with them. He loved His people and redeemed them by His outstretched hand of power (see especially Deut. 7:7–9; Deut. 9:5–6; Deut. 14:2). At Sinai, He entered into this formal relationship with them. He drew near them and promised, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”
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