A Different Kind of Power

So much of sports centers on being bigger, faster, and stronger. Such persons or teams are usually the victor.

It came, therefore, as a wonderful surprise recently when a major league player, Grant Desme, gave up one type of power for another. He decided to stop trying to hit home runs in favor of entering the priesthood.

In the New Testament, the word for Jesus' type of power, dynamis , is used more than 120 times.

It is the energy Jesus healed with. For example, it is the type of power he felt leave out of him when the woman with the hemorrhage touched his garment.

This creative, dynamic, dynamis power is not the “power over” of mastery or authority. There is another word for that kind of power: kratos. We get the words “autocrat” and “aristocrat” from kratos .

The word “power” that we use when praying the Lord's Prayer, “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,” is dynamis power. And so is the ascended Jesus, who is “seated on the right hand of power.” Again, that's dynamis power.

It is dynamis power that the risen Christ predicted before Pentecost: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8).

We become aware that our tendency to control with a dominating or domineering power, a kratos power, is just simply not the way of Jesus.

When we truly place ourselves in Jesus' hands (wanting to be led rather than wanting to be a leader), then we learn his way and follow his way. That is, we adopt relational power as our way of dealing with ourselves, others, and God.

This relational power must not lead us to be overextended. When we are overextended, we are under committed.

Jesus, yes, went about preaching, healing and ministering. But he also went off by himself to lonely places to find that balance between inner and outer work and to commune with the One he called Abba God.