Before You Choose, Who Has Authority?

Before you were born, someone had the authority to decide whether you’d be here at all. This thought sits at the center of a hard question that we’re facing today: What is the value of a human life?

Our culture answers that question with one word: choice. But my conviction is that it’s more a question of authority. Before we ask who gets to choose, we have to ask who holds the authority to choose in the first place.

If you’d rather listen or watch than read, you can find this teaching on the Lead Biblically podcast or over on YouTube.

Where the Question of Authority Begins

In Psalm 139, David writes that God formed his inward parts and knit him together in his mother’s womb. A few verses later, David adds, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17).

For Christians, that verse should matters just as much as the one about the womb. God’s thoughts are precious, and they’re vast. They run wider and deeper than anything you and I can wrap our minds around. So, when it comes to a human life, we move slowly, and humbly.

When Science Echoes Scripture

Maybe you set the Bible aside. That’s fine, stay with me anyway and look at the science. Researchers have found that a human egg isn’t sitting there passively, waiting for whichever cell arrives first. It releases chemical signals that draw one specific match.

Moreover, at the moment of fertilization, there’s a burst of zinc, a spark scientists can actually see under fluorescent dye. And the brighter that spark, the healthier the embryo.

Lastly, every trait you’d ever carry was written into your DNA in the first single cell before it divided even once. The science doesn’t argue with the Scripture, but echoes it.

Faces, Not Fetuses

This is where the question of authority gets personal. When we consider what Scripture says and what the science shows, we stop picturing numbers and start picturing people. We picture faces that were supposed to be here, sitting in our schools, workplaces and communities.

Now, I’m not saying this to shame anyone. If you’re carrying a hard decision from your past, or facing one right now, I want you to hear grace, not judgment. There’s forgiveness in God’s love for what’s behind you and strength for what lies ahead.

Moving forward, may we submit our right to choose to the God who holds all authority. If He formed us, we should consider that the choice was never fully ours to begin with.

Join the Conversation; Answer This Question

• Where in your life have you been holding onto authority that was never yours to keep?