gengwall

1. I am going to assume by “legitimate” you mean biblical or God ordained. The answer is “yes”, government is God ordained with the “authority” to punish wrong doers and reward those who do right (see Romans 13:1-7).

There is also a certain amount of authority the church has to punish those in its midst (see 1 Cor 5 for example). And I believe, as we have been discussing in Eph 1-2, that we will sit with Christ in authority over the world.

But regarding person to person, especially in the Body of Christ, no, I don’t believe it can be demonstrated that there is any legitimate authority structure ordained by God.