Submission to Authority, pt 1

This Ethics and Leadership class gives a great glimpse of the true nature of the Honor Academy. You will see just how the interns are primed to accept the absolute control of the HA leadership.

The main thrust of this video is Dave’s teaching on the nature authority and submission. Especially the “common problem a developing leader will face” called the “authority problem” which means that you must submit completely to any authority in your life. Let’s look at this teaching through the lens of Scripture.

21:03 – Many times, when you disagree with leadership, what you are supposed to do is bite your tongue and keep your mouth shut and serve.

22: 15 – You might be thinking to yourself, I am so thankful I don’t have this authority problem. I am so glad. I am so submissive, I’m good at this. Anyone can submit when a decision appears right. Its when the decision seems wrong, or are wrong that submission is difficult. Again, I’m not talking Biblically immoral things. I’m talking about if your leader makes a decision that’s wrong – those of you who played sports, how many of you were in a huddle at one point and the coach said, “Alright, we are going to take Fred out of the game and put Billy into the game.” And everybody was like, “You’ve got to be kidding! Everybody knows Billy is the wrong choice.” Sure enough, Billy went into the game, did something disastrous and you lost the game. How many of you had that happen? How many of you are Billy? Just kidding. So that’s a hard thing. You don’t want to, in that moment, submit. But that’s when you need to submit. That is when you are learning submission. Sometimes in the Honor Academy, I make decisions to do things you don’t like. I mean theoretically. Right? I may have potentially done something at some point or other and you didn’t like it….Now the challenge comes for you, whether or not you will submit. Submission is tested more when there are differences of opinion over critical issues.

28:07 – Rebellion against authority means that a person is not subjecting themselves to God thought it may appear that the person is rejecting some impure manifestation of God’s authority through a human channel. The key here, I think, is to be careful that you don’t allow differences of opinion to be the thing that gets you to the place where you step out and say, “Well, that persons not being used by God anymore, I don’t have to submit to that authority anymore. That person is wrong.” Etc. Again, hear me, I’m not talking about immorality, if I go tell everybody, we’re all going to start stealing…

So, just to recap, Dave is saying that you must submit to all leaders in EVERYTHING unless it is Biblically immoral. If you fail to do this, he says that you are not in true submission to God. How does this square up against Jesus’ life and teaching in the Gospels? This will be kind of long, but it will be worth it. An excerpt from the excellent book, Twisted Scriptures:

The idea planted in member’s minds through this teaching is: “ I must obey all in authority completely if I am to be a disciple of Christ!” This is a logical conclusion if we accept that the Scripture really teaches this. But we must take all the Scriptures together for complete understanding of the Bible. Sometimes we should follow authority and sometimes we should not. (“We must obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29) The deciding factor is the mandate of Scripture, not the demands of human beings. Jesus said in Matt 23:2-4:

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

Does this Greek word for “obey” mean “comply with each command that the Pharisees request?” Does “do everything they tell you” mean every area of your life? What did Jesus mean? We can examine Jesus’ own behavior to find out.

Jesus refused to obey religious authority.

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he refused to obey the Jewish leaders (John 5, Luke 13). Another time, Jesus’ apostles were picking heads of grain on the Sabbath, an activity the Pharisees said was unlawful. Jesus also refuted the Pharisees and “teachers of the law” when they demanded to know why His Apostles failed to wash their hands before they ate (Matt. 15). On another occasion, Jesus called the synagogue rules hypocritical for putting their own man-made rules before God’s commands. Again, religious leaders were overstepping the boundaries of Scripture.

Jesus never said that we are to obey our leaders in everything. He qualified what He meant by “obey” in action and words. We are to obey leaders in those things that are passed down from Moses. When Jesus said, “Do everything they tell you to do,” He didn’t mean in every area of life, just in those areas covered by Scripture.

Yet, there are leaders who demand complete accountability. They lay this heavy burden on you – just the thing against which Jesus preached. Think about it. Jesus wouldn’t even let religious authorities require His Apostles to wash their hands, yet many leaders teach that we should “just be flexible and obey” in all aspects of life. They think that it is “being broken and humbled” to become a doormat for leaders.

Jesus does not demand we give unwavering obedience to any human. Even if that human is instructing us to do seemingly good or benign things. If that was the teaching of Christ, there would be no need for the Holy Spirit to guide us individually since we could all just look to a human leader. The only person that deserves full obedience is Jesus Christ – elevating any other human to that position is wrong. Anyone who believes otherwise is primed to be manipulated and controlled by their leaders.

In the near future, we’ll also examine what true submission and “dying to self” really means.