Discipleship and Mutual Submission

 Many Christians believe that the Christian church must be based on a strict chain of command, like an army. Leadership, direction and control must be based on submission to someone of superior rank.

Years ago, I transferred to a new church. I had spent years in a few different churches, and I was trying to understand God and the bible in the light of different approaches in different churches. 

I told my new pastor about the process I was struggling with, but his answer was disappointing.

He said God guides Christians primarily through the leadership. The trouble is, that the leaders of other churches also claimed to be hearing from God, but their teaching was often very different. Since they all believed in the same God, they must all be hearing very imperfectly.

The differences in doctrine were often not very great, but the mindsets were different, the priorities were different, the emphases were different, often very different.

Jesus said each believer must be led personally by God, by Himself. If your primary source of spiritual guidance is the teaching of the leaders of your church, you are a very immature believer, and if you stay that way, you have seriously gone astray.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. Jn 10:27 NRSV

This does not mean that each believer should only hear directly from God and not learn from fellow believers. Jesus and the apostles taught the principle of mutual submission.

However, there are theologians today, and not only Roman Catholics, who believe that biblical submission is a one way process.

• The pastor tells you what to think, what to say and what to do, and you simply obey.

• The husband tells the wife what to do, and she just obeys.

• Then there is a slightly more moderate version of this authoritarianism, in which a married couple try to reach a joint decision, but if they disagree, the husband makes the decision and his wife must obey.

On the other hand, there are a number of texts in the NT which paint a completely different picture of Christian relationships.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Php 2:3 NRSV

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Eph 5:21 NRSV

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; Jas 1:19 NRSV

For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. Lk 22:27 NRSV

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.
It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave;
just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Mt 20:25–28 NRSV

If we carefully consider these bible texts, we must draw the conclusion, that the hierarchical mindset is completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

But didn’t Jesus appoint apostles? Didn’t Paul appoint elders? Isn’t leadership important?

Of course, we need leadership, but true leaders lead. They do not control. They lift people up. They do not keep people down.