But I Only See Your Silhouette: The Prequisite of Submission is Modeling

Here is what Paul says in Hebrews 13:17

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Now, people love to quote this text especially those who want you to submit to them. I have heard many sermons on this text and even read a few books that talk about this. I don’t disagree that this is God’s word and it is to be obeyed. We have no option in obeying this. But I believe that there is a prerequisite found here…

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

We can’t read verse 17 (we know there are no verses) without starting at verse 7 and I believe verse 7 to be the prerequisite for 17. So lets talk a bit about that.

In 1 Timothy3:1-7, we see qualifications for elders, withTitus 1:5-9 being an additional or even complimentary list. This probably should be taken withsome considerations due to the fact that I believe a man with no wife and children can be an elder though Titus may imply that they can’t. However, there is an adjective found in 1 Timothy 3 and it is the word “hospitable”.

I have written about this in the past, so this will not be something new but I do want to come from a different angle. The way the church functions is very important to me and it should be to you also. I think we have become comfortable with the status quo to our detriment I might add. No one ignores their own body or is clueless of how it functions, so I believe no one should ignore their spiritual body and how it functions. I also believe that Christ has set the spiritual body up to function at an optimal level, just like he has set up our physical body to function at an optimal level. Both, take care and attention but one is often ignored and given over the professionals. This has also happened in our physical bodies, where we let doctors make all of the decisions and we see how that has worked out also

Submission has become a big issue today, because today many people are asking questions that were not asked as frequently nor by as many people 20 years ago. Radicals are now getting publishing deals and because of that it has caused a big stir amongst the body of Christ. Much like nutritionist and alternative health has now become a popular subject, the Ekklesia has now become a popular subject. Thanks to men like Barna, Viola, Rodriguez, the Dales, Banks, Black, Young and a few others, people are now beginning to ask questions that are causing the professionals a bit of discomfort and I am glad that more and more are now asking questions cause it may cause the professionals to rethink their approach (though some have become defensive and combative more than conversational and dialoguing)

But on to the post, before I can submit and obey, I have to see a clear picture to imitate. Submission in Hebrews has everything to do with submission to what Christ has commanded and NOTHING to do with what Christ has not commanded (Elders do not make decisions for people on nonbiblical matters, though they should be allowed to provide guidance). Today, I am only imitating a silhouette, not a person. Too many leaders are at too far of a distance, unable to be touched, engaged and definitely unable to model anything of significance. H0wever the very qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 are all character to be modeled then evaluated then imitated (the imitation comes when we acknowledge the character and recognize them as elders). Add to that the “position” of  “teaching” elder and now any real chance to model anything has become almost fully eroded. Not to mention churches have become so big that the elders now function as a board of directors that  deal more with the “business” aspect of an organization, not the functioning aspect of a living organism. Again this is to our detriment.

This has lead to the trend I talked about in a previous post about the transplanting of leaders. But even worse, within the local body elders do very little to reflect Christ’s character to the local body. I am not saying that they lack these character traits and are not obedient in their personal lives, I am saying that they are so far in the distance that they can’t model it for the very people they are responsible to take care of, thus shepherdiship and authentic eldership is all but vanished.  So I am not going to complain without recommending a few suggestions.

This can be fixed a few ways. The first is a prerequisite. A group of believers HAVE TO HAVE enough leaders (elders preferably but maybe even recognized deacons) to INTIMATELY care for them in a very TANGIBLE way. This is not an option. If you take on the responsibility of sheep, you best have enough shepherds to care for them. This is command. You are not a shepherd unless you care for sheep, and pulpits and books do not qualify, at all. Only hands on interaction at some frequent level is acceptable.  There should always be men in line waiting so that if the church grows someone can be recognized and thus put into relationships with these new people (I am coming from a traditional not an organic expression here).

Next, elders should meet frequently to discuss and ping off of one another how to care for people, I will say on record that each elder should be given a list of people to care for and they should know those people intimately. If not, you are not being a living body but an organization and you will care more for the organization than the people (organism) and because of that you will find many sheep in ditches. I believe many leaders will have to answer for that (I wrote a post about that here).

Finally things like dinners, team building, relationship establishing should happen on a corporate level and a one on one basis. For example leaders should have dinner (hospitality qualification) with people they are assigned to care for and then the may do picnics or game nights or something similar to build relationships amongst the body.  Lawrence Richards talks a great deal about how leaders are to model and even develop the health of the “shared life” as one of their primary responsibilities in his work “A Theology of Church Leadership” in the 16th Chapter. So instead of making all of these “business decisions” they should making decisions that encourage and develop the shared life amongst the body.

I close with this. Leaders are to properly model and provide a context for imitating what Christ calls ALL Christians to do (not pet doctrines but real commands). If they are being obedient in their own lives but not providing a context for imitation it is just as if they were never doing it themselves. It is their PRIMARY responsibility, all of the other stuff that goes on is a distant second. Secondly believers amongst the body have nothing to imitate thus the people who are elders are not functioning as elders but as VP’s of organizations and has now begun to impede Christ’s church.