Biblical submission

If your pastor wants you to rob a bank, what do you do?

This silly little example is a powerful way of illustrating the nuances of biblical submission. There are plenty of verses about submission (including to leaders) but all of them are held in tension with the need to submit to God and to one another.

Even though it's rarely preached explicitly, the subtle takeaway for many in the modern church is that disagreeing with the chain of command will take you out of the blessing and favour of God. This obviously creates strong incentives for fear based conformity that actually obstructs genuine unity.

In this episode, I'll explain how the hierarchical approach to authority and leadership is an Old Testament concept that has snuck back into the church today and directly opposes God's plan for new creation. Submission is real and important but it needs to be redefined.

If you're still reading, my name is Sats Solanki aka Digital Rabbi. I lead Reflect Church in London, UK. If you'd like to connect then head over to Insta @satsolanki or head to https://digitalrabbi.co. To find out more about Reflect Church head to https://reflect.church

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Well, hello and welcome back to the Leadership Horticulture Podcast. My name is Sans Solanke, otherwise known as the Digital Rabbi. It's my pleasure to be hanging out with you today. And we're about to dive into today's topic. It's episode four. But before we do that, just to let you know that this podcast is all about digging into theology, particularly around church leadership and culture. And it's really the product of my uh two things. One, my study of the Bible since about five or six years ago, planting out again as a church from a pre-existing church that had kind of imploded. Now it's kind of a long story, so I won't bore it with you right at the start of the episode, but it will leak in here and there. And essentially, it was a very specific culture. There were many good things about that church, but there were just some issues in the way leadership was done and the underlying culture and eventually culminated in the senior pastors kind of getting ousted out, but they kind of abandoned ship as well. And they kind of went back to their home country, and you know, God had called them to a new season and all that kind of stuff, and never really got to have the conversations that we needed to have to understand what's going on here and where did we go wrong. Um, but a lot of people were smashed by that experience, myself included. And as we uh felt called by God to plant again, we lead a church here in London in the UK. Um, it was like I I needed to figure out a lot of things. Like so many of my foundational beliefs and theology around how leadership should work in the church, in the body of Christ, were just like really like I was like, I don't know what I believe. Um, you know, I know a lot of things that I was taught and don't see how that necessarily matches in the scripture. I gotta start from scratch. And so we're doing it all at the same time as you know, hosting gatherings and trying to lead people and love people, all these things. And it's been a journey, and I'm sure it will continue um to be um a journey. So, today's episode, I want to talk to you about a really important topic, which is the topic of biblical submission. Uh yeah, it sounds quite intense, uh, but but let's go then. I I find most people have never really uh studied this because why would you? Like it's not very interesting. Uh but um I find as a leader, it's a really important concept for us to understand. And I think also as well, it's important to say that um scripture needs to be interpreted with scripture. I think that's a really good principle in general, right? Uh, we can't just take one verse and go, this is how it is. We have to understand the context of the verse, we have to uh, you know, kind of fit that verse alongside other verses. And if we're not careful, we can just take the scriptures that say one thing and we can make that what we believe, and uh, we don't kind of oppose them with the the the right tension verses, if you like, and therefore we we can get lost in the Bible. Plenty of people are doing that all the time, right? Like, you know, loads of people, and they can quote scripture, but they're clearly going in the wrong direction, right? Um, and so I think with submission, for me, this is one of those topics. This is one of those topics where we've taken a lot of scriptures, and we are not going to get rid of scriptures here, guys. Like, I'm not into that, and we're not editing out the bits that are inconvenient for us. But what I do want to do is I want to show you how these verses are often misunderstood and misapplied, and how they need to sit in the wider thread of what God is doing in New Creation and in the New Testament, the wider story of what God is doing. So, straight out, there were loads of scriptures that talk about submission, right? Um, there's the idea of children submitting to parents, there's the idea of wives submitting to husbands, and there's the idea of all of us submitting to God, and uh, there's even a whole bunch of stuff on slaves and masters. I'm not gonna go there because uh that's outside of my pay grade and maybe outside of the context of this uh podcast. Um, but I do want to talk about this idea of like a chain of command. And I find that most people uh kind of bring, particularly in the Pentecostal space, this kind of idea of sort of hierarchy into the picture. And I don't think that's actually there in the scripture, uh, which I'm gonna show you. Um, but I think we kind of bring it. So we kind of have this idea: well, everybody needs to submit to the sort of next layer. So wives are gonna submit to husbands, husbands are gonna submit um, you know, to the pastor or the leaders, they're gonna submit maybe to someone higher up the chain in the organization, a regional overseer or an apostle, or and it kind of goes up and then ultimately we submit to God, right? So this is the kind of assumption that many of us bring in with the idea of biblical submission. And I think, you know, it's not like anybody is gonna preach that to an extreme, right? In the sense that, you know, nobody's really preaching, hey, you have to do exactly what your pastor or leader tells you to do, right? Nobody's preaching that because we kind of know it's a bit too extreme. Like I always use the example, you know, if your if your pastor wants you to rob a bank, like what do you do? You know, do you supposed to help them? Are you supposed to, you know, get the balacalava out? Uh no, clear, clearly not. Clearly, we all understand common sense, submission does not mean total obedience with no questions asked. Um, and yet I find that even though no one would ever preach that directly because it's silly, um, the the sort of we still end up with that being implied. And I'll explain why. Because if you think about hierarchy, let's let's say hierarchy is a thing. I I don't think it is, but let's let's let's assume that's what biblical submission looks like, right? Chains of command, um, hierarchy, spiritual authority. And what we're saying is, hey, when you uh kind of align with the the positions and the leaders and the sort of order that God has placed in your life, what's gonna happen is there's gonna be blessing, there's gonna be favor, there's gonna be alignment, there's gonna be, you know, things are gonna go well for you, right? Why? Because you're submitting to God, you're you're tapping into the principle of biblical submission. So automatically we are sort of implying, even if we don't say it directly, we're implying that it's a really a good idea to align. And so sometimes, well, your flesh might not be on board, but you should get on board, right? Now, that's a dangerous place because sometimes what we're doing is we're actually disregarding the voice of the Holy Spirit because we're fearful actually of, hey, if I'm not aligned with the person who's overseeing me or covering me, then I could be sort of falling out of favor with God Himself. Now, if we look wider in the scripture, we're gonna see that the idea really fails and falls short because the Bible also tells us this is where tension, scriptures have to sin in tension. The Bible also tells us that, you know, we we we have received all spiritual blessings in Jesus. And there are like a thousand scriptures that talk about us having this direct connection now to God through Jesus, who is now the intermediary, right? So, so in the Old Testament, there were intermediaries, there was Moses, there was Elijah, there were, you know, there were the judges and so on, and they would stand in the gap between the people and God, and they would represent both ways. And so to um, you know, to speak badly about the man of God, let's say, is to speak badly about God Himself. That's the Old Testament way, but in the New Testament, it's changed, and it's changed because now Jesus has made a way, and now all of our spiritual blessings are directly in Christ, so it can't be that the spiritual blessings flow in a hierarchical state, right? If if if and that's not getting rid of submission, it's just saying that that extra this extreme level of the chain of command cannot be the way that it works, because if I've received all things in Christ, but I disagree uh with uh, you know, like someone who's above me on a theological issue, does does that mean that I'm suddenly outside of uh the favor of God? No, I don't think it does. I I think what we see in the New Testament is that as we move out of hierarchy, and the reason that the Bible actually uses the language of elders is because the word elder is like an older brother, it's like an older sister, it's like someone in the congregation who is further on and more mature. And what God does is he takes leaders who are important, by the way. We do need leaders. This is not an anti-leadership podcast, guys. Uh, I'm very pro there being leaders. We need good, faithful, solid leaders who model and teach and all of those good things. Um, so uh we got God takes from the body of Christ, the brothers and sisters, the family of God, from whom all are priests, correct? Like we are a kingdom of priests. We all have access because of Jesus. There's total equality, there's no person above the other. We're all saved, you know, by grace, trusting in God, faith, etc. And we receive everything as a gift from God because of God's goodness, not because of our own works. Nothing we have done is God has here. This is basic theology, guys. You know all this. Well, what it means is that we are now all equal. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and from within the the this this level, if you like, of siblings, um, God says, Hey, this person's got a gift, and this person's got a gift, and we're gonna pull out this function here, and we're gonna get everyone to serve one another. That's the emphasis of the New Testament. That's what Jesus is constantly saying. Hey, love one another. When he talks about unity, he isn't talking about unity in the chain of command. He isn't talking about unity to just doing what everybody above you is telling you to do. He's talking about unity across the body. That's the overwhelming theme. And then from the with that as the backdrop, we can then understand that there are leaders and people that God has placed to come alongside us and that we should submit to. But there is a caveat. There is a caveat. You see, the Bible talks about lots of things. In Ephesians chapter 5, it talks about how we are to submit to one another, and in many, many places, you're gonna find the idea of submitting to God, right? So if we come back to the example of the pastor who wants you to rob a bank, uh hopefully it's an infrequent case. Um, obviously, we know uh instinctively this is wrong. We're not gonna do that. Why? Because in this case, submitting to our leader and obeying our leader actually causes us to transgress against God. And so what we can actually say is, and this is not saying that's how all pastors' leaders think, because obviously they don't, uh, what we can understand is that submission is not just a chain of command thing, submission is like a collective thing that we are doing together. We are all following Jesus, we're all submitting to God, we're all uh going in that direction, and there are leaders around us who are inviting us to follow their example and saying, hey, here's a good uh teaching, follow that my way of life, do things like this. We ask to submit to those leaders up until the point that they stop following Jesus, right? And so the instruction to leaders is actually found, um, I think it's in 1 Peter, uh, where uh it says, hey, you know, don't shepherd the flock without domineering them, without controlling them, without over-exerting your authority. So there's built-in measures, it's not completely blind obedience and it's not completely blind submission. There is a sense that, hey, this is tempered with we are all following Jesus together. Now, can you see how this is not hierarchical? This is not a hierarchy, this is not a chain of command, this is not the anointing flows down, right? If you sit in the right place, and uh one of the scriptures that is often used to justify this um authoritative structure is Psalm 133, where it talks about, you know, how beautiful it is when brothers dwell in unity, and it talks about, you know, the anointing oil that runs down the beard of Aaron. Now, if we actually look at the scripture, what we're gonna see straight away is that it's talking about brothers in unity. It's talking about when people dwell in unison. It's not talking about when people come under one another in a hierarchical way. We are actually all supposed to submit to one another, which means that even though we're supposed to submit to leaders, it is also possible for leaders to submit the congregation as well. Now, that might sound like crazy, but let's look at another example where this is going to become really clear. Husbands and wives, right? So the husband is described as the head of the wife. That's fine, that's what it says. But then it also explains that, you know, wives are to submit to their husbands, and husbands are to sacrifice themselves for their wives. Now, I think there's an incredibly strong argument that says those two things are very similar. Like which which puts you in the lower position? Submitting and doing what a person says, or bleeding to death for that person. Well, I think it's pretty clear bleeding to death is the higher ask. And husbands are compared to Jesus, not in the sense that Jesus domineers, but in the sense that Jesus lays down his life. It's not saying, hey, husbands, Jesus was the final decision maker, therefore, um, you know, you've you've got the right to make the decisions in the household. That's not what it's saying. What it's what it's saying is uh, husbands, your job is to lay down your life in the same way that Jesus died and bled to death on a cross and was tortured and asphyxiated and so on, um and and hung naked and full of shame, uh cursed on a tree. Uh that's your job is to to to be to be that role for your wife, right? Is to act in such a way. And we see this confirmed when Paul also uh explains that um he says, hey, the wife's body belongs to the husband. But he doesn't stop there. He says the husband's body belongs to the wife. Now, what do we see there? We see a mutual submission. So, yes, there is an instruction for wives to submit to husbands. Yes, it explains that the husband is the head of the wife, but it also says the husband's body belongs to the wife. Now, what do we do with these verses? I mean, friends, this is tension. Welcome to tension right here. And I believe when we've gone too far in one direction and it's now all about the structure and it's all about the flow of anointing, and you need to get on board and submit to your leaders. It's like, well, I like yes, as long as they are doing things correctly. And this is the thing, friends, when we lean into that sort of authority structure, we are going away from the point of the scripture. Because Jesus very clearly says, says, Hey, look, the Gentiles lord it over you, the Gentiles control. He's explaining the people in the world do it like this, but it will not be amongst you. And he says, if you want to be the greatest, if you want to be the best, if you want to be the best leader, if you want to be above, actually what you need to do is you need to understand that it's a race to the bottom. We're not trying to get above one another, we're not trying to get to the top of the food chain of the org chart. What we are trying to do is actually lay down our lives and serve one another. He says, the first will be last and the last will be first. And he goes on and on and on and explains. He redefines leadership. See, Jesus is not saying get rid of leadership, Jesus is trying to help us redefine what it is to be without hierarchy, where there is a sense of this person is more important than the other. It's like, no, that's not how it works. We are equal, we are one in Christ, and from with within the body of Christ, there are many different functions that we should honor and respect and welcome. And so we welcome the role of leaders, you know, in my own role in leading um a church, you know, that's that's great. Like I'm doing a good thing here, guys. Um, like many of you are. And, you know, it's not that anybody sets out thinking I'm gonna control people, I'm gonna domineer people. It's just that it's subtle in the culture because it's implied. It's implied when you come into an authority structure, well, that person should get on board. And the big question is, well, how much should a person submit? And of course, I I believe, you know, when I think about how God works with us, that's another beautiful side of this. You know, the fruit of the the spirit in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22 and 23 talks about how the fruit of the spirit um it ends on self-control. And uh, you know, when Jesus uh shares, I think it might be in Luke 9 or 10, somewhere around there, and he says, you know, you need to pick up your cross, you need to, you know, um, you know, every single day because um, you know, you need to deny yourself. Um what what what good is it, you know, to to to to forfeit your own soul? And and and so I think sometimes what we've had is this idea of like self-erasure, like I'm gonna, I need to get rid of myself, I'm gonna be empty. But you know what I've found, friends, is that the longer I follow Jesus and the more I submit to him, the more I discover who I am. I don't lose being sats. I well, the more I submit to God and the more I allow him to fill me, the more I seem to get agency back. And that's self-control right there. I give away control, I surrender it, I work, I worship God, I say, your will, not my will. And then he says, Here's power, here's agency, I'm gonna release you. And I just love this because this is this is the right thing for us to do. We don't need to get people to be on board with the vision. What we actually need to do is teach people how to think, give them agency, and release them and encourage them. That's the goal of leadership. That's what it means not to be domineering, but to truly shepherd. And I believe the way we thought about uh, you know, honor culture and submission and the way the anointing flows down is a very old testament um way of thinking about it that is snuck into these scriptures, which I believe if you hold them intention, um, is not really there. So, hey, I hope you found that helpful on biblical submission, and uh it's a big topic. It's a big topic. And questioning some of these things is is really uh taken quite sensitively. And I think it's because if you truly believe in that order, that the church should be ordered that way because the world is ordered that way and and God has structured things in a way to break the order and to come against that order kind of feels like heresy, right? And that's how the Pharisees treated Jesus. They were like, Jesus is messing with our traditions, he's messing with our ideas, and they were so upset because even to question the model is to commit some sort of mortal sin. And I believe that's exactly what's happened with this area of theology. So I submit it to you. Uh pray that you would just ask the Holy Spirit to lead you. Have a look at the scriptures um for yourself. I can see a beautiful tension when we take the the fullness of the thread of what God is doing in new creation. We're not gonna get to heaven and have like, you know, uh leaders over us. That's not really how it works. I I don't I don't I don't think there's gonna be like an order, a pecking order when we when we get to heaven. Uh I think we're gonna be having all a great time together. Uh, this has always been God's plan um and God's heart. So I hope you found that helpful. Um, bless you guys. Thank you for listening today uh to episode four. I would love to ask you just a couple of things. Firstly, um if you found this interesting or it would be helpful for someone that you know, maybe uh someone in your church or maybe someone on your team, maybe even uh your pastor or leader and think what do they think about this? I would love to ask uh for you to send this to them and uh just share. Um I would also love to ask you to subscribe to the podcast so that as episodes keep coming out, you can just get it. Uh, you know, you don't need to get an email from me or anything like that. It's just gonna pop up and you're gonna get it in your podcast app or whatever. And finally, the third thing is uh would you consider leaving a rating um and slash or a review? That would really help me get the word out um as to what's happening with this podcast. I really believe these ideas are important um for what God wants to do in the church um today in the modern world. So I just want to get it out to as many people um as I can. Thank you so much for listening today. We'll see you in the next episode.