Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account (Heb 13:17).
This is often quoted by high churchman to keep the
laity in their place. But it’s important to keep in mind that Biblical commands
and prohibitions typically have an implied situation. An implicit or explicit
situational context.
To be faithful to Biblical
commands and prohibitions means we must make allowance for the implied
situation, and apply those biblical injunctions to analogous situations. Far
from honoring the authority of Scripture, to disregard the implied situation can
make a mockery of original intent.
As I discussed recently,
there are well-meaning Christians (e.g. John Murray, Wayne Grudem) who say there
are no circumstances in which it is right to lie. They treat the Mosaic
prohibition against perjury as a moral absolute.
But in so doing, they are
decoupling the Mosaic prohibitions from the Mosaic law, of which they are a
part, and reassigning them to any law code. But can you simply transfer those
prohibitions from a just to an unjust law code? If a human law code substitutes
darkness for light (Isa 5:20), if attaching the Mosaic prohibitions to an
unjust law code would generate a Kafkaesque travesty of justice, are we really
honoring the Bible? Or have we perverted justice?
Steve then goes on to raise two concerns about an unconditional prooftexting of Hebrews 13:17
1) there were no established and competing theological, confessional, and other traditions within the early church of the sort we recognize now. There were no Baptists, Catholics, Methodists, Coptic Orthodox or other easily identifiable strands of differing doctrinal approaches accounted for in the churches as we would recognize them currently.
2) the passage does not condone unconditional obedience since earlier in the chapter warnings against false teaching as could be promulgated by leadership is brought up. It's possible for leaders to sin
3) the canon was not fully formed or canonized and literacy was significantly less common at the time Hebrews was written. Now the Bible is available to read and study by vastly more people and the biblical texts hold precedence in a way that an ecclesiology won't.
4) Hebrews was written at a time when apostolic vetting of leadership was feasible which we don't have today.
Cumulative Steve Hays points out that the present day situation in any ecclesiology is sufficiently different from the setting to which Hebrews was written that it is not a matter of some pastor or fan of a certain ecclesiology to just prooftext Hebrews 13:17 to say that you should obey your elders. If it turns out an elder has lied or committed an injustice there is no necessity to obey that elder, is there?
... not that Wenatchee The Hatchet is necessarily going to cite any particular kind of case study ...
3 comments:
A truly magnificent post. I couldn't have put it better myself!
My understanding is that the original word translated "obey" doesn't mean "do what you're told," but "listen to and allow yourself to be persuaded by." The distinction is subtle but important. Leaders are to persuade, not command, and those who follow are to do so intelligently and not blindly.
Kristen, yes, and I "just" so happen to have William Lane's commentary on Hebrews 9-13 in front of me right now where he explains exactly that point about how Hebrews 13:17 should be understood.
Lane wrote that the obedience requested was to be persuaded by example and teaching and NOT a respect for existing constituted authority as such.
On page 555 (for those who have Lane's book), Lane writes that the extreme language of the demand for obedience has to be understood in the larger literary context of concern about potential apostasy within the community (we're not going to dive into all the subsidiary debates there here).
Lane also cites earlier scholarly work that points out that there's no evidence in Hebrews 13:17 of a hierarchical authority structure and that the appeal to the authority leaders in the community have is on the truth of their teaching and continuity with earlier teaching.
Should you want to do a bit more digging Word Bible Commentary Volume 47b is Lane's second volume in his two-volume commentary on Hebrews. I've got Richard Bauckham's commentary on Jude/2 Peter from the series, too and have found it handy as well.
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