A regular listener named Steve from the great city of Omaha, Nebraska, asked this, "Pastor John, what does it mean to submit to and obey your leaders in Hebrews 13, 17?" Yeah, the text says, "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." And culturally, Tony, the defining spirit of America today is the opposite of that, isn't it?

It's self-determination, not submission to the will of another. Anything that enhances my individual liberty to do as I please is good, and anything that encumbers me and limits my ability to do as I please is bad. That's just the way—that's the spirit we breathe in America. And that makes this text culturally outrageous.

"Obey your leaders and submit to them." And we know from the side of leaders that power corrupts. So the emphasis must always fall for leadership on servanthood, not lording it over. Paul said, "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy." That's the kind of leaders we're supposed to submit to.

They come alongside, and they work for our joy. And the New Testament itself says leaders can go wrong. They can go bad and disqualify themselves from being obeyed or submitted to. Acts 20, verse 30, Paul is speaking to the elders, and he says, "From among your own selves, men will arise and speak perverse things and draw away the disciples after them." So there you have people submitting to elders who are taking them to destruction.

And Paul wants to warn the church, "Don't let that happen." Same thing in 1 Timothy 5, 19, Paul instructs what to do if an elder is found to be in sin. He should be disciplined and publicly removed from office if necessary so that the people will not be hurt by that.

Same thing in 1 Peter 5, he tells the elders, "Shepherd the flock of God, exercising oversight, not for sordid gain and not lording it over those in your charge." So the New Testament is not naive about the abuses of leadership. And nevertheless, here we have Hebrews 13, 17, "Obey them, submit to them." Now, what would that mean?

Here's my best shot at how it would look. There's a certain spirit and a certain limit and a certain shape that leadership has and that the people have in response to this verse. The word "obey" is a very broad word that means "be persuaded by, trust, rely on." It comes to mean "obey" because that's what you do when you trust somebody.

So you might say it's a soft word for "obey." It encourages a good relationship of trust but still calls for the people to be swayed by leaders. So be a swayable person. Be a person ready to learn, ready to be taught, ready to be led. Not eager to kick and rebel against anybody that calls you to do something at church.

In other words, "submit" occurs only here in the New Testament, this particular form of "submit," "hupeko." It's more narrow than the other one and means "make room for by retiring from a seat or yield to or submit to." So with all that, I would try to distill the meaning of Hebrews 13, 17, something like this.

A church should have a people, I, should have a bent toward trusting its leaders. Be bent that way. Don't be a distrustful people. Second, I should have a disposition to be supportive in my attitudes and actions toward the goals and the directions of the leaders if they craft a vision and they set some goals, be supportive.

Go with them. I think it means we should want to imitate their faith, and I think it means we should have a happy inclination to comply with their instructions. And if you listen carefully at those several paraphrases of what I think this means, I've used phrases like "a bent towards trusting" and "disposition towards support" and "wanting to imitate" and "inclination to comply." The reason for that kind of phraseology is to capture both sides of the biblical truth, namely, "Elders are fallible and should not lord it over the flock and are not absolute." God is absolute.

Yet, the flock should follow good leadership. Our hearts should be bent and our disposition should be that way and our wants should be that way and our inclination should be that way. And where those two truths are working, it's a beautiful thing in a church. In fact, as I look back, Tony, over the 33 years I enjoyed at Bethlehem, it was a wonderful thing to have an eldership and a people who, while not being naive, unbiblical, "Yes, men, I don't think we've produced a cult," there was a sweet experience of, if I tried to rally them for something, they were basically ready and eager to be rallied for biblical things.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. For more on the topic, see Pastor John's two-part sermon series titled "Obey Your Joyful Leaders, Part 1 and 2," which was recorded back in October of 1997. You can find those messages and thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper all free of charge at DesiringGod.org.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. DesiringGod.org