For anyone who still wants to follow Jesus after having been treated devilishly by those who claim to be His followers (His shepherds, even!), Hebrews 13:17 might stick in the craw.
Jim Jones, one of the most famous cult leaders ever, none of whose followers can learn about Hebrews 13:17 now because they all drank the Kool-aid. Literally.
Here are a few versions you may be familiar with.
KJV: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves. . . .”
NIV: “Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority . . .”
Amplified: “Obey your [spiritual] leaders and submit to them [recognizing their authority over you] . . .”
And of course this verse is held over church people’s heads.
You church people. OBEY your “SPIRITUAL AUTHORITIES,” which is US, the church “leaders.” SUBMIT to US without question or challenge. (If you don’t, you will be excommunicated and shunned.)
This verse has been used to get church people to check their brains at the door and obey like happy robots (even if it’s not to the degree of committing mass suicide). Can this possibly be what the Bible teaches?
To understand, we have to consider several things.
First, there’s the context of the whole Bible. It’s really amazing how much this is ignored when people choose out “proof texts” to wave in other people’s faces.
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Besides www.libertyforcaptives.com and www.scripturerevealed.com, these are the blog posts I referenced in this post:
Reflections on my 62nd birthday: “What if your life were written as a story?”
5 reasons for church small groups to replace “transparency” with “integrity”
A Cry for Justice also has a post on this topic, here.
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Go here to download your free Guide, How to Enjoy the Bible Again (when you’re ready) After Spiritual Abuse (without feeling guilty or getting triggered out of your mind). You’ll receive access to both print and audio versions of the Guide (audio read by me). I’m praying it will be helpful.
What a great and succinct teaching! Thanks!
Thank you! You make me laugh since I called it “an excruciatingly long blog post.” lol
After having experienced this type of leadership in my life on at least 2 occasions, God lead me to Ephesians 5:6 onwards… “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
Because of those in leadership who were supposedly leading us to dispel the darkness were dark themselves my husband and I had to make a decision based on Eph 5 . We could no longer be partners. It was the right decision. It hasn’t been easy. We continue to experience blessings of God to keep us afloat and our needs being met. Obedience to scripture was God rescuing us out of an abusive toxic culture.
Over the past 8 years, God has developed a discernment for dark and light in my life. After having read Wade Mullen’s Doctoral thesis, the aspect of dark and light leadership, as he calls it, it became very revealing of what I think is happening in ‘Christian Organizational’ leaderships. He speaks of image making as an organization and reveals how organizations preserve this image. Dark leadership is abusive and demanding. People who are dark leaders act as if they are the Holy Spirit and people must follow what they say. I pray for and believe that God doesn’t want these type of people in leadership, yet, he uses them to accomplish His purposes. He knows them well beyond what we could even think. He know us as well. Obedience to His Word is key in the lives of those being abused by dark leadership. We need to be light. We are called to be light and expose them. It comes with great cost. Sometimes too great for some to pay. Hope is the only thing that gets one through when we choose to obey and expose.
Excellent! And would you link to Wade Mullen’s doctoral thesis here for my readers? I have appreciated him so much!
I believe this will get you there…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rXrd8MYay5Vg5s7JXFx7S91hDTlm1CVX/view?fbclid=IwAR03umqe64Pm1-GMb0caAKYEHlKztg4onhRyMzS7teIzwbnqnGivUBnQlrA
Thank you!
Some thoughts that didn’t make it into the blog post:
The only other Scriptures that use this Greek word translated “leader” are these:
Matthew 2:6, in which God the Father says that God the Son will be the one to lead His people. God the Father judged His Son worthy to lead based on who He was.
Actus 14:12, in which the people of Lystra saw that Paul was the leading speaker. They made that judgment according to what they observed.
Acts 7:9b-10 in which Pharaoh made Joseph the second in command leader of Egypt in the matter of the coming famine. He judged Joseph to be worthy to lead because of what Joseph had already done.
One of the biggest problems these days in the area of “spiritual leadership” is the problem of ordination, in some circles followed by the problem of “candidating,” and in all of these areas overshadowed by the problem of cronyism.
People can be “ordained” through being able to answer a lot of hard questions after seminary. The qualities of elder so clearly detailed in the epistles are often ignored. (And to top it off, nowadays anyone can be “ordained” by filling out an online application and paying a fee.)
Church people often trust that because a man went to a certain seminary, he must be a good man, without closely examining the qualities needed in a church leader as outlined in the epistles.
In the Bible, church leaders were ordained to lead the congregation by being chosen as worthy of leadership by those within the congregation, or appointed by a head such as Paul.
“Candidating” in some circles, such as Baptists, means that a pastor is chosen on the basis of whether the “search committee” like is preaching.
Cronyism means that men who rub shoulders with each other will refer each other to church positions, whether or not they are qualified.
Church people, unwitting, naïve, and foolishly trusting, simply assume that these men are qualified leaders, when some of them are actually very evil, even engaging in trafficking and other horrors.
Thanks so much for all the hard work that created that not so excruciating, but truly long, post! 😉 Like many, I have experienced the dark side of illegitimate spiritual authority. It was amazingly difficult to extricate myself from, and the wounds were surprisingly deep, even being the strong-minded, stand up for truth kind of person I am. Imagine how difficult it must be for the meek, the trusting, the gentle of spirit who simply desire to serve God and be a blessing to others, and believe that their ‘leaders’ will show them how best to do so.
For me, it was seeing so many wounded that enabled me to finally acknowledge and evaluate the concerns that I had long repressed. As one friend later put it, ‘Everyone leaves that church worse off than they went in.’ That is the exact opposite of what a healthy ekklesia made up of sincere followers of Christ should produce.
It seems to me that the key to protecting yourself from spiritually abusive authority is to educate yourself as to how common it is and what to look for. The many verses you provided are very helpful in this aspect, along with the encouragement to study carefully the meaning of scripture, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, who was given to us for that very purpose.
The moment someone claims the authority to tell you what scripture means, and demands that you unquestioningly accept their interpretation, is the moment you should run for the doors. Personally, if I do not hear ‘Don’t take my word for it, study it for yourself’, I have little interest in anything a so-called teacher has to say.
Why are we always surprised when the one who looks the most like a shining light proves to be of the darkness? Isn’t this the exact tactic scripture most warns us of? We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by words, appearances and seeming success. We must closely examine the little things that reveal a person’s true heart. How does he treat his wife? Is he gentle and patient with his children? How does he speak of, or treat his parents and other family, even if they are unbelievers? It is pretty easy to fake appearances, but the little things tend to reveal a person’s true character.
What kind of man combs through the trash when he comes home from a church convention to see if his wife ate anything he disapproves of? Or empties his young daughter’s purse in front of a crowd, and belittles, one by one, the things she carefully chose to put in it? Or discounts the question his young son bravely raised his hand to ask, making him feel small and silly? Or asks his parents and in-laws to no longer visit over Sunday, as he prefers them to not attend his church and mingle with the parishioners with whom they have become friendly over the years? What if those he counsels go from bad to worse situations, again and again, including family abandonment, divorce, prostitution and rejection of the faith?
He might preach very engaging sermons. He might run a tight ship, and keep all scheduled events on time and well organized. He might appear available to take any call, or respond to any outside plea for assistance. But if he is not gracious and loving to his own family, if the people whose lives he invests in do not grow in wisdom and maturity, these examples of good ‘leadership’ may be little but show.
This could be as true of a widely renowned, celebrity teacher as of your local pastor. In fact, the more widely renowned, the more I begin to wonder . . . Appearances and the praise of men prove little beyond the ability to put on a good show.
I encourage all to never follow anyone blindly, never adopt any teaching unquestioningly and, above all, to never put anyone in the place of trust that God alone deserves. Thank you, Rebecca, for living out what you proclaim.
This is so spot-on, TS00. Thank you. There are so many exactly like what you describe, and the higher up they are on the evangelical pyramid, the more likely they are to be engaging in the worst activities.
This is phenomenal, Rebecca. Thank you.
Years ago my family attended a church that indoctrinated new people with John Bevere’s “Under Cover” series. Very, very dangerous shepherding control teaching. Once they convinced you they were in control and you had to blindly submit to their authority, then the most ridiculous weird teachings came out of the pulpit and everybody did everything they were asked to do. I find it interesting that just below the surface was a whole slew of sexual misconduct that was being covered up. Seems the two often go hand in hand!
Goodness, I was just thinking about John Bevere this morning. Thinking, “He wrote a book about authority that I’ve heard is pretty awful. I should probably read it and keep it on my Heretical Books Shelf.” So sorry this happened to you, but thank you for reminding me of this book.
My husband and I were wondering what to do with his red book we found recently…I guess we need to start a Heretical Book Shelf…
lol
Amen!
Excellent! One of the problems that I find in Bible study is that people don’t ask themselves what Scripture doesn’t say. We have so many ideas about what it does say when it doesn’t. Knowing what is not meant is just as important as knowing what it does.
Thanks also to the mention of the KJV. It was not written without an agenda, which was to codify the divine right of kings. Parts of the KJV are so complicated with that.
Yes, that’s so true.
oh WOW Rebecca! Bless your heart! I have to share with you since I read this about 6 mos ago, how it has impacted me… this post was the thread that started unraveling Hebr 13:17 for me as I felt like this verse had been used over the years as a weapon to beat me into submission to leaders to stay silent, implying I was being disobedient as I raised awareness of abuses of power in Church leadership…
this is the 1984 NIV translation w authority, men, work and an extra “obey”, all added beyond the Greek for
good/bad measure: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you…I started digging and researching in the Greek after you posted this – the red were the problem words – 7 in one verse! You think there might have been an authoritarian bent here?
and this is what I came up with…
Be persuaded by those who go before/are ahead of you/more mature in the faith, and let them influence/instruct you through their righteous actions and words, for they look out for you (to benefit your soul)… so they will give testimony about you with joy, instead of grief (these believers are sad when you miss out on God’s best for you)… it will be your loss and you will miss the benefits & blessings if you choose not to follow their godly/righteous example…
the end result is you will be obedient to God’s best for your life! but it’s a process of discernment, not a blind, unquestioning obedience/loyalty/submission to those w titles…
So thankful to hear that this post was helpful to you, Bev! Working on it was very helpful to me as well.
This blog post will be one of the chapters in my upcoming book, “Untwisting Scriptures that were used to tie you up, gag you, and tangle your mind: Book 2 Patriarchy and Authority.” It should be available within a few short days!
In Hebrews 13:17, the NIV adds “to their authority.” It is not in the Greek text.
Re: So and So say if their pastor told them to jump off a cliff, they would do it. And they’re proud of their blind obedience. Sheer idiocy.)
I like to turn this around: “So if your pastor told you to push your wife and children off a cliff would you do it?” Because that’s what men are doing when they insist their family members blindly follow the pastor. Doug Phillips comes to mind.
Yes, absolutely. And Doug Phillips was one of the many in my head when I wrote this.
Absolutely appreciate this!!! Thank you for this teaching!!
If I may, I would like to share an article about Bible translation options that do not honor the original text, add bias to it’s understanding and fuel extrabiblical traditionalism: https://vidaemabundancia.blogspot.com/2024/07/traducoes-e-tradicoes.html (The article is in portuguese, but you may activate the automatic translation at the right top menu.)