What a passage! Some straight-forward life instructions, a warning about being led off the path, some Old-Testament-based and still Christ-centered theological points, followed by more practical life instructions. A summation to a wonderful letter/sermon.
The verse that is key to Submission is 13:17. What a point! That is a principle that can be applied to every arena of life. If you have a cooperative attitude toward your leaders, it makes their job easier, and allows them to be more joyful and passionate about it. If you don't, their work becomes drudgery, and could cause their leadership to bog down. Yet so often our attitude is to make things harder on our leaders. Why?
I realize that submission is not something we think to make a part of our daily lives here in America. We are free to speak our minds and we have rights, so why would we submit to anyone? But if we are in Christ, we are not Americans! We are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and we call ourselves Christians! Christians submit because Christ, our King, submitted. Do you trust the leaders in your church? If not, maybe it's time to either find a church where you trust the leadership or learn to trust the leadership of your church.
Submission is not subjugation, as David Garison pointed out on Sunday. Subjugation is kind of like being a doormat. Submission is living according to the order of things. First you have to acknowledge the order, then you can arrange your life around that order. It's not easy, in fact it is backward from how our culture works. But we are resident aliens, from the Kingdom of God!
Are you submissive to your leaders?
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