Accountability and Submission

Accountability and Submission.
by Kent Secor

Two words in the English language that most Americans take great umbrages with are accountability and submission. Americans take a strong stand on their individuality and freedom to make up their own mind, as well as communicate their own opinion to other citizens in open debate. Many ideas can be debated for decades with no clear resolution, dividing many into differing parties of opinion, each resolute that they are right and the others are wrong.

Within the church these term of accountability and submission are used to call the membership into conformity with the leadership and denomination. And the same party division takes place as in the general American society. We have divisions set up along denominational party lines with each one resolute in their opinions.

These terms have been historically used also to establish and support of monarchical and autocratic forms of government. The king, lord or nobleman was taught as being ordained by God and therefor due submission to. Obedience to their rule was to be unquestioned, no matter how good or bad the ruler was. To disobey God's ordained rulers was considered sin as well as treason.

In the church we have this same God ordained doctrine towards church leadership. Many see their leader or teacher as God's anointed and we are commanded to "not touch God's anointed". They are seen as above reproach, judgment or criticism. They are considered to be spiritual superior, intellectually superior and morally superior.

Many recent public reports in the media has underscored the fact that church leaders are not superior by reason of their position. They fail and fall into sin the same as any other believer. This calls into serious question the doctrine of divine ordaination of leadership in the church. It begs the question of the superiority of leaders in the church. Are pastors, priests, reverends divinly superior or are they simple brethren who serve in a leadership function? This also begs the question regarding the clergy and laity division we find in most denominational doctrine. Is this division right? Being good fundamentalists we must ask is this division biblical? Being good Americans we must ask does this place an undue, unjust and incorrect restraint on our freedom in Christ?

I hold that the normal church doctrine of the clergy's divine right to leadership and the laity's accountability and submission to that leadership to be non-biblical at its very roots. I see it rooted in culture and civil government, and not biblical.

I hold that the only accountability that is biblical is the believer's and assembly's accountability to the Lord Jesus Christ, as God's divinely ordained head of the ekklesia. That this headship was bought at great price by Jesus' sacficial death for the sins of all men in exact obedience to the Father's will.

I hold that biblical submission in the assembly is to be equal and a matter of the loving servant relationship between the two parties and not a matter of position in a church organization.

I see relationship as the basis for assembly submission and accountability. The model for the assembly I find in the New Testament is one of an extended family. Biblically we see the family as the first God ordained institution. God created Adam and Eve, commanded them to be "fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth." This command ordained family as the basic institution from the beginning of mankind. (Genesis 1:28)


God's Ordained Model: The Family

Within the local family unit of father, mother and children there is a natural, organic submission. The father and mother were first husband and wife. They married to join together their two lives into a common life. Their love for each other causes them to submit them selves to each other. They form a relationship of give and take, serving each other. By this loving service to each other they build a depth of loving relationship with each other. In this relationship commands are not needed. If each is serving the other out of love a simple communication of need is addressed by the other as a opportunity for serving them.

The children are the outcome of the husband and wife's intimate love for each other. The children are raised with in the loving service relationship of the father and mother. They submit themselves to the father and mother at first out of the basic need for survival. A baby has no choice, he can not live on his own. With out the loving service of his parents, it would soon die of neglect and starvation. The new baby grows in love and submission to his parents. Taking their service and learning obedience to their directions and commands.

Don't touch the fire, make potty in the toilet are early commands he learns. As he grows he comes to understand the reasons for these commands. He learns to obey his parents and give back in service to the family by doing family chores. He learns to serve others, by serving his parents and any other siblings. Eventually he grows into adulthood to find a wife and start a family of his own.

Within the father, mother and children relationship we see submission and accountability taking place. It is founded on love for each other and service to each other. They both give and receive loving service from each other. We all know examples of families that do not operate in love, that do not have deep loving and serving relationships. We call them disfunctional families and hold them up to judgment, scorn and ridicule in our popular plays and television shows. Consider the long run American sitcom "Married with Children" in which the parents are in a relationship of dependency rather than loving service to each other. The children are rebellious and seeking their own ways, rather than seeking to serve the other members of the family.

Thankfully this is not the true norm of our societies. Though it is the norm that we find in public media. As in most cases bad news is good news, and that is what we find prevelant in our news media and represented on many of todays tv shows. Gone are the days when shows like "Daddy knows best", "Leave it to Beaver" and "Ozzy and Harriet Nelson" get center stage.

Now its Ozzie Ozbourne and clan that gets tv shows. Shows like "Two men" and "Grace" which show men and women following after shallow relationships outside of any context of real loving service in a marriage.

God's Model for the Assembly

The ekklesia or assembly of God in Christ Jesus is often referred to as a family in the New Testament scriptures. Relationship is the heart of the assembly. Jesus taught that there is no master, no teacher other than himself. That we all are to be servants of each other ruled by the command to love one another in the same manner that he loved while on the earth. Christ's love led him to sacrifice himself on the cross for the sins of those he loved. His life and sacrifice are the example of our own love and service to one another in the assembly.

Paul said that he felt like the father of the assembly, preparing his daughter to be the bride for an upcoming marriage. Paul functioned in many ways as a spiritual father to the assemblies he formed and planted. In his letters we see the loving council of a father to his children. He rebukes them, he calls them to remember the lessons he taught them in their infacy. He gives himself as an example, calling them to remember his life among them. On the basis of his relationship with them, he continues to instruct them in the way of adult mature life in Christ.

Paul taught that we have one lord, one master and one God. He taught that Christ alone is our head. His instruction to elders in the assemblies was to be a model of Christ, and to protect the assemblies from the wolves in sheep's clothing.

Elders among the assembly, not over them.

The form of leadership we see expressed in the NT is one similar to the family. In the family we have the father and mother in a loving servant relationship, raising children to follow their example. In the NT assembly we see loving servant older mature believers, teaching the younger believers to model their lives in Christ. Out of this loving elder service, the younger believers learn in real and practical ways, what it means to follow Christ. They see how their elders do it, and mimic their actions. Just as little children mimic their parents and learn how to perform the functions of life, so too do the youngers learn from the elders in the NT assembly.

The elders are not over the assembly in some kind of superior way, but among the assembly. The overall rule is that all are to submit to one another out of love for each other. This puts all on an equal level with each other. All are to submit themselves to Christ as the only head of the assembly. In this mutual submission the elders are to be a model of loving service to the others. Their lives should model how to submit themselves to God, and how to live in loving service to the others. By their deeds and words they should model love and service.

If their lives demonstrate the love and sevice of Christ, then their teaching will have the weight of truth and yes, authority because their lives show it to be true. The youngers will submit to their authority because they see the elders are about loving and serving them. To the degree of love and service, to the degree of relationship the youngers will submit themselves to the elders.

Within this loving service to one another, the elders will only need to express their opinions and the youngers out of their love for their elders will consider the elders opinion with more weight than that of others.

There will be no need for statements of adherence or obedience. No need to sign covenant agreements with a leadership. No need for the leadership to claim divine right, or command submission to their assumed authority. These are only necessary when there is no depth of relationship between elders and youngers.


Accountability

As with submission, accountability comes with relationship. Submission is directly addressed in the NT, but accountability is not directly addressed. Accountability is assumed in modern doctrine. It is assumed to be a natural part of submission of the laity to the clergy.

Accountability means that one is accountable to another for their actions and words. We can clearly see in scripture that all men are accountable to their creator. God made us, he has instructed us how he wants us to live, and we are accountable to his judgment of us during our lives and at the end in a final judgment of how we lived our lives. Jesus taught that every idle word would be judged.

The Holy Spirit is God's agency of accountability. Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit is in this world to convict men of sin and convince them of right living and the judgment of God to come. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that convicts of our sin and draws us to the Lord who purchased forgiveness of sin by his atonement work. It is the Holy Spirit that empowers us to become sons of God, living and growing in Christ's resurrection power and grace. It is the Holy Spirit that calls us to live lives that will earn us a "well done, my good and faithful servant" at the judgment seat of Christ at the end of our days.

We all are accountable to God during our lives and at the end of them.

Within the assembly our mutual submission and the submission of youngers to elders calls us to greater accountability to God. We are only accountable to each other in the context of any commitments we make to each other. We are not generally accountable in all areas of our lives to each other. To say we are generally accountable would imply that we belong or are owned by some other.

In the same way that submission is voluntary and based on loving service to one anther, so too must be accountability. It can not be commanded or coericed. It can not be demanded. It must be given.

If I say on Saturday I will come over and serve you in some way, than by reason of my committment to you, I am accountable to follow through. But you have no reason to demand me be accountable to you to come and serve you. Accountability is associated with obedience. If you have the right to command me to obey you, then I am accountable to you.

An employer has a limited right in the scope of the job requirements to command his employees. That is the funciton of supervision. As your employer I need a certain job performed, and I command you, my employee to perform the required work and complete that job. You as my employee are accountable to me to complete that job. But you are not accountable to me outside the scope of that job. I can not command you to live the way I want you to, outside the job.

Accountability is tied to function. Submission is tied to relationship. In the job example, an employee submits himself to the employer and is accountable to perform his work in accordance to the commands of the employer. This accountability lasts for the term of employment under that employer.

Most churches today use a corporation or business model for their organzation. So the submission and accountablity model they use is that of employer and employee. Under most denominations doctrines you are called to submit to the management representatives with obedience. The clergies are to be obeyed by the laity. The clergy management employers command the laity emmployees in their church work.

Conclusion

This was not the NT model, and not how the NT assemblies functioned. Submission was a far different thing than what we find in most of our modern denominations today. The NT model was one of an extended family based on loving service to one another, with all being equally submitted to the only head, Jesus Christ.