The Dirty Words of Leadership

Response to wHOOPs:

Thanks for sharing that with us. It’s encouraging to see how God works in our lives through the time we spend together each Sunday.

In the near future we’re going to dedicate one of our Sunday mornings to talking about this very issue: what should you do when the authority over you is immoral or foolish? Is it ever right to go “over someone’s head”? Is it ever right to just flat out disobey that authority? Is it ever right to try to have them removed from their position? I think these situations are important to talk about. And I believe the Bible gives us some very clear examples and principles of those kind of circumstances. However, “righteous disobedience” is much more the exception than the rule. Especially because submission to authority has been so undervalued by our culture, it’s important for us to begin our discussion with the “normal” situation—our responsibility to submit to authority.

The example you’ve shared with us is a great illustration of how biblical truth can give us direction in the middle of some difficult circumstances. Thanks again for sharing it with us! Chip

wHOOPs: Chip, I wanted you to know that your sermon last Sunday convicted me that the advice I was giving my wife about how to deal with a very poor supervisor was somewhat off the mark. She had done everything possible to work with her supervisor to correct significant problems and her manager had moved from passive limited support to active sabotage. She felt she was in an impossible position. She had previously been invited to talk to the next higher level of management about her ideas for improving the organization, before realizing that her supervisor wasn’t merely weak, but actively complicit in maintaining a bad situation.

I tend to fight when I believe I’m right and the outcome is important. I also get upset when somebody is making my wife’s life hard. My reaction to her manager’s active was to tell her to:
a. start looking for a new job
b. ignore all my previous advice about avoiding any appearance of “going over her manager’s head,” and instead to be direct and specific about the problems, including her supervisor’s actions if his responses to more general discussion indicated a likelyhood of support.

She was highly stressed about the entire situation. And, she’s really highly adverse to “fighting” (except with me). We discussed the points of your sermon about submitting to authority, even if the person in authority is an idiot or immoral. Even though she wasn’t present for your sermon, I believed it helped her by providing a Christian / moral context for placing it in God’s hands, knowing she’s fulfilled her responsibility. I.e., by chosing not to move the battle to the next level, she wasn’t abdicating her responsibility, but fulfilling it as a subordinate.

And I stopped adding stress by advising confrontation in response to the misbehavior of her supervisor and the hurt that was causing my wife.

She was able to have a 3 hour discussion with her supervisor’s supervisor on the general subject of improving organization performance and morale without bringing up the specific issues or the deficiencies of her supervisor. Whether it will have impact is in God’s hands.

A long winded thanks for being God’s instrument to plant the right words at the right time.

Responding to Skippie:

Yes, what you described is a very good image of a husband’s leadership role in marriage—or a good image for any leadership role. Leader and followers are all part of the same team—all of them pulling together toward the same goal, “fighting the battle” together. Following is not a passive sport—it can and should be a very active role. But the leader takes the position “out front”. In fact, one of the Greek words for leader, proistemi (literally: “to stand in front”), means to head, rule, direct or manage. It’s used of both church leaders (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; 1 Timothy 5:17) and fathers (1 Timothy 3:4,12). It’s also the word used for the gift of leadership (Romans 12:8). Leadership is not a position of privilege. It’s a position of responsibility.

Hi Chip,

When I studied the Ephesians 5 passage (in a class called, “Paul and His Letters”), I read in a couple of commentaries that the word “hupotasso” was often used in describing military structure, or even battle formations. The commentator wrote that in the case of husbands and wives, that one way to think of the “order” of the man being in the lead and the woman subordinate to him was that the husband was out front in a position with more danger, responsible for strategies and decisions, and the wife was behind him because she would be more protected, yet she was still very much “in the battle.”
I really latched onto this image and have thought of it throughout my marriage. It seems to fit the ways you’ve been describing the authority/subordinate relationships as God designed them - would you say it’s an accurate image?

I’ve loved this series. It’s been refreshing to view the current political landscape in light of what the Bible teaches. While I agree and understand what we’ve been learning, I do have one question that I don’t think has been addressed yet. While, overall, acceptance of authority and submission are good things, there has to be a time when the Bible allows authority to be challenged, especially when that authority has proved to be corrupt or abusive. What verses speaks to this? When is it OK to challenge authority, according to the Bible?

OK…well…I just listened to the sermon I missed most of Sept. 14, and Chip addressed this already. Looking forward to when you cover these questions Chip.

Well put. It complicates our job to remember that God loves the world and we do need to consider our obligation to treat all the people in the world well. However, as self-ruled citizens, we have a particular responsibility to make decisions for our own citizens that honor God’s desires and promote the welfare of our own nation.

wHOOPs: Very good point this morning about Americans having leadership authority by virtue of our ability to vote. Never thought of it that way before. Also, the responsibilty to vote for something other than our best interest. This is a bit difficult to do as we are easily persuaded that what is in our best interest is in the best interest of the country, and what God would have us do. To paraphrase a recent political dustup, we should pray we vote as God would have us do, rather than assume our vote is His will.

It also seems difficult to know as a citizen of Texas / the United States, precisely where our responsibility for the best interest of our State / country supercedes more general responsiblities to promote the welfare of others outside our polity.

I appreciate this series. Secular organizations would benefit from the use of Biblical leadership principles.