Authority, submission, and chain of command

[ABlessedMan]

• I am willing to submit myself to the expectations of the BF site and forum, or accept revocation of posting privileges if I violate protocol.
• In matters of plural marriage (only) I am willing to submit myself to counsel, direction, and rule by those seasoned veterans of PM worthy of being considered elders.
• Since I have no experience in PM, and can only see through my glass darkly, I need to digest the counsel of those with proven track records of maintaining a unified plural family (it need not be a perfect family, but one in order).
• I am willing to implement rulings by these elders as I know they have a sncere desire to see a future PM succeed and be a good testimony to the non- believer or non-practitioner.
• I reserve the right to revoke my submission should any or all of the elders prove themselves to be unworthy of such submission (moral, and/or biblical shortcomings) or should their rulings prove to be consistently unreliable.

I think everything MOJO has said is right and important. I do have a question, however. In some ways this view of 'submission' feels like a cell-phone plan. Policy isn't bad, but as I was reading Proverbs this morning I was struck by all of the sayings about having the courage to rebuke and the willingness to accept it:

A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. (Pro 13:1 ESV)

Whoever says to the wicked, "You are in the right," will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,
25 but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.
(Pro 24:24-25 ESV)

10 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. (Pro 17:10 ESV)

5 Better is open rebuke than hidden love. (Pro 27:5 ESV)

Conversely, the absolute worst character in Proverbs is the 'scoffer' . . . who is characterized by a fist shaking arrogance. . . who is beyond hope of correction:

7 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. (Pro 9:7-8 ESV)

Worse yet is the fact that he is basically characterized as one who refuses to listen to rebuke:

A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. (Pro 13:1 ESV).

Really Listening, is something that I think should be listed before MOJO's 'willingness to submit.' . . . and in a lot of ways listening may be more difficult for us as men: especially if we feel threatened or shamed in an interchange. Without those having courage to rebuke, we cannot improve. Lacking the ability to consider and accept rebuke . . . puts us in a category where we don't want to be. Thoughts? Thanks, guys.

 

[andrew]

^^^A million likes.^^^

As trite as it sounds, "daddy issues" really are a thing in our culture. It's hard to find an extended family that has positive male bonds all the way through granddad to grandson (grandpa to dad, dad to son, grandpa to son). My relationship with my father has been hot and cold over the decades (significantly due to poly, and moderately due to culture change and inter-generational differences in values and the misunderstandings and 'disunderstandings' that are caused thereby). And I have eight sons and four grandsons, and my relationships there range from pretty solid to pretty flimsy (better as I got better at being a dad; still working on getting better at being a granddad...).

The feminization/neuterization of our culture has left men (generally) adrift, cut off from truly, distinctively male bonds with elders (tribal sense, not Elders), peers, and youngers.

My hypothesis (not the first time I've stated it for BF) is that as we men are learning to reformat* our home lives, our next project will be to reformat the way we understand inter-family relationships, which from a biblical pov will be primarily driven by male-HOH-to-male-HOH relationships.

And really listening to each other is a great place to start....

-------

* I like 'reformat', and I'm going to start using that more, but to look a little more closely at the metaphor, what I was getting at would be more accurately stated as "reformat the hard drive where our cultural conditioning is stored, and install a new operating system based on biblical principles".

-------

And now that I'm thinking more about this and connecting some dots, I find it curiously exciting that my household just started a new project on Monday, which will last for the month of August, during which we are 'rethinking everything' from the ground up. Mostly driven by an effort to reorganize our household belongings and furnishings (our 'stuff'), emphasizing functionality and utility and de-emphasizing (or ignoring) sentimentality and 'the way it's always been done', the project is opening cans of worms ranging from our understanding of our family's mission, to the habits and inertia built into our intra-family relationships, to our inter-family relationships on the ground and in cyberspace. I've got $100 says there are some really interesting insights yet to come (and we've seen a bunch in the past 48 hours)....

 

[Mojo]

@ABlessedMan
Thank you for your excellent admonition. Listening is certainly one of those attributes that the APCM finds himself lacking sometimes. It is a great reminder for us all.

I do agree that my compact seems to be a bit cold sounding. It was what was on my mind at the time and is open for modification in the future. I've never met any of the elders of this ministry in person, so the warmth of a correspondence between two brothers in Christ is evidently missing.

I just want to point out that covenants are essentially contracts, or agreements written out between two parties. One of the more famous in scripture really reads as an if, then proposition. So, for now, I've offered the simple ifs and BF elders will provide the thens.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

 

[andrew]

I've never met any of the elders of this ministry in person....

Well, that is something we shall have to r-r-remedy, isn't it?

 

[andrew]

BTW, I've got a whole study on the role of "uncles" just waiting for the right retreat....

 

[MrB]

I don't mind admitting this thread has pushed a few of my buttons and caused me to think hard.
Yes Call them "daddy issues" if you will.
I've struggled with the authority issues within the institution on and off for a reasonable time.
Perhaps it's due to the disconnect between what I've expected vs what I got.
My parents instilled in me as a child that "they where called Christian" and not "they called themselves Christian".
They label you ,not you label you
And I teach my children that if I have to tell you I'm a Christian ,I'm probably not doing it right.
Likewise with other things ...pastor, plumber ,elder, friend the list goes on.
If you do the job, people know who you are.
Maybe this hasn't helped with accepting authority. Particularly if it's a label and doesn't function.
Ill come to terms with it all in time I guess

The question I've got that I'm working through is " why didn't Jesus lay out the authority framework for the gathering when plainly he started it?"or did he?
But then this could be just another excuse to not go with the flow on my behalf.
I'm wondering if he wanted more from us than that model?
I'm going to have to do a bunch more reading I can see
Thanks to all you lot for softening me up a bit and making me think

 

[Mojo]

The question I've got that I'm working through is " why didn't Jesus lay out the authority framework for the gathering when plainly he started it?"or did he?
But then this could be just another excuse to not go with the flow on my behalf.
I'm wondering if he wanted more from us than that model?
I'm going to have to do a bunch more reading I can see
Thanks to all you lot for softening me up a bit and making me think

My first thought is that there are a lot of things Jesus did not express directly. We only have account of the most important items we needed to know. Are you discounting the epistles and Acts of the Apostles as not authoritative?

In Matthew 23, Jesus addressed the role of religious leaders and acknowledged that what they told the people to observe, they were to observe. They just had to be wary of the personal lives of those religious leaders.

Jesus essentially commissioned Peter to "feed my sheep".

From my recollections, James and Peter were immediately recognized as leaders of the church in Jerusalem.

I don't see where Jesus deliberately told any of his followers to go out of their way to ignore leadership. His main emphasis was scolding the established leaders for not living up to the expectations required of them.

 

[Slumberfreeze]

The question I've got that I'm working through is " why didn't Jesus lay out the authority framework for the gathering when plainly he started it?"or did he?

Jesus had said:

12“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14“He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose itto you. 15“All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.

My answer would be that Jesus would have charted out the authority structure clearly for them, if they could have dealt with it. As it was, they struggled with the concept of His fast approaching death, burial, and resurrection, things that we (doctrinally speaking) take for granted. As it was, He was already bombarding them with more meaning than they could handle. Therefore He left it for the Holy Spirit to guide the disciples.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Now suddenly we're drifting back towards somewhere I can't go, implying a biblical basis for a specific structure or a clear spelled out authority.

It appears to me that there is to be a structure and an authority but the details are very negotiable to the point of being completely voluntary. Nothing specific was laid out.

 

[Mojo]

Now suddenly we're drifting back towards somewhere I can't go, implying a biblical basis for a specific structure or a clear spelled out authority.

It appears to me that there is to be a structure and an authority but the details are very negotiable to the point of being completely voluntary. Nothing specific was laid out.

Zec, I hear you. No, Jesus himself did not lay out a plan for church government. Nobody here would say he did. But did he preach against authority? No.

I think of voluntary submission like I think of Pioneers heading west on a wagon train.
Did Lewis and Clark get a compass and head west? No. They had guides helping them.
Did wagon trains start out by blazing their own trails? No. They first started using maps from trappers and other mountain men.
Did the mountain men and trappers just wander around the wilderness? No. They usually made friends with the Indians who knew the terrain.
Did the Indians just instinctively know how to get from watering hole to watering hole? No. They usually travelled down animal trails to track game.

The Indians had to submit to the instincts of the animals.
The trappers had to submit to the knowledge of the Indians.
The wagon trains submitted to the knowledge of the trappers.

Is it possible to get from Potland, Maine to Portland, Oregon without a map? Sure. But wouldn't it be safer and faster to utilize a trail guide written by someone who has either been where you want to go, or has consulted and studied with those who already have?

 

[andrew]

Therefore He left it for the Holy Spirit to guide the disciples.

It appears to me that there is to be a structure and an authority but the details are very negotiable to the point of being completely voluntary. Nothing specific was laid out.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

I submit that Jesus is still speaking to his people today by the Spirit, and his people are still hearing and responding. Zec, I don't think you and Slumberfreeze are necessarily adversarial on this one.

 

[andrew]

I'm in Houston, started a response to Zec, computer battery got low, I realized to my horror I had left my charger at home ($65 mistake...), ran to OfficeMax to buy a charger, came back and posted, then saw Mojo's excellent post.

Is it possible to get from Potland, Maine to Portland, Oregon without a map? Sure. But wouldn't it be safer and faster to utilize a trail guide written by someone who has either been where you want to go, or has consulted and studied with those who already have?

Makes so much sense when you say it like that!...

It appears to me that there is to be a structure and an authority but the details are very negotiable to the point of being completely voluntary. (emphasis added)

Not sure where you're headed with that. Where we agree is that I believe there is not enough structural blueprint in the bible to say any one structure is the only biblical one. What we can do (maybe) on the basis of what the bible does say is rule out certain obvious non-starters. From there each group is going to have to figure out what God's leading them to do.

 

[Slumberfreeze]

It appears to me that there is to be a structure and an authority but the details are very negotiable to the point of being completely voluntary. Nothing specific was laid out.

I don't think i can go as far as "details are completely voluntary". I assume none of us will budge on female elders not being allowed? And this is because the language about the qualifications in scripture are held to be non-negotiable. I think that although there is not a clear step-by-step instruction manual on how to set up and arrange church leadership, nevertheless there are enough instructions here and there to disallow ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING THAT IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING IN THE CHURCH enough serious mistakes to keep us out of trouble. Beyond that, we potentially have room for customization. My main focus is on carving out clear errors. Having done that, most of what follows should be gravy.

Zec, I don't think you and Slumberfreeze are necessarily adversarial on this one.

Heck no it's not necessary! We ENJOY being adversarial!

What we can do (maybe) on the basis of what the bible does say is rule out certain obvious non-starters. From there each group is going to have to figure out what God's leading them to do.

That dog'll hunt!

 

[andrew]

Beyond that, we potentially have room for customization.

"Customization"—I like it! Figure out the 'main and plain', and from there each group does as it will.

Heck no it's not necessary! We ENJOY being adversarial!

You guys....