1. A pastor cannot effectively teach that the members should submit to him.
It is true that Hebrews 13:17 instructs the members to submit to church leadership (as well as announcing that the ministers will be giving account for those same members, a scary thought).
However, the pastor may not be able to preach this very well and certainly won’t be the one to enforce it.
For him to call the congregation to such submission appears self-serving and heavy-handed. The enemy loves to turn such instructions into weapons to be wielded against him.
(And, let us admit that some pastors do love to lord it over their congregations and will wield scripture as a weapon to keep the membership in line. The Apostle Peter addresses this preacher-problem in I Peter 5:3.)
In teaching principles of submission to leadership, a pastor can do several things:
1. He can teach general principles of submission, such as Ephesians 5:21, which calls for all of the Lord’s children to submit to the other; principles of humility, such as we have in Romans 12:3 and Philippians 2:3; and principles of servanthood, such as are found in John 13:1ff and Luke 17:7-10.
2. He can model the same principles of submission to the members (and other leaders), humility and servanthood. People do not mind humbling themselves before someone who loves them dearly and is devoted to them.
3. He can teach principles of leadership and submission to his mature leadership, perhaps the Sunday School teachers, in quiet informal settings where they are invited to respond with their own questions and insights. Then, these teachers can teach others (see Second Timothy 2:2).
4. He can invite visiting teachers (often a professor whom he knows well and has been mentored by) to cover some of these areas as one part of a larger teaching assignment.
