Here are two very clear admonitions for members of local congregations to recognize that God has placed men as shepherds to rule over and to watch out for their souls. There is an important imperative for the people of God attached to the explanation about what elders are to do, namely, obey. This does not mean that congregants are blindly to obey their elders or to submit to them on any matter upon which they may speak.

Antinomianism has certainly received its fair share of just criticism in recent years–predominantly on account of its pernicious presence in the pulpits across our land. While the doctrinal forms of Antinomianism are quite pernicious, its practical forms are sometimes even more dangerous; after all, “bad company corrupts good morals.” Yet, for all the attention that theologians have given to battling Antinomianism in the realm of individual Christian belief and experience, there is a widespread form of Antinomianism that requires more attention, namely, ecclesiastical Antinomianism.

Far too many who live within the pale of the church, have little to no respect for the authority of God in the church. Men and women leave local churches over the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of matters (e.g. the music is not what they wanted it to be, the children’s ministry is not as fully developed as they would have it, the people in the church do not measure up to their particular standard of social compatibility, the pastor has a conviction about Christian liberty on one point of minutiae with which they differ, the elders will not allow them to oversee a particular ministry, etc).

The heart of ecclesiastical Antinomianism is that people act as though the Scriptures have nothing to say about church government or about the responsibility of men, women, boys and girls in the church to submit to the authority of the pastor(s)/elders.

The author of Hebrews, at the end of a letter in which he calls his readers to give heed to the warnings not to depart from Christ, gives the following two admonitions about those whom God has given the church to keep the members of a local congregation close to Christ:

“Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follows” (Heb. 13:7).
“Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you” (Heb. 13:17).

Here are two very clear admonitions for members of local congregations to recognize that God has placed men as shepherds to rule over and to watch out for their souls. There is an important imperative for the people of God attached to the explanation about what elders are to do, namely, obey.

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