I often wonder if the fallen pastors I read about genuinely had authority in their lives. Sure, many of them presided within a “plurality of elders.” But authority on paper isn’t the same thing as authority in practice. Did these fallen pastors submit their lives to anyone? Would they have listened if someone told them, “That aspect of your life is problematic and you need to change.”

Who do you submit to? Do you have anyone in your life who has the authority to deny you something you want?

Most of us spend our lives trying to move beyond such a lowly position. We go to school, hoping to one day graduate from the tyranny of assignments and due dates. We turn eighteen and immediately begin excitedly plotting life beyond parental restraint. We work various jobs hoping to one day own our own business or ascend the top of the corporate ladder. We want to “be our own boss.” When one church applies pressure we don’t like, it’s easy to find another down the street.

At the very least, we tend to relegate submission to the early stages of life, and there’s certainly an appropriate process of maturity wherein the nature of submission changes as we grow up. We rightly see a problem, for example, when a healthy twenty-five-year-old continues to take orders from his parents because he’s still living in their home and depending on their income. As we grow up, submission ought to look different. A fifty-year-old under authority is not the same as a twelve-year-old. But should it disappear altogether? Is it good for us to graduate completely from submission to authority?

I’ll show my cards. I do not believe it’s wise for any human being, at any life stage, to live completely free from life-on-life submission to authority. Whether it’s a pastor, spouse, friend, or mentor, we all need at least one person in our lives who has the authority to deny us our desires.

We live in an age of scandal. As an American evangelical (whatever than means these days), I often think to myself after another high-profile pastor falls, “I wonder who will be next.” Because of human sin and deceit, I don’t believe there’s a fool-proof way to completely eliminate such scandals.

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