Knowing God as Father through Jesus as Messiah and Teacher has major implications for how disciples of Jesus relate to social and religious leaders—like the scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus speaks of men in both groups as occupying a social and religious position (‘seat’) connected to Moses—the giver of the Torah and founder of their nation. Such positions gave them a great deal of social power. And since everyone grew up under the social power of parents, it was easy to go along with the social expectation that such religious leaders needed to be treated like ‘fathers’. Yet Jesus tells his disciples not to do this; for all who follow him become part of a new family kingdom with only ‘one Father’. And this means having only one primary status in relation to each other—that of being ‘brothers and sisters’. If you are an adult disciple of Jesus, knowing who you are in relation to your Father is the foundation for how you must now relate to social and religious power—both in relation to people who have it, and to how you exercise whatever social power you have.

The first thing Jesus tells his disciples is that they must continue to respect and submit to the legal rulings of the scribes, and to the biblical teaching of the Pharisees—even though they are misusing, and often abusing their social power. Paul, writing during the evil reign of the emperor Nero, says the same thing; for all positions of social power ‘come from God’ and have been part of his good creation from the beginning (Rom.13:1; Col.1:15-16). So we must respect and submit to government officials even when we are visiting a country like North Korea, or living in a Muslim community. At the same time, being respectful and submissive does not imply giving such leaders unquestioned obedience (Act.5:19). I learned this lesson as a young man facing obligatory military duty in the USA. As a follower of Jesus I felt strongly that I could not participate in the Vietnam War. Fortunately, my request to do alternate service was granted (see Med.#27). However, if it had not been granted, I would have refused to obey any order to report to the army, while accepting the consequence of my choice by submitting to American authorities should they send me to jail.

A second thing Jesus says to his disciples is, ‘keep your distance’ from social and religious leaders who are hypocritical, or abusive—especially towards people who are vulnerable. So with religious and social leaders who promote themselves as teachers of biblical truth or as advocates for biblical change, we need to ‘test the spirits’ (Med.#55). Five decades ago many American Christians coming to the White House were unaware of how Nixon's staff carefully scripted these visits, and the weekly church services there, to give the impression that the President shared their values and was on their ‘side’.[iv] Ten years later, prominent Evangelical leaders publicly associated themselves with General Rios Montt, seeing him as an ally for Christian social change in Guatamala—even though he had staged a coup d'état to become president. Did these Evangelical leaders learn anything when Nixon was forced to resign for covering up illegal practices? Or when Montt was convicted for ‘crimes against humanity and genocide’ against his country's indigenous peoples? I wonder.

Thirdly, Jesus tells his disciples that they must not imitate the privileged, presumptuous, hypocritical and abusive behavior of the scribes and Pharisees. He has to tell them this, because social power in a sinful world has become tied to ideas of privilege, and because social power and privilege are usually institutionalized in ways that only benefit certain classes of people—based on things like gender, wealth, education, occupation, skin color, marital status, age, fame, charisma, etc. So it is quite easy for disciples of Jesus, when they themselves have social power, to unconsciously start acting like the scribes and Pharisees. These demonstrate how even teachers of the Bible and advocates for biblical change can also be self-promoting, abusive and racist. And how they too can live by a double standard and use one's position to enrich themselves (Lk.16:14)!

The scribes and Pharisees were ‘blind’ to their misuse of social power and to the impact of this on their mission work (Mat.23:15-16a). Even so today, in many Christian circles, social power and privilege is the ‘elephant in the room’. Even in the West, where those with it refuse to acknowledge it, claiming: ‘We are all equal’! When I spent a summer in Harlem, New York, I presumed that even as a 20-year-old I could simply go anywhere I chose and make a difference for Jesus. I needed a black church elder to show me that it is not that simple. ‘Look at your skin’ he said. ‘People here see you as someone who can leave any time he wants to, and they can't. To have any impact, you need to serve people here out of a skill or profession that they see as benefiting their community.’ That conversation was a transforming moment in my life. But recently I had to think of my own previous cluelessness, while viewing a video clip of some American young people—all ‘white’, educated, urbanized and well-off—trying to lead a poor black village mother in Uganda to Jesus. Her body language, silence, glances at the camera, deference and inaudible words while repeating the ‘sinners' prayer’ all told me how very aware she was of the social power of these kids, while they were oblivious to it.

We represent a new kind of family kingdom in which we all have one Father. Therefore, those of us with more social power are responsible to act in ways that do ‘not allow’ our ‘brothers and sisters’ (or potential ones) to accord us a higher status; for positions and social power, like spiritual gifts, are only given to help us humbly serve others (1 Cor.4:6-7). Similarly, adult disciples with less social power also have a responsibility —to not act like under-age children in relation to those with more social power. Rev. Eric Law noticed that at inter-church conferences, the ‘white’ people did all the talking while ‘people of color’ mostly remained quiet. This, he says, is because people in Anglo-American families usually grow up with the idea that everyone has the power to contribute to a discussion. But in most other cultures, people learn to only speak up when invited to do so by a more powerful person. So he developed a ‘mutual invitation’ protocol for discussions, in which the ‘whites’ must learn to wait to be invited to speak, while each ‘person of color’, after speaking, must learn to exercise more social power by inviting someone else to speak.[v] One Dutch participant, after learning this protocol at one of our workshops, returned to Africa and used it there. ‘I was amazed’ she wrote ‘how well it helped local people begin participating in discussions with their Westerner colleagues.’ In the Father's family kingdom, the goal of leadership is to promote growth in maturity for each member (Med.#50 & Med.#80).

Are you showing respect for all social and religious leaders, yet keeping your distance from those who are hypocritical or abusive? If you have more social power than others around you, are you exercising it the way Jesus told you to? What can you do to become more confident as an adult son or daughter of the Father in the way you relate to people with social power—both in your church or ministry group, and in other spheres of society?

Father, I choose to look to you as the only true father who is over all and who is in all my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me uphold Jesus as the only ‘master’ and ‘teacher’ to all my current and potential brothers and sisters, by using whatever I have been given to humbly serve them for their benefit. (Mat.23:8-12; Eph.3:14-15; 4:5; 1 Cor.4:7)

[i] The Scripture passage is taken from J.K. Mellis, The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses: pp.211-212.

[ii] Boxes containing texts from the Torah that were worn on the forehead and on the arm.

[iii] Jesus is referring to an elite individual or class of people in a religious or quasi-religious group who are allowed to exercise unquestioned spiritual authority over the loves of others in the group. Like a cult leader or like the scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus' day.

[iv] Charles Colson, in Kingdoms in Conflict, Zondervan, 1987, pp.307-308.

[iv] Eric Law, The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality for Leadership in a Multicultural Community, Chalice Press, 1993. Learn more by reading this book review of Eric Law’s book.