1 Peter 5:5 “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.”
One of the great dangers as we hear biblical instruction is to think it’s for someone other than us. Have you ever done this? As you’ve listened to a sermon, has the thought ever entered your mind, “Boy, so and so really needs to hear this!” I surely have! But it’s not a good reaction. To have this attitude is to mirror the attitude Jesus condemned when he pointed to the Pharisee who prayed the following prayer: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12). The Lord condemns such spiritual pride, whether it was demonstrated in the first century temple or in the church we attended last week.
You see, God has placed us in the situation we are in for a purpose, including the situation in which He’s placed us in the local church. That church, no matter which one it is, is comprised of imperfect people. But it’s in that setting that true humility is learned. You see, it comes so naturally to us to look around and compare ourselves with ourselves. But of such people the Holy Spirit via the apostle Paul says, “But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding” (2 Corinthians 10:12). It’s this attitude that marks one as a fool. And that’s not a good place in which to be. Wouldn’t you agree?
It is in this context that we can view the verse above from 1 Peter 5. Peter is addressing the issue of submission in the context of the younger ones of the church in their relationship to the “elders.” However, the “elders” in this verse are not necessarily pointing to elders in terms of age. Rather, it’s a word the Bible uses to describe leaders in the church, and more specifically pastors and teachers. In this context, the subjection that is being referred to is the teaching these leaders do from the Word of God. Those who are younger in the faith are to understand their need to grow in that faith, and that growth comes by way of feeding on the Word of God. In a sense, all of us need to grow. Even the apostle Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you” (Philippians 3:12-15).
And so this should be every Christian’s attitude, i.e., that we’ve not arrived, that we need to press on, that we need to grow in the Lord beyond the point that we now are. And one of the ways that God has sovereignly arranged for this is in the context of the local church. He has given us people who are more mature than us in the Lord. He has given us teachers that can help us to grow. He’s given gifts to people who can help open our eyes to the truth and the depth of God’s Word. But in order for that to provide us any benefit, we must humble ourselves before God. We must have ears to hear what He is saying to us, and often what He is saying to us (and not just the other guy) is what He says to us by way of the preaching and teaching we hear. So, is that your attitude? Are you listening to the elders in your church with a desire to subject yourself to what you hear? Or does what is being said tend to go in one ear and out the other? Do you tend to be like the one James describes as a “hearer of the word and not a doer”? James tells us that such people are “like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like” (James 1:23-24).
God help us to resist this tendency that is so natural for our fallen sinful flesh. May God help us to be intentional when we hear God’s Word taught, and then to obey it. For as Jesus said, the man who does so is like a wise man who builds his house upon the rock. On the other hand, the one who hears God’s word and fails to heed and obey it, is like a fool who builds his house, i.e., his entire life, upon the sand (Matthew 7:24-27).
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