[둘로스 목요일 저녁] 순종 독후감 > 제자학교

• 목록

The book gave its definition of obedience and submission in the following way. Obedience deals with our responsive actions towards authority. Submission deals with our attitude toward authority. 

I have a love hate relationship with the word submission. 

Ephesians 5:22

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 

It sounded wonderful, because in my relationship, I like to take the lead, so I thought I found a biblical justification for my personality. 

However, I soon realized this submission applied to me as well. 

James 4:7 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

I realized as the eventual head of the household, I had the main responsibility of submitting to God. 

This was OK, because afterall God is the supreme creator. Despite my ego, I have no choice, but to submit to God. For the past four or five years, I had been on a slow and painful journey in becoming a true disciple of Jesus, which makes the idea of submitting to God acceptable and even pleasant. 

The book goes on to talk about submission to delegated authority as well. This idea is hard for me, because the delegated authorities are human, which makes them sinners (although a repenting sinner). 

In the book, Pastor John mentions 

“God commanded us to honor, pray for, intercede for, and give thanks for those in authority.” 

“God has told us not to bash, criticize, fight with, or make fun of them.”

Because I have worked in a corporate environment as a software engineer, where feedback to authority has been encouraged, I have to do my best not to be critical of our church. 

Pastor John does give us an “out” in that if it’s revealed that an authority in the church is in blatant corruption or sin, we are released from obedience only when leaders tell us to sin. However, even in those cases we are to keep a humble and submitted attitude. 

As of March 2026, I have a hard time accepting the whole content of the book. 

However, I want to end with Romans 8:28: 

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a] for those who are called according to his purpose.”

I want to believe that our leadership is aligned with God and daily submits to God. Honestly, even if the leadership were not in alignment with God, I don’t have the spiritual discernment to know that. 

What I can work on is my heart. I pray that even during this season of rebellion (partial submission), God will teach our leaders patience. I pray that when this season is over, I can fully submit not only to God, but to the delegated authorities that God has set over me. 

Amen.