Limits of Submission...

Richard J. Foster wrote a book I'm working through. In Celebration of Discipline, he describes several traditional "disciplines", of which one is the discipline of submission.

A subsection of this chapter speaks about the "limits of submisson". Foster draws the line at the point where the act of submission becomes "destructive". He supports his stand with the idea that destructive submission, "...becomes a denial of the law of love as taught by Jesus and is an affront to genuine bliblical submission."

Foster - a quaker - is not one to bend doctrine or tradition. He points out Peter's call for radical submission to the State, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be the emporer as supreme, or to the governors..." (1 Peter 2:13, 14) However, Foster also points out an occasion when the government of his day commanded the Church to stop proclaiming Christ. Peter did not submit, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:19, 20)

The seemingly contradictory stances by Peter - inspired by God for documentation in the Bible - have thrown a wrench in the machine of my mind. I tend to err on the side of the dogmatic when it comes to judgement. I have been guilty of taking a verse from the Bible and holding it up as my measuring stick for evaluating people and their actions. Particularly regarding the issue of divorce, I have held in my heart a grudge against anybody who leaves one spouse for another. While I still believe that sin is sin, I feel as though I need to spend more time digging into examples in the Bible beyond my staple "one-liners" aimed at justifying judgement. Just another example of the limits of human understanding and the need to trust authority to our omniscient God. In this case there should be no limit to my submission.