Authority in the church

I have written a lot about authority but always felt that something was missing. How could Paul, who was Jewish, have a view of authority which resembled that of the early popes? And why do some churches say that the church elders, leaders, etc, have "authority?"

Tonight, in the fray over here at Denny Burk's blog, where the comments have gone over 900, and are heading for 1000, a group of women are staging an internet sit-in to protest the complementarian interpretation of Genesis. We defy categorization. We are women whose lives have been touched by complementarianism. We are not secular feminists infiltrating the bibliosphere. We are former/quasi complementarian women who protest our condition as "created for subordination."

Thank you, Bonnie, Molly, Corrie, Gem, Paula, Quixote, Madame, Kathy, Cheryl, Ellen, (on the other side, but also a friend of this blog) We want to buck and chafe against the teaching of eternal subordination. Wouldn't you?

In that conversation, the submission of Christians to the authority of church leaders was mentioned. Here is the verse, Hebrews 13:17,

πείθεσθε τοῖς ἡγουμένοις ὑμῶν καὶ ὑπείκετε αὐτοὶ

Be yielding unto them who are guiding you, and submit yourselves; Rotherham

Obey your leaders and submit to them NASB

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: KJV

Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. NIV

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, TNIV

Oops. Wow. Ideas that are introduced the this text are "obey," and "authority." Odd, these are the words that are so often also added into marriage relations. If these words were not in the text, why do they need to be added into the text? What impulse causes translators to insert words into the text?

In fact, in the Greek NT, I cannot recall any mention that church leaders have authority over anyone at all.

Luther discovered this very same thing. Its too late for me to dig that out now. Here is how he translated Hebrews 13:17,

Gehorcht euren Lehrern und folgt ihnen

Obey your teachers and follow them

Notice how Luther interprets this, "your teachers." The difference between that and the KJV, "those that rule over you" and the (T)NIV, "their authority." The text is coloured by translation and sometimes I don't like the colour.

One could just as properly translate this text as,

Trust your teachers and follow them.

The authors of the epistles were Jewish, right? And what was the Jewish notion of authority?

In modern Judaism, central authority is not vested in any single person or body, but in sacred texts, traditions, and learned Rabbis who interpret those texts and laws. Wikipedia

Think on these things.