Command Responsibility-The "Flip Side" of Submission
The name that I will give to the symmetric compliment of submission is "Command Responsibility." It is the recognition of those in authority that they have responsibilities and obligations to those who submit to them whose violation justifies the termination of submission outside of the chain of human command. That is, these responsibilities and obligations are placed on human authorities by God at the same time they are given their authority, power, and mission. Although they may be enforced by superior human authorities, they cannot be waived by any human authority. More importantly, in the event of violation of those responsibilities and obligations, those under submission are no longer are obligated to submit. As proof, recall what I said earlier about a slave who lost a tooth or an eye due to cruelty on the part of the master: the slave had the right to walk away! (Exodus 21:26-27)
I do not apologize for deriving the term of "command responsibility" from behavior demonstrated by the best Officers of the United States Armed Forces (especially seeing that this paragraph was written on September 11, 2010). In the context of American military operations, completing the mission given to the group is understood as paramount by everyone in the group. In order to do this, it is understood that not everyone in the group knows everything, and that everyone should work together toward the goal of completing the mission. Thus, the line soldiers completely submit to the orders of their superior officers. However, it is always understood that those officers, within the parameters of the mission as well as in contexts, have a command responsibility to treat their subordinates well. In fact, lower level officers obey with vigor because they themselves, being familiar with the idea of command responsibility, know that the same responsibility rests on their superior offiers that would obligate them to reward obedience! A platoon of solders does not voluntarily rise up and charge into withering fire at the order of their officers because they have a complete understanding of the geopolitical benefits to their nation of winning a warm water seaport. That sort of obedience is gained by soldiers seeing, day in and day out, their officers exercising care and concern for them so when that order comes, they would obey because they know that their officers would refuse to send them into any situation not worth their lives. In fact, there is a practice followed by the officer corps of the finest armies of this world that is uniformly not practiced by the officer corps of lesser armies: the officers lead the charge. Those giving the orders live them out and live under them themselves. Israel has survived partly because their officers lead from the front, suffering from higher casualty rates than their troops, while their Arab counterparts command from the rear, feeling themselves too valuable to risk in situations into which they are ready to send others.
While Jesus denied that faith could not be grown, he did talk of faith being great or small. After an examination of the incidents where he labelled faith great and small, my current working hypothesis is this: A small faith has little or no confidence that God will carry out His Command Responsibilities, while a great faith not only acts on the belief that God will carry out His Command Responsibilities, but also understands that God Himself feels obligated to carry out those Responsibilities toward those who understand that He has them, and who therefore calculatedly obeys so as to benefit from that feeling of obligation. Recall that the slave Jesus spoke about in Luke 17:5-10 had the right to eat after obeying all the commands given to him.
To put it another way, a man of great faith does not obey God and work to advance God's known interests hoping that God will reward him.
He's deliberately counting on it.
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