To obey or not obey, surely depends on who your pastor or spiritual leader really is ,suppose it was david koresh of waco texas or jim jones or moon. If your pastor decides he would rather have sex with you than his wife would you be in rebellion to say no? In an ideal world you could rely on your Pastor to rightly divide the word of God ,sadly too many Powerfully anointed men of God these days are only in it for the money and the ego trip Wolves in sheeps clothing are not sheep!

To Love or to Lord.... that is the question for some of these men.

Isn't everyone within the body of Christ glued together by Love?

Good points guys...

I think an understanding of Church leadership is required. Pastors are not only shepherds/servants but Spiritual leaders of a Church. Their governance should be (as Mythy alluded to) based on scripture. We remain as members of a congregation in "submission" to their leadership in the Church. I trust my Pastor to lead the church and serve the Church. However he doesn't and won't micromanage my life and tell me what to do in my life. That is what working out your own salvation with fear and trembling means.

This Hebrews 13 scripture indicates submission to a godly leader in the Church as in a Pastor or Elder etc in the area of Church governance. But this is not teaching that they are my anyone's headship or stand between me and my relationship with God.

The Bible also states that we are to "submit one to another". Does this make everybody in the Church our headship?

These modern day "spirtual dynamo's" some people refer to as 'pastor's' or 'men of God', if they exert their supposed God given authority beyond the Word of God, then they are nothing, and not to be obeyed or even taken seriously.

The Potter wrote:The scripture in Hebrews 13 talks about those who rule over you. This word literally means: to command with the sense of having official authority and is the same word used for a judge or governor............ In addition those who are ruled are directed to obey or assent to their authority not just follow their good (or in some cases bad) examples.