“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account; let them do this with joy and not with sighing — leaders (hegemōn) deserve obedience (peithō) and submission (hypotassō); they answer for the community's spiritual welfare (psychē). Joy rather than groaning marks faithful leadership.
Church Fathers on Hebrews 13:17
Anarchy is an evil, and the occasion of many calamities, and the source of disorder and confusion. For as, if you take away the leader from a chorus, the chorus will not be in tune and in order; and if from a phalanx of an army thou remove the commander, the evolutions will no longer be made in time and order, and if from a ship thou take away the helmsman, you will sink the vessel; so too if from a flock thou remove the shepherd, you have overthrown and destroyed…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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