Obey God Rather Than Men

Acts 4:19- 20; Acts 5:29

Peter and John are commanded by the religious leaders not to say anything more to the people about Jesus. They respond, "Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you or to Him?" Basically, should we do what you tell us to do or what God tells us to do? They go back to teaching about Jesus, and in the next chapter, they are again called before the religious leaders. "Didn't we tell you not to teach any more about Jesus?" In Act 5:29, Peter begins their response with "we must obey God rather than human beings."

This is the only exception in the Bible to obeying your leaders. When a leader (at work or anywhere else) asks/tells you to do something that is contrary to God, you must say no. You should say no respectfully, but you must not follow what a leader tells you when that instruction contradicts God's Word. If only some of the executives at Enron would have said no when told to be dishonest. If only some of people in the housing industry would have said no when instructed to compromise because of greed.

There are many times when our supervisors have us do something that we don't like. This passage doesn't necessarily apply to those times. In fact, I would probably guess that it's rare for this exception to come into play--you need to obey your supervisor under almost every circumstance. But you also need to think, to not blindly follow. The Bible gives several examples of other followers who disagreed with their leaders. In those instances, the followers were respectful but stood for what was right.