<p>20:25&nbsp;<em>But Jesus called them to himself, and said: You know</em>- This is in response to the anger of the ten against the self-seeking manipulation of the two. He now taught them the spirit of absolute servanthood as an answer to feeling resentful against the unspirituality of our brethren. Even if they are indeed so terribly wrong and simply 'don't get it', as the two brethren clearly didn't, our response should not be anger but rather servanthood towards them. This is all to be found in the implication of the word &quot;But...&quot;.</p><p><em>That the rulers of the Gentiles</em>- The&nbsp;<em>archon</em>, literally, 'the first'. The Lord had just taught in the parable of the labourers that a principle of His Kingdom was that the first were to be last.</p><p><em>Lord it over them- </em>Gk.&nbsp;<em>katakurieuo</em>. Literally, to be&nbsp;<em>kurios</em>&nbsp;over, to be as Lord over. His idea was that if He is our&nbsp;<em>only</em>&nbsp;Lord, then there can be no lording it over others even when they are clearly unspiritual as the two brethren were at this time. This is where our belief in the Lordship of Jesus really cuts deep. For we naturally would like to think that we are superior to those who 'don't get it' about the spirit of Christ. But we are to see Him as total Lord, and ourselves as servants. Our natural anger and indignation at others' weakness is to be replaced by servanthood. And yet the body of Christ is littered with the wreckage of believers angry with others who refused to serve them but rather stormed out from them or rejected them- rather than staying to serve them, realizing that they are under the Lordship.</p><p>The style of leadership / control known in this world isn&rsquo;t to be exercised by the elders of God&rsquo;s flock (Mt. 20:25,26; 1 Pet. 5:3); ecclesial organization shouldn&rsquo;t reflect the structures and practices of big commercial organisations, e.g. Leadership is to be based upon spiritual attributes and the ability to change and convert the lives of others, rather than secular skills such as fund raising, computer literacy, management etc. Yet sadly many ecclesias and Christian organisations seem to confuse the difference between management skills and spiritual leadership. The two things aren&rsquo;t the same. An executive director of a company may very well not be the right brother to lead an ecclesia. The Greek language is full or words containing the compounds&nbsp;<em>kata-</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>arch</em>-, implying power over others, as part of a hierarchy. The leaders of the Roman world used these terms (Mt. 20:25), as did the synagogue leadership. But never does scripture use these kind of words about those who are &lsquo;elders&rsquo; in the true ecclesia. It&rsquo;s a pointed omission. On the other hand, there are many&nbsp;<em>sun-</em>&nbsp;prefixes: fellow-worker, fellow-citizen, fellow-soldier, fellow-heir etc. The New Testament emphasis is certainly on what we have in common rather on the fact that in practice some are more capable of organising, or deserve especial respect for their evident spirituality and &ldquo;for their work&rsquo;s sake&rdquo;. And the teaching of the Lord Himself was more concerned with how to follow Him than how to lead others. Likewise, there were many contemporary Greek words used to describe religious gatherings, e.g.&nbsp;<em>heorte, synodos, koinos</em>. But instead the word&nbsp;<em>ekklesia</em>&nbsp;is used, meaning a gathering together of town citizens with equal rights to discuss a matter. This is how the word was understood at that time.</p><p><em>And their great ones-&nbsp;</em>The&nbsp;<em>megas</em>, the mighty, the strong, the superior. The context is the sense of spiritual superiority felt by the ten against the spiritual weakness of the two brethren and their mother.&nbsp;</p><p><em>Exercise authority over them</em>- They have&nbsp;<em>exousia</em>, power, control, over their inferiors. It is the Lord Jesus who is&nbsp;<em>the</em>&nbsp;Lord, and who has this&nbsp;<em>exousia</em>&nbsp;uniquely over His followers and indeed the whole world (Mt. 7:29; 9:6; 21:24; 28:18 etc.). For us to be indignant and superior against the unspirituality of our brethren is thus to usurp the unique role of the Lord Jesus. Quite rightly should we refer to Him as &quot;the Lord&quot;, for this is who He must be in daily life and thought. The failure of others does give us in a human sense this&nbsp;<em>exousia</em>, this control, power and superiority- but the Lord goes on to say that it must&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;be so amongst us (:26), we are to resign this for servanthood. The Lord repeated His teaching here almost verbatim in Lk. 22:25- and He states it there immediately after predicting that one of the twelve would betray Him. He did so because He did not want them to be angry and superior over even Judas- He wanted them to instead resign those feelings for servanthood.</p>