Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20
Jesus said to him, ”Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Matthew 8:7–9
“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Matthew 12:36–37
Jesus called them together and said, ”You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:42–45
For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written:
“’As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.
Romans 14:7–13
In the Bible, authority and accountability are always yoked together. Authority comes from taking one’s place in a chain of command with God at the head. Even those things we assume to be ours – “my body… my life… my children…” are not our own but lent us on trust by God.
Far from being an irksome servitude, there is great freedom in this as well as wholesome discipline. For if it is to God that we are accountable, then we are free indeed – no man is our master, even if the world calls us slaves. And, however high our status may be in the eyes of the world, we bear continually in mind that for our every action, every word we have spoken, we must give account on the Day of Judgment. Those who know this are kept from pride and arrogance even when their status in human society sets them above the restraint of their fellow human beings.
We also find peace more readily when faced with the wrongdoing of others – for we know that they too are accountable to God; one day there will be justice.
O God of power and might, our Lord, our king, our judge, look with mercy upon our human frailty, we pray. We acknowledge our waywardness and wilfulness, the foolish empty things we have said – and the unkind, spiteful things too. We ask your forgiveness. Make us whole and strengthen us in your service, we beseech you, so that when the day comes that we stand before you as our judge, we shall know ourselves cleansed, justified, and free from sin, because we kept a short account with Jesus, in whose holy name we pray; Amen.
