Craig

If I try and summarize some key points from what you have all said:
AUTHORITY over others is about commanding, demanding obedience, punishing wrong, rewarding right, able to use the final “trump card”.
LEADERSHIP is about guiding, directing, pointing, protecting, assisting, giving encouragement and example to follow what is taught. (I will also add sacrificial love for christian leadership.)
In my fairly sheltered “soft comp” church experience, I think these two terms have not been so starkly contrasted. I may be wrong, but I think that if I asked many of my comp friends what it means to exercise authority in their marriage and in church they would talk more in terms of the words for leadership above. They would shrink back from the words used above for authority.
Is this unusual? Do most comps or CBMW really teach the kind of authority I have summarized above (I have only read one chapter so far of the 1991 book “Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood)? Would Mark really believe in this kind of authority? How much of the debate is a definition problem? Would more Comps agree with Egals when they argue against authority if they had the same definitions?
What is the bible evidence for these distinctions in definition? (I know some has been given but any more would be appreciated)
Thanks again.