Mark 10:42

And Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister, and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.

This amazing passage has the style of a Hebrew parallelism in which the same thought is repeated in different words; but it definitely goes beyond a mere parallelism. "Those who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles" contrasts with "their great ones" who "exercise authority over them." Those who are accounted to rule are merely presuming to do so, whereas the great ones actually exercise authority. The same appears in the second parallel where "great" is a much weaker word than "first" or "chief." From this, it is plain that the passage allows the deduction that Christ here condemned the pyramided structure of authority prevalent in all earthly governments. In this manner of interpreting the passage, "great ones" in the first parallel exercise authority over those "accounted to rule." This would make those presuming to rule to be the antecedent of "them" instead of "Gentiles."

But it is not so among you ... The government of Christ's church was not to be patterned after earthly government and organizations with their pyramided echelons of authorities in rising tiers of dignity culminating in some "head"! An utterly different conception was to prevail; but, historically, churches have slipped into conformity with the old and forbidden ways of the world.

Whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all ... Only Jesus Christ was "chief" or "first" among the apostles, being designated by the Holy Spirit as "the Apostle and High Priest of our confession" (Hebrews 3:1); and, although the rule of greatness being determined by service applied to every apostle and to all Christians of all ages, this must be understood primarily as a reference of Jesus to himself, as the next verse emphatically proves.