Lecture
As Aesop tells the story, the frogs down on the pond wanted a king. They bothered Jupiter so much with their requests that he finally tossed a log into the pond, and for a while the frogs were happy with their new leader. Soon, however, they discovered they could jump up and down on the leader and they could run all over him, and he offered no resistance and not even a response. Not only that, but he had no direction or purpose to his behavior. He just sort of floated back and forth on the pond. And that practice exasperated the frogs who were really sincere about wanting what they called “strong leadership.” So back to Jupiter they went and they complained about their log leader and appealed for a much stronger administrative oversight. Jupiter, weary of the complaining frogs, this time gave them a stork. The stork stood tall among the members of the group and certainly had the appearance of a leader. The frogs were quite happy with the new situation. Their leader stalked around the pond making great noises and attracting attention. And sooner or later their joy turned to sorrow because ultimately, and in a very short time, the stork began to eat all of his subordinates.
One of the major problems in implementing team leadership in the church or any other kind of Christian community is the failure to recognize not only a functional but also a biblical leadership style. I have already said that several times, and I want that to be a continuing focus of our study all the way through. I hope you will hold me to that as you do your work in the syllabus and listen to the tapes.
Frequently, we find ourselves gravitating to extremes and behaving like logs or storks in our relationship to the people with whom God allows us to work. The log, of course, was a free rein leader, letting the followers do whatever they wanted to. By the way, when you write that word, do not use a “g.” How many times have I had students write that word free reign, “r-e-i-g-n” which totally changes the meaning. Free rein, “r-e-i-n” talks about letting the reins of the horse loose and letting the horse go wherever he wants. That’s the derivation of the concept; letting followers do whatever they want. But the stork, of course, was a complete autocrat and eventually, as some modern leaders do symbolically, ate all of his followers.
In a Harvard Business Review article entitled “How to Choose a Leadership Pattern,” authors Tannenbaum and Schmidt discussed the same problem with respect to secular functions of management science.
Let me quote from that article;
The problem of how the modern manager can be democratic in his relations with subordinates and at the same time maintain the necessary authority and control in the organization for which he is responsible has come into focus increasingly in recent years.
Earlier in the century, this problem was not so acutely felt. The successful executive was generally pictured as possessing intelligence, imagination, initiative, the capacity to make rapid and generally wise decisions, and the ability to inspire subordinates. People tended to think of the world as being divided into leaders and followers.
Well, that article is not particularly new but it reflects an enormous changeover in how we understand leaders; the idea that leaders are definitely not born, they are made. Leadership is learned behavior, and the idea of some people automatically being leaders and having all these marvelous qualities is nonsense.
How interesting that the best elements of leadership style which have evolved from multi-million dollars of research on the part of industrial management science are not far removed from the leadership style which Scripture delineated from the start. These writings recognize the inherent value of the individual, the worth of human relations not only as a means to an end but as an end in itself. And that’s the focus of the Christian community. In a very real sense the church should be the most person-centered organization in the world; that sounds like something familiar you’ve heard before. Indeed, a congregation which has its vertical relationships in order, theocentricity will generally follow, with proper horizontal relationships, anthropocentricity.
So the church does not have to over-emphasize the social gospel to recognize that souls are rather ethereal and invisible but one sees people every day.
We’re talking about a New Testament view of leadership in this third lecture. What is that biblical or New Testament view of leadership? Well, without reviewing the detail that you have already read—and that has appeared in the earlier lectures—perhaps we can best arrive at that answer by looking at the negative side of the question: “What New Testament leadership is not.”
There’s a marvelous passage in Luke 22. I come to it so many times. It has been so enormously formative in my own thinking about leadership. It holds valuable principles for helping us analyze our Lord’s view of leadership—how He fought it and taught it to the disciples. The passage itself appears in verses twenty-four through twenty-seven, but the context is of great importance also.
The context is one of the Last Supper. The Lord has just ministered to the disciples and their final time together in the Upper Room. Commentators differ about whether the foot washing had taken place before the conversation. It seems to me that it took place before. I anticipate or interpret this passage in the sense that Judas has already gone from the room, so you have eleven disciples left. And what they are doing after having finished the bread and the cup is to argue among themselves about who is the greatest. It’s almost unbelievable that this scene should be recorded following that worship experience. Why aren’t they praying? Why aren’t they gathered around the Lord asking some final questions about ministry? Why aren’t they sitting silently pondering what is ahead? Why must the worst of human behavior come out in these disciples of the Lord at the last moment just hours before the Crucifixion? No wonder they ran away. No wonder they weren’t gathered around the cross. Listen friend, if you ever feel yourself inadequate for Christian leadership, all you have to do is read the gospels. The disciples show us repeatedly how one can attempt to follow and be faithful to Jesus Christ and yet foul up so many times that it seems almost impossible to develop any kind of leadership skill and responsibility. But as the book of Acts opens, you have these guys heading up the church in no uncertain terms.
Now with the negative lessons that we learn in this passage from Luke chapter twenty-two verses twenty-four through twenty-seven, and since I haven’t read the text, it certainly would be a good idea for you to open the Bible and find it and look at that. There are many many times, of course, in listening to a lecture series on tape like this when you ought to stop the tape and check something else; a Bible reference or something in the syllabus or whatever it might be so that you’re coordinated with what’s going on.
Well, I think the first lesson that jumps out at us here is that New Testament leadership is not political power play. Immediately after sharing the symbolic representation of our Lord’s flesh and blood, the disciples fell into a dispute. The word is philoneikia. It literally means “rivalry.” Even more interesting, this word does not describe an accidental falling into argument on occasion but rather the possession of a habitually contentious spirit. To put it another way, because of their fondness for strife, the disciples verbally attacked one another in an attempt to gain political prominence, and what they expected would be an immediately forthcoming earthly kingdom.
Martin Buber once said that person’s inability to carry on authentic dialogue with one another is the most acute symptom of the pathology of our time, so this is hardly a modern problem.
Now to review again in the text. They are in the back talking about who would be the greatest and Jesus comes along and says, “You are acting like the kings of the Gentiles.” This is the way these Hellenistic monarchs of the Mediterranean world operate. They want people to call them benefactors even though they are nothing more than autocrats. They lord it over people. Now the interesting thing of the passage, one of many interesting things in this passage, is that the Lord does not criticize the kings of the Gentiles. He assumes that secular politicians will be secular politicians and there’s nothing the church can do about that. But the dynamic verse of the passage says, “You are not to be like that.” Literally in the Greek text, “But you not so.”
Political power play in Christian organizations is even more reprehensible than in the world. Yet even before the first church organized at Jerusalem, before a pastor ever candidated for appointment to a congregation, before an official board ever met to design a building program, the church knew how to fight. Toward the end of the first century, John bemoaned that in one local church a man named Diotrephes liked to have the pre-eminence among them, and that Diotrephesian Tribe has multiplied in 1,900 years of history.
Secondly, New Testament leadership is not authoritarian attitude. Luke 22:25 records our Lord’s reaction to the arguments of his disciples; first a comparison then a contrast. As I said a moment ago, the comparison shows that their behavior at that moment paralleled the behavior of the Hellenistic monarchs who ruled, particularly Egypt and Syria, at that time. Their leadership style is described as exercising lordship. The word is kurieuo, which appears frequently in the pages of the New Testament. At times, it is used to describe the authority of God (Romans 14:9). Paul uses it to refer to negative control, such as death’s attempt to hold dominion over Christin Romans 6:9, the power of sin and the life of the believer in Romans 6:14, and the hold of law on people freed by the gospel in Romans 7:1. It’s always negative, lording it over something when it’s used in the human realm.
A similar word, katakyrieuo, describes Gentile rulers, the control of demons over people in Acts 19. and a negative example in prescribing the behavior of elders with saints in the church (1 Peter 5). Do not lord it over them, but the verb form—now hear this—the verb form is never used positively of human Christian leadership. To put it simply, Christian leadership is not authoritarian control over the minds and behavior of other people. I don’t care what you’ve read; I don’t care what you’ve observed; read the Bible. Christian leadership is not authoritarian control over the minds and behavior of other people. Manipulation is wrong.
Peter remembered the lesson of this night, for in writing his epistle as we just mentioned a moment ago, he warned those elders not to lord it over God’s heritage. The first part of Luke 22:6 or 22:26 is a strong contrast construction “but you not so.” Kings of the Gentiles wanted to be called benefactors for any little deed of kindness they might show their subjects, although everybody knew they practiced autocracy and demagoguery. Christian leadership disdains that kind of attitude. It disdains control over people. As a matter of fact, in defiance of the culture of the time, our Lord says that the one who is greatest in the church actually behaves like the younger, and the boss behaves like a worker.
Never forget that Christianity is, and always has been and always will, be countercultural. That’s where we have the problems with leadership. We absorb so much of the cultural view of leadership. By osmosis, we think like the secular corporations and politicians around us and behave like that in the church and Christian organizations. And we wonder why people get hurt when it’s so clear that the Bible denounces that kind of behavior.
A third negative lesson from Luke 22 is that New Testament leadership is not cultic control. One beautiful word describing the work of the churches, diakanos, means service precisely what Christ did for His disciples in that Upper Room, and the question of verse twenty-seven seems to be rhetorical. “Who is more important?” asks Jesus, “The waiter or the dinner guest?” Obviously, the dinner guest. But wait a minute, who’s the guest and who’s the waiter at the Last Supper? Answer: “I am among you as One who serves.” Conclusion: New Testament leadership is not flashy public relations and platform personality but humble service to the group.
The work of God is carried on by spiritual power not personal magnetism. As Paul points out so clearly in 1 Corinthains 1: 26 through 31, “Some leaders may serve the Word, some may serve tables (Acts 6) but all leaders serve.”
Well, so much for negative lessons. What about the positive pattern of the Lord Jesus Himself? Well, the positive pattern of Christ in developing leadership in his disciples is clearly enunciated in A. V. Bruce’s helpful book The Training of the Twelve. He suggests that the total report of the gospels covers only thirty-three or thirty-four days of our Lord’s three and a half year ministry and John records only eighteen days. What did Christ do the rest of the time? Well, the clear implication if we buy Bruce’s idea here, the clear implication of the Bible indicates that He trained team leaders. How did He deal with them? What were the important principles of His leadership development program? Well, we can’t do them all here but certain ideas may be helpful in making a transition to a positive declaration of New Testament leadership. Some of this came at us in lecture two, but let’s come back again.
First of all, the leadership of our Lord focused on people or on individuals. His personal conversation with Peter recorded in John 21 offers a good example of the way He gave Himself to people in an attempt to build His life and ministry into them.
Secondly, the leadership of our Lord focused on the Scriptures. His treatment of God’s absolute truth was not diluted by relativistic philosophy. He held the Old Testament in highest esteem. The rabbis had distorted God’s revelation and now the leader of leaders comes to say, “You have heard that it was said, ‘But I say unto you…’” Phrase appearing so commonly in Matthew 5 verses twenty-one through forty-eight.
Third, the leadership of our Lord focused on Himself. Remember in John 14:9 how He found it necessary to say to one of the disciples, “Philip, have you been so long with me? And you still haven’t seen the Father? Take a good look at me because if you have seen the Father or if you have seen Me and if you have understood Me, you understand the Father.”
Four, the leadership of our Lord focused on purpose. Christ had clear-cut goals for His earthly ministry and He had a limited time in which to achieve them. If you knew you had to leave your present ministry within three and a half years and turn it over completely to subordinates, how would you go about doing it? What would you prepare? What would you change? Well, you certainly could do no better than follow the example of Jesus, and the result would probably be a great deal like the team leadership which characterized the New Testament church.
There’s a magnificent passage in John 14, and we’ll come back to this in a future lecture, but it bears mention here. In that passage, which we so often think of as a passage on mansions over the hilltop, in that passage the Lord says to the disciples, “Greater things than I have done, you will do.” And commentators have had a field day for years, for centuries trying to figure out what in the world He meant by that. Here’s the Son of God talking to these disciples who confuse their theology and bumbled their ministries and He says, “You are going to do greater things than I have done.” I believe the Lord meant exactly what He said. I take the verse literally. They covered much more ground than He did. He was confined essentially to portions of the Land of Palestine. They talked to thousands more people than He did. On the Day of Pentecost alone the disciples talked maybe to more people than Jesus did in His lifetime. We have no idea, of course, of the specific numbers involved, but certainly their geography, the demography, the opportunity to have an outreach to so many thousands more, the outreach of beginning churches, the Church at Jerusalem, the Church at Antioch, the Missionary Journeys, the establishment of the churches in the New Testament, on and on it goes. “Greater things than I have done you will do.”
Now the point is that this is an attitude that every Christian leader needs. When you and I work with people on a church staff or in any kind of Christian organization, we need to be constantly saying to them in one way or another, “Look, I am working with you. I am empowering you. I am helping you so that your ministry can someday be greater than mine.” That’s the meekness and the humbleness of the Lord Jesus. Check out Matthew 11 again. “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. For I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest unto your souls.”
Modern churches look for movers and shakers and change agents and people who can come in and take charge. On and on the language goes, and the words of the New Testament come down to us from the lips of Jesus, “I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest unto your souls.”
What is New Testament leadership? We have already discovered what it is not. Let’s go to a different passage. In dealing with this issue, I’m always inclined to turn to the book of Acts because of its vivid description of early church life. But the book of Acts gives us historical narrative, not a developed ecclesiology. We’ll spend a lot of time in this lecture series looking at the book of Acts, but here we would be better helped by looking at the epistles of Paul, commissioned by the Spirit of God to organize local churches and to describe God’s plan and pattern for the functioning of those churches.
Some verses in the second chapter of 1 Thessalonians will serve us well as a model, specifically verses seven through twelve of 1 Thessalonians chapter two. Here again is another place where it would be good for you to get out your Bible and open it up and have a look at the passage as it unfolds.
As it unfolds, we see that the New Testament church leadership which Paul espoused and taught and practiced centered in nurture. Now nurture is a botanical term. It describes the care and feeding of a young plant so that it grows properly to maturity. In verses seven and eight, Paul uses some distinctive words to describe nurture in the eyeball to eyeball relationships which accompany leadership responsibility. He speaks of being gentle. The word is herioi and it’s used in the Bible and other places in classical Greek of a teacher patient in the process of nurturing seemingly incorrigible students. In other words, “Don’t give up on them. Don’t slap them and send them out or don’t send them to principal and close the door when they’re gone. Don’t give up on people who don’t seem to be making any progress in the Spiritual life.” It’s as if this emphasis were sort of guiding everything that the leader does. And if this isn’t enough, he goes on to pick up the idea of a mother, a nursing mother, not a hired babysitter and that word appears in the Old Testament to describe Jehovah’s care of Israel and in 2 Timothy 2:24 Paul uses the same word to describe the servant of the Lord. “I was gentle among you like a mother nurturing or caring for her children” is what he says in the passage in 1 Thessalonians 2. I want to say again to you how countercultural that is. When is the last time you’ve had any discussions with any church or member of a church or member of a search committee from a church looking to hire a new pastor and their emphasis was on gentleness and on meekness and on humility? Those are not words we hear and yet that’s what the Bible teaches us. There’s more here. A gentle nursing mother cares for her little children. The word is thalpë which literally means to soften by heat or to keep warm.
Deuteronomy 22:6 in the Septuagint uses the word to describe a bird again caring for its young by spreading its feathers over them in the nest. Such a mother loves those growing children, verse eight. Such yearning after the good of the group may ultimately result in sacrifice on the part of the leader. I want to ask you a question. Where is self-assertiveness in all of this? We see so much in modern literature about the necessity of self-assertiveness. Get in there and show them who’s in charge. Get in there and take control. Where’s the image of a sharp voice barking orders and running a tight ship? Oh, listen, the Pagan culture distorts our understanding of spiritual reality. We identify leadership with toughness and ruggedness. God identifies it with tenderness.
We think of leadership as handling adults. God thinks of it as nurturing children. New Testament leadership is nurture. New Testament leadership is example. The hard work of Paul’s leadership spills out in verse nine. Night and day with great effort he works among the believers. His own life and those of his colleagues provide examples of holiness and justice and blamelessness before God. Note that this behavior took place in front of the believers, and before they were believers, not to facilitate evangelism. It’s a very important dimension to recognize that there’s no gimmick here. We’re not putting on something so that we can attract people to the gospel. We’re behaving this way normally and naturally by God’s power and through God’s Spirit to all people with whom we have to deal. That’s the Christian way. That’s Christian leadership. That’s New Testament leadership.
In chapter two verses five and six, Paul assures the Thessalonians that their leaders were human, not some kind of Ecclesiastical giants who wanted to run the organization by sheer executive skill and personal power. I’m fascinated by the plural pronouns throughout this passage which I think affirm again the biblical realities of team leadership. New Testament leadership is nurture. New Testament leadership is example, or what we would call today modeling.
And finally, New Testament leadership is fatherhood. What does a father do? Well according to Ephesians 6:4 he is responsible for the nurture of children, so consequently the model of the family describes procreation in terms of infant birth but also describes the leadership functions of the teaching father in a home. Let me review that by saying the Bible first of all uses as a model of the church the human body, 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12.
But the second most important metaphor in the New Testament is the family. What is a church like? The church is like a body. Well, what else is the church like? The church is like a family. Ephesians 5 is an important text and of course on into Ephesians 6 as well.
Back in 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 11, the words rendered, exhorted, and comforted are the words parakalountes and paramuthoumenoi. These commonly appear together in Paul’s writings. The former is often used of divine ministry that is God’s work, but the latter always a human word. Never used directly to mean God’s comfort, it describes the way He worked through us, through people, to minister to other people in the community of faith.
A father also urges his children. The word carries the idea of admonishing or witnessing truth so that they walk in patterns acceptable to the living God.
Well, just a brief word on Paul’s example and then we’ll wind this lecture up and bring it to a close. Earlier we noted the positive pattern of Christ in leadership training. What about the example of the Apostle Paul? We’re already seen his attitude in the Thessalonian passage. The New Testament church multiplied from the few people described in Acts 1. Many church leaders were personally trained by the Apostle Paul.
He was, one might say, the “pilot project.” And then you have Timothy and Silas and Titus and Epaphroditus, the Ephesian elders, and many others were spinoffs from Paul’s own life and ministry, his own modeling, his own leadership development of other people. In some Christian organizations today, the great curse of a one-person ministry looks much like worldly leadership condemned by our Lord in Luke 22. If we really want to serve our own generation, if we really want to care for the ministry God has given us with power and effectiveness, we must stop pretending that being a Christian leader is like being a king of the Gentiles. We must stop pretending that the people we serve are people who somehow belong to us. They are God’s people. It is God’s church. It is God’s work. Everything that we do we do as the framework or in the framework of serving and operating in behalf of Jesus Christ as His steward and His servant to carry out the work of the church. That’s what New Testament leadership is all about, and that’s exactly what God expects from you and from me.