Musings on Leadership (6)
Making visible the ‘image of God’
42. Right or wrong, I’m one of those who believe that the ‘image of God’ in humans is both ontological and functional. (This is no place to discuss the subject but I need to say this in order to make my point.) I believe that humans (male and female) were created in God’s image and that that is an essential part of being a human whether or not we live up to the destiny he assigned us. I believe Christians and non-Christians are ‘in the image of God’ for no other reason than that they are God-created humans. But as I presently understand biblical teaching, we're to image God in living out our lives. That is the ‘functional’ aspect of our ‘imaging’ God (compare Eph 5:1: “As children copy their fathers you, as God’s children, are to copy him”—Phillips.) Leadership has to do with bringing the image of God and the image of God in Man into clearer focus in community living. Humans were created social beings; created to live in loving fellowship with God and one another. ‘Man’ is a ‘plural unity’ “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26-27). Leaders are to help us to be what we have been created to be (see Eph 2:10). This being in ‘the image of God’ truth has tremendous implications for the Church in relation to the world which God loves so much.
Maturity and a place of service for all
43. The principles of good leadership are seen to operate in a family unit. Relating family leadership to leadership in, for example, a religious community has biblical precedent (see 1 Tim 3:4 as one example of this). The principles of good leadership in the family are precisely those in other areas of life. Do read the passage cited.
44. Deut 4:9-10; 6:7,20-25 lays it on the heads of the families to teach the word of God to their children so that parents and children can ‘know’ and ‘revere’ God and ‘live’ with him in fellowship generation after generation. They are to teach them the meaning of the ordinances of God (6:20) as well as the words and mechanics of them. The faith of Israel was to be an informed faith, rooted in an understanding of who and what God is as he revealed himself in his saving and blessing activity. These saving and blessings acts of God are rehearsed in Israel’s feasts and ordinances. See Exodus 12:26-27; 13:8,14-16 for further illustrations of this. Passages like Lev 23:43 and Deut 5:15 make it clear that the ordinances were to be observed to remind Israel of who and what they were in relation to the self-revealed God. I repeat: Israel’s faith was to be an informed and personal faith. This faith was to result in a certain life-style; a life-style which befits a people created by and shaped by the character and person of their God. A people with a destiny and purpose created and shaped by their God.
45. Leadership within the community is not simply there to provide what the community needs and wants, there are larger concerns. Leadership functions to promote the ultimate ends for which the Community exists. Israel did not exist just to see itself fed and clothed, they were a nation with a destiny and they were on a mission for God. The choice of righteous leadership (in the Church as well as Israel) is to promote God’s aims and that means that wise, just and understanding people be appointed as leaders. (That being the case, the qualifications for such people are neither optional nor casual.)
46. The NT also makes the point repeatedly that the Christian’s faith must be an informed faith but as usual in matters like this, the NT takes the OT teaching as its own (see Eph 6:1-3, for example). Parents are urged to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of God (6:4). There are numerous pivotal texts where leadership is immediately connected with maturation and individual contribution to community life and life in relation to non-Christians in society.
47. Ephesians 4:8,11-16 is one such passage. Community leaders are there viewed as ‘gifts’ (to the Body, of course). They were given (as Phillips renders it) so that: “Christians might be properly equipped for their service, that the whole body might be built up until the time comes when, in the unity of common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God, we arrive at real maturity— that measure of development which is meant by ‘the fullness of Christ’.” Here is a positive statement of some of the central purposes of leadership. Leaders are to help God’s people:
• To be equipped for service,
• To be edified or built up,
• To be developed in common faith
and knowledge,
• To gain a maturity such as reflects
Christ's presence in the life of his People.
48. Paul adds further explanation in 14-16 when he says it isn’t the destiny of the People of God to remain immature (“infants”), easily deceived by cunning men and so easily confused by fundamental error. No, the People of God are to be loving speakers of Truth and people who, as a Body, are maturing under their Head. When the purposes of leadership are being fulfilled each disciple makes his/her contribution as a community member to the growth of the Body. (It surely is a species of nonsense for leaders, behind closed doors, to plan out ‘programmes’ through which the assembly can express its submission to God in Christ without taking note of the nature and extent of the giftedness of the assembly. Since that happens quite often it’s little wonder that many disciples feel like square pegs shoved into round holes.)
49. Markus Barth has a challenging remark on this for all those who take biblical leadership with the seriousness it warrants: “The dignity and usefulness of the special ministries given to the Church are as great or as small as their effectiveness in making every church member, including the smallest and most despised, an evangelist in his own home and environment.” This section makes it very clear that those leaders who see themselves as self-perpetuating decision-makers are missing the point entirely. Those who so lead as to make the assembly more and more dependent on them are pursuing the wrong aims in the right way or the right goals in the wrong way.
50. I’ve found it a painful experience to talk, talk, talk about developing leaders and then one day to realize my practice in a significant area of my life was in complete defiance of my talk. Much of what I had been doing in this area was protecting my decision-making power. I was doing it for the ‘best of reasons’, of course. Of course! In this particular area, my activities on behalf of the Community were kept under wraps, communication was nil, Community input was nil, no one was being groomed for leadership of any kind. In this matter, I was only one of the guilty leaders. The temptation for parents, elders, trustees, business leaders and the like, to always know "what’s best" for others is awfully strong. There are complexities in all this—I realize that—but an occasional sickening feeling comes over us when we hear leaders whine about the lack of leadership and fervently talk about developing leaders while their chosen practice violates their well-argued, well-oiled and well-delivered talk.
51. 2 Cor 13:10 is another crucial text. It reads: “This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.” Paul makes it clear that authority exercised sternly is not authority abused. If necessary he will exercise his authority in a stern fashion. But authority, exercised sternly or not, is given that the People of God might be built up rather than torn down. In language reminiscent of Jeremiah 1:9-10, Paul tells us that a godly warfare must be waged (2 Cor 10:1-7) but even that exercise of authority comes under the heading of “building up”. A leader’s work is only half done (and therefore worse than only half done) when he uproots or destroys. The ultimate aim is to clear away so as to build, to practice surgery so as to heal.
52. 1 Cor 12 is loaded with instruction about and consequences for leadership. The grand aim of chapters 12—14 is to produce loving unity. To seek or exercise leadership to the detriment of the Body is opposed to the aims of the Trinity (12:4-6) which gives leadership (giftedness) for the “common good” (12:7), to secure unity and mutual concern (12:25). Along with obviously miraculous gifts (such as ‘tongue-speaking’ and ‘working miracles’) there are gifts of ‘administration’ and ‘helpfulness’ (12:28). It’s obvious there’s nothing exhaustive in the listing of the gifts. Paul does insist that the loveless exercise of these gifts is unacceptable to God (13:1-3). He would insist that the loving exercise of them would be included in “the most excellent way” (12:31—compare Col 3:14). Because the Church exists to “give the Holy Spirit a body” the responsibility of leaders is of the utmost importance indeed since they are there to help the Body to measure up to the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13) who indwells the Body through the Spirit. This has profound implications for the Church and its leaders in relation to the world of ‘outsiders’.
53. From these texts (a few from many), it’s clear that leadership is designed to function so that the Community or communities as well as each disciple, will move toward maturity and contribute to the corporate worship, edification, outreach and social usefulness of the Body. As leaders we must take these words from God as a test of our aims, obedience and effectiveness.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com
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