Musings on Leadership (5)
Righteousness and Justice for all
32. Biblical leadership (which should be the norm for human society) is about justice and honour and righteousness before God and Man. Biblical leadership has to do with enabling people to live joyfully and honourably and lovingly in community with one and another and with God! To connect it immediately with the decision-making process and with the (often) very important specific issues which must be settled, is to cheapen it and to secularize it. It is to cut it off from its roots in God and in the character of God who embodies love and justice and honor and righteousness. Where leadership can’t be rooted in the relations between God and Man and man and man, it is not biblical! Leadership which sees itself as a guidance-giving, decision-making body rather than an instrument of justice, righteousness, honour and love is forgetting its own roots and its reason for existing. And when the leadership forgets this, those who follow forget it, if ever they learn it.
33. In Micah 6:6-7 self-serving worshipers were stung into response by the preaching of the prophets. ‘What does God want?’ they protested. ‘Does he want child-sacrifice? What does it take to please him?’ The prophet (6:8) says God has made himself very clear in this matter. He called them: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (I think Christ had this passage in mind in Matt 23:23.)
34. Even a surface reading about leadership (especially in the OT) will tell you that justice is a central concern of God. Deut 16:18-20 is typical. “Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly. Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (A slow thoughtful reading of this text is an education.) Here’s another (Deut 1:9-18): “...So I took leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you...And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien. Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for judgement belongs to God...” (This is another text just filled with rich truths.) In Deut 27:19 God places a curse on those who pervert justice in favour of those who have and against the ‘have nots’.
35. I won’t multiply texts on this but I must urge you to take the time to look into the biblical testimony on this matter. To bear in mind that Jesus himself surveyed the whole of the OT and placed justice as one of the “more important matters of the law” (Matt 23:23) should sound a note of warning within us. Hearing that leadership is repeatedly and bluntly placed in immediate connection with justice should warn us against trivializing leadership. If justice is of paramount importance to God and leaders are one of his instruments to see that justice remains paramount, then leadership takes on a solemn (and highly privileged) status.
36. In the NT we find the same message (though not as developed, to be sure) as in the OT. The first leaders appointed in Acts were appointed to see that justice was done (see 6:1-7). The Greek-speaking widows were being passed by when the food was being distributed among the poor and the reason appears to be that they weren’t Palestinian widows. This was thoroughly unjust and the people complained about it to the apostles. We’re told that seven men were chosen by the Community and that they were given authority to deal with the matter. (It’s in the context of justice being done and being seen to be done that verse 7 says: “So the word of God spread. The number of the disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of the priests became obedient to the faith.” This might be of real theological significance for us.)
37. It would be wrong for us to draw the conclusion that these few texts is where this stress on justice and leadership in connection with justice is taught. Wrong because this teaching permeates the whole biblical corpus. Texts and sections such as those cited only bring into focus what is everywhere taught or assumed even when the precise words are not mentioned.
38. And biblical leadership is aimed at procuring justice for all. There is no elitist teaching in the Bible. The Bible opens with the creation of all humans! Moses wrote Genesis in light of the tremendous self-revelation of God in the events surrounding the Exodus and in light of that he opened the message of God with God’s creation of humanity and not an elite family, sex, group or nation. The narrative continues with God’s choice of men and families who would be his instruments through which he would bring blessing to all the nations of the earth! And this truth (that God wants justice and blessing for all) is seen in the prophetic sections of the prophets which speak directly to the nations and about the nations. The Psalms, too, are filled with this teaching (see Psa 67 and 104 as a two examples of many).
39. We see it too in passages about leadership and justice. We saw it in Deut 1:16 where we read that the judges were not to favour home grown Israelites over aliens (see the literature on what, precisely, the Pentateuch meant by an ‘alien’). Exodus 23:6-9 calls for justice for the ‘alien’ as does Lev 19:33-34. One of the elements which should motivate the home born to treat aliens fairly was that Israel had known what it was like to be an alien. “You yourselves know how it feels to be an alien” says the Exodus passage. Behind that ethical motivation is the truth that God feels for all the marginal people. As Israel ‘cried’ (a word indicating an appeal for justice— see David Daube’s, Exodus Pattern and the Bible), God heard and executed justice on their behalf. See Exodus 2:23-25 and elsewhere. It is this God, who loves the oppressed who calls Israel to secure justice for all; it is this God who appoints leaders to see to it that justice is secured for all. (It is for the NT Church to see to it that justice is for all, inside and outside of the Church. Since biblical leadership is immediately connected with securing justice, Church leadership must be taken with the utmost seriousness.)
40. Walter Brueggemann reminds us of Samuel’s appeal when Israel rejects the judge/priest/prophet leadership and asks for a centralizing of power in a human king. Defending his leadership before God, the king (Saul), his sons and the people, Samuel points to the fairness and uprightness of his dealings. He took no bribes and pandered to no special interest. Leadership is again linked with justice, fairness and honour in the sight of God and men. Scores of biblical texts make this connection and when Israelite leadership is denounced by the prophets it isn’t at all unusual to hear them scathe the leadership for injustice and oppression. The ‘wisdom’ books of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes deal again and again with good and bad leadership in terms of justice and righteousness upheld or denied. The Psalms add their testimony to the same effect. The NT has a great deal to say about the abuse of power whether it deals with government (Matt 20:25), slave-owners (1 Pet 2:18ff; Col 3:25-4:1) parents (Eph 6:4; Col 4:21) or church leaders (1 Pet 5:2-4) etc.
41. Since it is true —and it is true— that the Bible presents such an emphasis, churches ought to pay attention to it. Congregations must lay this on the hearts of their leaders and expect them to major in it. Leaders must acknowledge this instruction from God and make this aspect of leadership a priority. Good leaders will ruthlessly delegate authority over many minor issues to competent people and they will allow as much self-determination in minor areas as possible so that they can use their time and energy in the matters of a more critical nature. This will require a great deal of communication with the assembly in general and with those who are influential in the assembly but it will be effort well spent. Making justice a prime directive will set the tone for the biblical community. A ‘God imitating justice’ will be promoted between disciple and disciple and disciple and non-Christian. There will be no accepting of bribes (flattery, praise, or the like) resulting in the leaders pandering to special interest groups on the left or on the right. In the assemblies there will be no voiceless and those who would oppress the more vulnerable would know they had righteous leaders to deal with; leaders who are the voice of the marginal or weak. Leaders like these would create a context in which cheerful justice would be the order of the day. Even ‘aliens’ would know that the ‘judges’ of such an assembly would not allow them to be treated unjustly. Assemblies like these under the guidance of such leaders would bear powerful testimony to the reign of God.
I need only to say this once: The justice of which I’m speaking is not a legalistic and ‘code-fulfilling’ exercise; it is a cheerful and glad-hearted giving to others the rights we would reasonably expect for ourselves. And more specifically, for believers, it is the behaviour they have seen in the God who has called them and to whom they have committed themselves. It is “God-imitating righteousness”.
©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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