Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

Home Archives for 2014

Archives for 2014

The problem with power

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Power in LeadershipThe problem with power is that those who seek it are often the ones least qualified to wield it. This is no less true in the church than in society at large. Many great minds have spoken out about the seeking and wielding of power. I cannot add any pithy sayings about power to the list but I do wish to challenge how power is viewed in the church at large.

Any person in a position of leadership wields some power over others. In the church, there are two important questions about how that power is used:

  1. For whose benefit is the influence exerted? Will the leader use his power to bolster his position or will he use his power for the benefit of those he leads?
  2. Will the leader recognize his dependence upon God and seek God for how he should lead?

For whose benefit is power wielded?

In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul spoke to this issue when he wrote:

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:1–8, ESV)

While this applies to everyone, not just leaders, it is more important that leaders in the church operate with the motive of benefitting others.

But too often, pastors operate to consolidate their own status and position within the body of Christ. They jealously guard the pulpit and seek to put a leadership team around them who agrees with their agenda. This is done in the name of “ministry vision.” But it should not be this way.

Is power wielded in dependence upon God?

In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul encourages his readers to imitate him, but only in so far as Paul himself is an imitator of Jesus. There are two aspects that I see to operating in dependence upon God. The first as Paul mentions is to imitate the example of Jesus we see in the Gospels. Jesus served others rather than have them serve him. Jesus put others’ needs before his own.

The second aspect of cultivating dependence upon God is to have an active relationship with him. Is the Bible merely the textbook from which the sermons are prepared or is it the tool which God uses to shape the heart of the pastor? Does the pastor seek to deepen his own relationship with God so that he can be more effective in bringing others into a similar relationship? Does the pastor recognize that he is deeply flawed, but deeply loved by God? Does the pastor understand that he will give an account to God, not for the number of people in the seats but for the condition of the hearts he was to shepherd?

Why is an important question

When a man or women steps forward to be a leader, the most important question is why they want to do so. Is it to serve or to be served? Does the prospective leader demonstrate dependence upon God? As followers, we need to make wise choices as to what leader we will follow. As leaders developing leaders, we need to exercise due diligence in our choice of who to develop and how to develop them.

When church leadership falls into the wrong hands, neither the church nor the society at large fares well. People get hurt and it is not pretty.

On the other hand, when a leader operates with a proper sense of calling and with a proper humility, that leader can be used by God to produce amazing results.

Sidenotes – A new feature at Attempts at Honesty

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Update: Attempts at Honesty is no longer using Livefyre or Sidenotes for comments. This change was made for several reasons; the main reason is the negative effect Livefyre had on page load speed. Also, Livefyre limited commenting to those who are willing to create a Livefyre account and Livefyre controls all the comments. I’d rather have the control within my own domain.

SidenotesYou may have noticed that at the end of every paragraph there is a little icon. That icon is there because I have installed Livefyre Sidenotes to allow for increased interaction. The beauty of Sidenotes is that you can comment on a paragraph or even a word or two in the post.

The hyperlink in the previous paragraph takes you to a post in the Livefyre blog that explains what Sidenotes is all about. You can learn about it there or you can just play around with it and see if you like it. I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Give Sidenotes a try. You can select text in this post and a box pops up which allows you to share the text to Facebook, Twitter or add a Sidenote regarding the selected text. You can also click on the little icon at the end of a paragraph to make a comment on that paragraph.

I think this is a pretty cool feature, but I’m not sure how much interest there is in using it. Therefore, I’ll keep Sidenotes live for the month of August and will then evaluate if there is sufficient use of it to warrant keeping it installed. If it is not helpful or not used, I will remove Sidenotes to keep the page load speed to a minimum.

Let me know what you think.

A tale of two cities

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Tale of two citiesWith an apology to Charles Dickens for the theft of his title, rather than Paris and London, I’m thinking of Sychar and the Decapolis (which is actually ten cities).

In one city Jesus did no miracle other than tell a woman about her past. In the other cities Jesus delivered a demon possessed man in a spectacular manner. It is interesting to note that where Jesus did no miracle, he was received and the people believed. In the other they could not wait to get Jesus to leave them alone.

Often I am tempted to think that it would be so much easier for me and others to believe if only we saw some incredible miracles like the ones recorded in the gospels. But would it? Did the people seeing the overt miracles show any increased tendency to believe?

I am reminded that we cannot say that there are no miracles around us. Is there any question that a changed life is in itself a miracle? Maybe the change is so gradual that it seems a natural process, but the fact that I am not what I was is testimony to God’s power.

We must be careful not to ignore the clues all around us. Like the Samaritans in Sychar, we need to be listening for the truth in what we hear and act upon it. If Jesus is correct and one day we will all give an account for our belief and consequent actions, we cannot lightly dismiss the evidence in favor of Jesus being who he claimed to be.

We need to come to grips with the fact that some will see miracles and hear truth and walk away in complete rejection. We can be cavalier about this and offer our proof texts about election and predestination and wash our hands of it. Or, we can be like Jesus and weep for those who reject the truth. We can turn up our noses at those who most loudly oppose Christianity or we can pray for them and implore God to intervene and have mercy upon them.

Yes, we should be confident that God knows who will accept and who will reject his offer of salvation, but he sees fit to keep that knowledge from us. Therefore should hope and pray that all accept Jesus, even while knowing that all will not.

We should stand waiting by the roadside with the loving father for the prodigal to come home.

Failure: The Unintended Consequence of Success

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This is a guest post by Todd Pylant whose biographical information appears in the author box below this post. If you would like to provide a guest post to Attempts at Honesty, please see the guest post guidelines and contact me if you are interested in providing a post.

Success and FailureThe writer of Hebrews demonstrated faith in action by highlighting the life of faithful men and women throughout biblical history. The famous “faith hall of fame,” otherwise known as chapter 11, is full of great faith stories like Abraham and Moses. But it also includes a list of names, stories that the author didn’t have the time to tell. One of those un-expounded faith stories is the story of Gideon.

Gideon’s story is found in Judges 6-8. He was the unlikely man chosen by God to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Though he was the least in his father’s house, the angel of the Lord told him to “go in this might of yours and save Israel.” In faith, Gideon destroyed his own father’s altar to Baal. The Spirit of the lord clothed Gideon, he rallied Israel around him, and gathered for battle. He famously sought confirmation from the Lord through the fleece, twice. And he trusted in God’s plan, even though the Lord whittled his fighting force down to a paltry 300 men and gave him a battle plan about a silly as Joshua’s: torches, trumpets, and clay jars. But “through faith,” Gideon “conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, and obtained promises” (see Hebrews 11.33).

So great was his victory, that the people wanted to make him king, but Gideon boldly refused. “I will not rule over you. The Lord will rule over you” (Judges 8.23). A great man with great faith. And as long as Gideon was alive, the land had rest.

But there was one small “but”…

After the least of his family turned into the mighty warrior, after the oppressed farmer turned into a cultural icon, after the man who had seen none of God’s wonderful deeds had seen too many wonderful deeds to count, after all that, Gideon stumbled. After refusing to become king, he asked each soldier to give to him a portion of the spoils in war. And with this gold and purple garments,

Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family. (Judges 8.27)

In the words of Keith Jackson, “Whoa Nellie!” The ephod was the priestly garment worn by the descendants of Aaron (see Exodus 28.1-5). Gideon committee two major errors. First, he took upon himself a role that was given to the priests. He was of the tribe of Mannasseh, not a descendant of Aaron. He was called by God to be a judge, not a priest. He assumed that success in one role gave him the freedom to step into any role he wanted.

Second, he enabled the people to violate the second commandment. He made an image, and whether he intended for it to happen or not, the people worshipped it. The word translated “whored after it” is a word used to describe the adultery and immorality of worshipping pagan gods. Because Gideon didn’t stop the people from doing the very thing that got them in the mess in the first place, it became a snare to him, his family, and ultimately, the nation as a whole.

What we see in Gideon is a very powerful principle of faith, one that we would be wise to heed: failure often follows success. When God does great things through people, pride often rises up and leads them into great failure. Consider David’s success and subsequent failure with Bathsheba. Consider Hezekiah’s deliverance and subsequent prideful display of wealth. Consider Elijah’s triumphant stand on Mount Carmel and subsequent fearful foot race. What once made us useable for God’s great work, our humility, now makes us dangerous to our own future: our pride.

The faith story of Gideon challenges us to work hard to not allow whatever form of success we might experience to lead us onto the prideful path of failure.

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