Leadership: part one

Men are uniquely called and naturally equipped for leadership. I want to spend several posts examining this extremely important aspect of true manhood.

Introduction

God calls all men to be leaders. Although women must also lead at times, the burden of leadership always falls upon men. A man’s primary call, repeated over and over again in Scripture, is to lead his family. Some are also called to lead within the church. But male leadership is not limited to heads of households or pastors–it is the universal assumption of Scripture. When men in the Bible are not leading, it is usually an indication of a major problem.

Is the Biblical paradigm symptomatic of a cultural problem?

Some claim the implicit emphasis of Scripture on this point merely reflects the oppressive views of society during the period the Bible was written. There are two reasons this objection carries little weight. First, Scripture, though penned by men, is the inspired and perfect revelation of God, which communicates a view of the world characterized by the redemptive actions of God in Christ. Christ came to save mankind from the penalty of sin and reestablish the perfect world that was lost at the Fall. The Church is the foremost reflection of his work. Why, then, would the Apostle Paul direct the church, “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” unless this were the way God really intended it to operate? Various scriptures on this theme are scattered around the New Testament. The Old Testament may be a shadow of things to come–”In the former time God winked,” Paul wrote, and Jesus told the Pharisees that “Moses allowed some things because of the hardness of your hearts,” but the witness of the New Testament calls us to an absolute standard, and so if patriarchal society was wrong it ought to have been addressed in Scripture. To claim that the Christian worldview is variable according to shifting societal norms misses the point of what the Bible is and why it exists. Second, the patriarchal culture of Ancient Israel, rather than being typical of the culture of the time, actually stood in sharp contrast to the goddess-worshipping tribes around them. In fact, the Israelites were always forsaking Jehovah to worship Ishtar and had to be called back by the prophets. The obvious reason that the Lord did not eventually come to be worshipped as a goddess is that He is not, and would not allow his people to change his image into something more compatible with the surrounding culture, even though it would have made the religion more popular.

In the Trinity

A study of leadership takes us back to the beginning–even before creation. Before time, even. What was then? God existed. In three persons! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Far from existing in “mutual submission” or some such egalitarian arrangement, there clearly exists a hierarchy within the Trinity. Jesus submitted himself to the will of the Father. We see this clearly in John 8. Jesus says the Father has sent him; he does not act on his own authority, but according to the Father’s will; he does not seek his own glory, but the Father seeks it. The relationship between the Father and the Son is one of perfect love and agreement, and yet the Father does not submit to the Son, but the Son to the Father. In the same way, we see that the Holy Spirit does not seek His own glory, but that of the Son, and bears witness of the Son to our hearts (John 15).

Dominion

God displays the leadership and harmony within the Trinity in creation. God created man (mankind) in His image, to rule over the physical creation, to give it order and cultivate it. The Bible places men in a position of benevolent leadership over their families which ought to reflect the way God rules His people. This type of leadership might be extended to civil society as well, but that is a complex issue that cannot be addressed in this post. The basic unit of society is the family, and the husband and father rules over it.

Failure

The detrimental effects of leadership failure first show up in Genesis 3. In his Paradise Lost, the (misogynist) poet John Milton gets Adam off the hook to some extent by portraying the Fall as being precipitated by Eve after her unwise decision to separate herself from Adam. In reality, we read in Genesis that Adam was with her when she ate the fruit. He watched the temptation, saw her eat, and then listened to her and ate! This is a failure of leadership, to be sure. The man who was supposed to protect and lead his wife stood by as the serpent tempted her, and then meekly accepted the fruit of perdition. I like to think I would have cried “NO!” attacked that Serpent tooth and nail, calling on the angels for help, and not stopping till I had crushed its wicked head . . . In reality, however, I would probably have done just what Adam did. The sins of other men seem ridiculous only when we do not compare them with our own.

Since that time, men have always had a knack for either abdicating or abusing their leadership role, and it usually results in disaster. Looking at today’s culture, the shocking irresponsibility of the majority of young men indicates a fault in the way they were raised; it was not always this way. The blame must be laid at the feet of fathers who did not lead their sons and model responsible leadership for them.

Redemption

Christ is the golden thread that runs through every verse of Scripture. He is the beginning and end of all things. It is to His character we must ultimately look in finding a pattern for leadership in the Bible. We will pursue this avenue further in a future post.

Conclusion

What I want to assert here is simply that men are naturally equipped, gifted, and called to lead. This is our responsibility and our privilege. Further posts will examine in detail what being a leader means.