Christian Leadership Essentials

David S. Dockery

• Publisher: B&H Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781433673399
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Kirche

Christian Leadership Essentials finds university president David S. Dockery assembling a great wealth of tried and true insights on the distinctive methods of leading Christian organizations and institutions. No matter how much experience a faith-based leader may already have, there are plenty of fresh thoughts and indispensable guiding principles here on topics including finance and budget planning, mission and vision, employee relations, theological foundations, mentoring, crisis management, and more.

A majority of the nineteen contributors are active academic presidents, including Robert B. Sloan (Houston Baptist University; "A Biblical Model of Leadership"), Judson Carlberg (Gordon College; "Managing the Organization"), Jon Wallace (Azusa Pacific University; "Financial Oversight and Budget Planning"), Evans Whitaker (Anderson University [South Carolina]; "Development, Campaigns, and Building Projects"), Carl Zylstra (Dordt College; "Accreditation and Government Relations"), Jim Edwards (Anderson University [Indiana]; "Relationships with Multiple and Various Constituencies"), Phil Eaton (Seattle Pacific University; "Employee Relations in a Grace-filled Community"), Barry Corey (Biola University; "Engaging the Culture"), and Randall O'Brien (Carson-Newman College; "The Leader as Mentor and Pastor").

Chapter 1

A BIBLICAL MODEL OF LEADERSHIP

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Robert B. Sloan

President, Houston Baptist University

This chapter would better be entitled “Toward a Biblical Model of Leadership”; that is, I want to suggest what I believe to be the most important elements and considerations of a biblical model of leadership, but I do not claim either to be exhaustive in my presentation or to have correlated theologically all of the ramifications of these proposals. In fact, it is probably impossible to set forth in writing a comprehensive biblical model of leadership since by its nature, and as indicated by Scripture’s use of the idea of wisdom, biblical leadership is something that not only is read about but also is learned through experience. Nonetheless, ideas about leadership are important, and therefore I will suggest some of the most important of these for a biblical model.

First we must be clear about what we mean by leadership. Leadership is the art and practice of exerting an influence on the behavior and beliefs of others. Leaders shape and influence people, institutions, and events. Leaders and leadership are determined not by the number of followers but by the changes effected over time for the good of God’s world. Clearly we are talking about changes for the good. Some leaders whose ideas and deeds were decidedly on the side of evil have effected enormous change in human history; Hitler and Stalin in the last century come immediately to mind. They attracted followers, but the evidence is clear that their motives, ways, and ends were evil.

With reference to leaders and leadership, we must not shy away from the word power. By definition leaders exert various kinds of power, or else they would have no influence on others or lack the ability to effect change in the world. Though the word power often has a negative connotation, the stewardship of power and influence—a softer form of power—marks the nature of leadership. Like money and fire, power is capable of producing change, but it is the nature of that change—here change involves the full spectrum of motives, means, and ends—that determines the good use of power. Power may come from the sheer force of one’s position, from physical strength and/or the ability to marshal the strength of others, and also from ideas, persuasion, and example. Those with power by virtue of the force of their position are often in political or corporate jobs where money, executive authority, and military might are at their disposal. The power of ideas, persuasion, and example is often associated with individuals like Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, or Saint Augustine. All of these means of power—whether from position, example, or ideas—can be good or evil. Again, the ways they are used, the animating motivations and the nature and limits applied to each means, and the ends to which these ways are used determine the moral character, whether good or evil, of such uses of power. Christian leaders, and all leaders who follow biblical patterns, exercise their power to the greatest extent possible in ways and for ends consistent with all things good, honorable, and according to the will of God.

We must therefore begin with the ways and character of God. The ultimate leader is, of course, the living God, since His power, will, and character ultimately create, shape, hold together, and influence all things. A biblical view of leadership must begin with God. Human leadership, if it is good leadership, is analogous to the ways and motivations of God’s ultimate acts of influence.

God has, however, created human beings as His agents in the world. We are made in the image of God, and at each place in Genesis 1 where the image of God is referenced, the idea of dominion or responsibility for human creatures is close at hand (1:26–28). There are many debates about what the image of God in Scripture may consist of, but at the very least it relates to the responsibilities that God has given men and women, the highest creatures in the creation—Adam was, after all, given the responsibility for naming the animals—in caring for, superintending, cultivating, and thus managing His creation. Humans have been given the greatest role of leadership with respect to the created order, and it is a functional responsibility directly connected to their being made in God’s image.

The importance of the image of God (imago dei) for a biblical model of leadership goes even deeper than the fact that the human creatures, men and women, have been made in God’s image. Scripture goes on to say that Christ is the image of God (Col 1:15). Put another way, Christ is not made in the image of God as Adam and Eve were. Rather, He is the image of God. Thus, in the fullness of New Testament theology, the first humans were made according to Christ, the Son of God. Christ, who is God’s agent in creation, who is the one who sustains creation, and is the one to whom all of the created order and all of human history are directed (John 1:1–4; Eph 1:3–10; Col 1:15–20; cf. also Hebrews 1:1–3), is the one after whose likeness men and women are made. Thus, the responsibility for stewarding and managing God’s creation—the significant leadership role that we as humans have been given—is accentuated because of the centrality and lordship of Jesus Christ in all things, whether we think of creation or whether we think of His distinctive role, by His death and resurrection, in salvation.

A biblical model of leadership that begins with God must therefore find its behavioral and convictional patterns in Christ the Lord. He is the distinctive, supreme presence and revelation of God in human history. Again, the one true Creator God, the God who has spoken through Israel and the prophets, the God who reveals Himself in Scripture and in history, has definitively spoken and revealed Himself through Jesus, who, as the image of God and the superintending Lord of the universe, is the clearest model and declaration for how God acts and how He uses His power.

As Lord He acts with purpose, including ends; and for His desired ends He is constrained by His nature (for example, God cannot lie: Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Ps 89:35; Ezek 24:14; 2 Tim 2:13; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:17–18). With Him there is thus no moral fragmentation between ends and means. To act as He acts is to lead, to use power, as He uses it. To be sure, we are not God, but we have been given by God—again, we are made in the image of God—responsibilities over His created order. We cannot, as He did, create from nothing; but we are put in charge of that which He has created; and we are to tend it, cultivate it, manage it, and shape it in ways that reflect and honor His original purposes for creation. To understand the responsibility, therefore, that we, as creatures made in His image, have been given, we must look to the one who is that very image and see what He has done to fulfill the will of His Father. The Son Himself has been given great responsibilities by the Father, and one day the Son Himself will bow before His Father when the tasks given to Him have been fully completed (1 Cor 15:28). To God’s Son we turn.

Looking at Christ

Leadership theory is accustomed to thinking of mission, vision, and strategies. The New Testament does not organize itself or the life of Christ around such categories, but it is nonetheless not difficult to see that Jesus clearly understood Himself to have an assigned mission from His Father. We can, therefore—knowing that Jesus acted to perform the overarching work given Him by His Father—also look at the behavior of Jesus as indicating, though perhaps with different orders of magnitude, the various tactics and strategies He employed for accomplishing the will of His Father.

Before looking at the habits and teachings of Jesus, we must note that, first of all, it is clear from the Gospels that Jesus understood and presented Himself as having a mission. In John, He repeatedly uses phrases like “I am come . . .” (cf. 5:43; 6:38; 7:28; 8:14,42; 12:46–47; 13:3; 15:22; 16:28; 18:37). These passages, and many others, point to the larger mission of Jesus as received from His Father. In John, He also says that He does what the Father does or wills (cf. 4:34; 5:19,30; 5:36; 8:28–29; 10:25,37–38), or He speaks what the Father wills Him to speak (cf. 7:17; 8:26,28,38; 12:49–50; 14:10). The Gospel of Luke, as well, points to the larger mission of Jesus. In Luke 4:16–30, Jesus is the long-awaited Servant of the Lord predicted in Isaiah 61 who announces “the favorable year of the LORD” (v. 19 NASB), fulfills the long-awaited promises of God, and inaugurates the end of the world. In the conclusion to that Gospel, when speaking to the two on the road to Emmaus and also shortly thereafter to His gathered disciples in the upper room, Jesus uses Scripture to tell them of the divinely ordained purpose of His mission, that everything He did was in fulfillment of the scriptural plan of God, and that it was not accidental but in fact necessary “that the Christ would suffer” (24:25–27,44–47) and that as a consequence “repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations” (24:47 NASB).

The narrative presentation and theological comments of the Gospel authors likewise frame the mission of Jesus as being according to the intention of God. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, points to the comprehensive plan of God for human history through Jesus. The genealogy, which goes from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation, and from the deportation to Jesus, has three series of 14 generations (1:17). The point for Matthew is that God is in control of human history and that Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish history, a history that ultimately involves not just Jews but also Gentiles (28:19–20). The birth of Jesus in Luke 2:10 causes the angels to sing of the good news which shall be for all people. The Gospels—though they include many particular incidents, scenes, and sayings of Jesus—never lose sight of their overarching message: specifically, that Jesus, according to the eternal plan of God, is the Son of God who has come from heaven for our salvation. He is mysteriously and supernaturally conceived; His story is the fulfillment of all of Jewish history; and beyond that, His genealogy (see Luke 3:23–38) extends all the way to Adam, the father of us all. But beyond Adam, we are reminded, Jesus was the Word of God present at creation. He is the one through whom all things were created, and this Word ultimately became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), so that we might have now the life of the age to come (John 5:24–25; 10:10; 11:25–27).

It is not just in the Gospels that Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s larger plan for human history is seen. In Romans 5, Jesus is the one who reverses the dismal story of Adam and by His obedience initiates in the midst of the old and fallen creation the new creation for which He is the second Adam. Colossians 1:15–20 refers to Him as Lord of both the old and the new orders. He is preeminent for both the original creation and for the new creation that has now begun. In Heb 10:1–10, Jewish Scripture is used to point to the work of Jesus, and the life and work of Jesus are summarized by the single phrase, “I have come . . . to do your will, O God” (Heb 10:7–9 NASB). Similarly, in Revelation, Jesus is described as both the beginning and the end, the ultimate steward of life and death and the firstborn of God’s creation (1:5,17).

Whether in the sayings of Jesus, in the narrative and editorial comments of the Gospel writers, or embedded within the letters and other literature of the New Testament, the overarching thesis is clear: Jesus was sent by God to restore, reconcile, and recreate God’s original creation. He did so by being obedient to the will of the Father in all things, an obedience that led inexorably and predictably to His death (Phil 2:8). The New Testament thus also contemplates a conclusion to Jesus’ cosmic mission, a deep and final mystery, that after the return of Jesus, in His final work of raising all the dead who are loyal to Him, transforming all the living who embrace Him, judging all those who have rejected Him, and inaugurating the new heaven and the new earth, He will finally Himself bow before the Father, having completed all the purposes given Him by the Father, in full and complete obedience (1 Cor 15:22–28). Since, therefore, the convictions and behaviors of Jesus reflect His obedience to the will of God and His devotion to the mission His Father gave Him, we must now look at the actions and words of Jesus in broad categories to see how, whether strategically or tactically, they reflect His intention to implement the overarching mission of God.

The Behaviors and Attributes of the Lord Christ

Our goal in this section is to provide brief summary statements of the kinds of things Jesus taught and did, supplying scriptural references. The goal is not to work out the managerial implications of these various summary statements but to provide a series of brief statements that reflect on Jesus’ typical actions and thus to hint at those implications. Leadership and even managerial theories that derive from these can best be constructed when all of these are seen together. For now we are interested in considerations toward a biblical model of leadership.

Jesus Spoke Knowledgeably

From the beginning of His ministry, the crowds were amazed at Jesus’ theological assertions. In the Nazareth sermon (Mark 6:1–6; Luke 4:16–30), His hearers were amazed that one from their own hometown could speak with such authority and boldness as an interpreter of Scripture. The same is true in the Gospel of Matthew at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount (7:28–29). The crowds were amazed that He spoke to them as one possessing authority, not as their scribes and teachers. These statements are reflections of Jesus’ repeated actions and declarations to have either fulfilled the Scriptures (cf. Matt 5:17–18; 11:5; 21:1–11; 21:33–46; Luke 4:21) or of His public pronouncements whereby He starkly reinterpreted the Scriptures. The Sermon on the Mount has several of these where Jesus, after citing an Old Testament text and the traditional interpretations applied to it by Jewish rabbis, said, “You have heard that it was said of old, but I say to you . . .” (Matt 5:21,27,33,38). Such assertions—to have fulfilled the Scriptures or to have reinterpreted virtually the whole of Jewish cultic law (Matt 9:10–19; 12:1–8; 15:1–20; John 2:19–22)—show Jesus to have been a knowledgeable thinker. Christian circles rightly refer to the events of Jesus’ life, especially His death and resurrection, as the center of the gospel message and the events that deliver the accursed creation and its peoples from the consequences of sin. Nonetheless, it must not be forgotten that Jesus was a thoroughgoing interpreter of Scripture who first criticized and then reformulated Israel’s role and mission, its cultic system, and its understanding of the temple and the role of the Messiah.

Jesus knew, based on His reading of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke 24:25–32,44–47), that the Scriptures had been profoundly misunderstood by Israel and that it was of paramount importance for His followers to understand not only how rightly to interpret the Scriptures but also how He interpreted the Scriptures, especially as they found their fulfillment in Him. All of subsequent Christian thinking with regard to the s...