5-6-20 Devotional
If you've been around the block at least once, you know that leaders can disappoint. Politicians, parents, professors, and yes, even (especially!) pastors.
I know that as I've read or experienced story after story of pastors who have perpetrated abuse (sexual, emotional, physical, spiritual) on their churches, it can be hard to trust any spiritual leader ever again. At some point they will probably end up failing and any hopes I had in them will once again be dashed.
Dr. J. Robert Clinton studied over 1,500 Christian leaders throughout history and found that only 1 in 3 finish well. I honestly suspect that number may be much lower. And it's one of my daily prayers to be among those who do finish well.
In the second chapter of his letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul is addressing the rumors that have flown around about himself, his coworkers, and his ministry. Are they doing it for money? To build up a "platform? To amass authority and control?
Paul gives his reasons why those rumors aren't true (if they were doing it for money, it did a poor job! They managed to make every demographics angry with them! They refused to use authoritarian methods). And I think Paul sneaks in a key ingredient in finishing well: "We were like children among you."
Children were among some of the lowest-class citizens of the Greco-Roman world. They had no ability to be haughty or perpetuate abuse because they had power to wield. Children were meant to be students, coworkers in the family trade, and carry on the family name.
Paul has much of this in mind. The best sort of leaders are those who make themselves students of the people they lead. They don't see themselves as above anyone, but rather laboring alongside (Greek word: synergeo). And they don't lead for the sake of their own popularity of fame, but to lift up others. Ministry leaders, in particular, carry on the family name of Jesus Christ, and no other.
Apply
As you lead yourself, your family, your organization, your neighborhood - how can you become like a child in your leadership style today?
Pray
God, we thank You that You have entrusted us with the Gospel,
the good news that Jesus is King.
Help me to not act in such a way to simply please people,
but rather to labor in the knowledge that You are already pleased with me.
As Your Son Jesus became a child to save the world,
help me become more like a child as I join Jesus in His work.
Amen.