“Be ye imitators of me, even as I
also am of Christ”(1 Cor. 11:1).
When a
man says such a thing as this he assumes a very heavy
responsibility. He involves Christ in his conduct, and
for anyone to take his advice and then go wrong, would
mean that Christ would be implicated in the error. The
would-be leader will be committed to a very full and
exact understanding of Christ and His ways.
History
has given ample evidence that Paul was well aware of the
responsibility which he took upon himself, and moreover,
to the fact that Paul was a very safe leader in every
christly respect. Therefore, when we come to a
consideration of leadership as in the case of Paul, we
are also seeing leadership in the case of Christ in many
essential respects. The comparison can be made by the
reader without our indicating it in detail.
It
would be superfluous for us to spend time trying to prove
that the apostle Paul was a leader. Everyone knows
it to be so. No one in the whole of this dispensation,
after Christ, has exerted more influence upon minds and
lives than he, and he is today making things very heavy
going for the best theological brains.
But
our concern is to bring the salient points of his spiritual
leadership into clear definition for all who have any
responsibility among God’s people. We shall indicate
seven such factors in spiritual leadership.
1. Vision
By
“vision” we mean dominating objective and
purpose. Paul was a man of immense energy, and his
energies covered a vast number of details and items. But
Paul was not just tremendously active with a view to
getting things done. That is, his was not a life
of diffused activities, not even good works.
Everything sprang from and was harnessed to one clear
positive objective. Paul had seen something. He called it
“the heavenly vision”, and for that he
said that he had been “apprehended by Christ Jesus”.
He was a man who knew very clearly where he was going,
what his manysided activities were for and what the end
of all had got to be. He has placed on record precisely
and concisely what that vision and objective was. That is
not the subject of this message; it is elsewhere in our
ministry. Our present point is that, if there is to be
that to which history will bear witness as really having
been permanent, although temporarily undervalued and
perhaps discredited, it must proceed from and be governed
by a God-given vision of divine purpose. There must be a
seeing clearly of how things would be if God had a true
expression and realization of what is His full and
supreme intention.
There
will be disappointments, discouragements, heartbreaks and
near despair at times, but there can be no alternative or
turning to some substitutes. The vision, if given by God,
will be so much a part of the leader as to be nothing
less than life or death to him. This is evident in all
the seers of old, and as much as in any in the case of
Paul the apostle.
2. Experience
When
we mention experience as being an essential in
leadership, we are not necessarily thinking in terms of
years. It may take time, but leadership is a matter of
quality rather than quantity. Leaders are often those who
have had a great deal pressed and concentrated into a
short time and space. What we particularly mean by
experience is that the one concerned has, through a deep,
and perhaps drastic, history with God, become himself
that into which he aims to lead others. No mere theory or
textbook conception is history. His vision, objective,
and its principles have been wrought into himself. He is
his message! There is a secret power issuing from his
personality which comes not firstly from
intellectual conviction but from God’s ways with
him. The man and his message are one. He knows in his
very being what he is talking about and aiming at.
Experience just means that which comes out of thorough
trial and proof. It is akin to experiment: a thing
tested, put to the test. Leadership rests upon this
knowing and being as the result of testing and proof.
We
have only to look at the apostle Paul’s particular
ministry and note how God dealt with him, not only from
his new birth, but even from his natural birth to see how
all fitted into that ministry. Difficult, yes impossible,
as it may be to believe it, there is a secret history of
God in the life chosen by him for leadership, even before
a living knowledge of the Lord, and from the time of new
birth there is a history with God related to
purpose. In most cases it is a deep history; a
cramming and crushing into a comparatively short time of
that which makes for reality and makes mere theories
almost abhorrent.
3. Originality
Going
hand in hand with experience, and, indeed, just a slant
thereof, is originality. This, as its very nature, rules
out effort or “trying to be original”. Indeed,
it is not aiming at being different, getting off “the
beaten track”, or anything of that kind. Originality
is not a deliberate discarding of old or existing orders
with a view to starting something new. It is not the
effort to think of something that no one has thought of
before. It is not being smart or clever. Neither is
originality imitation. That goes without saying. The word
itself just means “beginning”. This is not
something caught from another or others. This is not
something stored away in our unconscious minds and now
coming out, even without our recognition that it is not
our own. It is in the very nature of a thing that God
does in us that it is so real, wonderful and personal
that we cannot believe that anyone has ever known this
before. One may preach a certain matter for years and
then one day the Lord brings that life into a living
experience of the very thing and he or she will come and
preach to you about it as though you were the most
ignorant on the matter. But see the life, the strength,
the joy in the original! How often it would be pertinent
to repeat to many preachers and would-be leaders the
question of Christ to Pilate: “Sayest thou this of
thyself, or did another tell thee it of me?” In
other words: “Where did you get that?”
It is
essential if others are to be led into experience and not
merely into teaching or theory, that the leader is truly
able to say, “The Lord has made this known to me”.
In this matter the apostle Paul has left us in no doubt.
“It was not after men... neither did I receive it
from man” (Gal. 1:11, 12 etc.).
Whether
or not in the same measure, the truth and principle must
exist in all leadership.
4. Courage
It
might be thought to be most unnecessary to argue for
courage in connection with leadership. It seems so
obvious. But it is not so obvious as all that. Much
depends upon what is meant by courage. Physical courage
is one thing, perhaps the most common. Moral courage is
another thing, far less common. But spiritual courage is
still of another order, and the least common. We are not
going to spend time on the differences, but rather upon
getting right to the heart of the matter. But let us say
this, that the kind of courage which is our concern here
does not ultimately rest upon anything natural. It may
not rest upon either physical or moral constitution.
Indeed, these can be quite a minus quantity.
In
Pilate’s judgment hall or adjoining it — during
Christ’s trial, the man who had faced and weathered
many a violent storm at sea, and the man who believed
that he could face any moral test, was a pitiable
sight, reduced to abject cowardice. In Jerusalem before
the same authorities less than two months later, the one
thing noticed and recorded about him was his “courage”.
That is what we mean by “spiritual courage”. It
is not based on temperament, but is above
temperament! Temperament or training may act and behave
at the dictates of policy and diplomacy. Temperament may
hate the way of unpopularity, may fear to lose friends,
standing, advantage. Therefore in self-protection and
self-preservation, compromise will be the resort or
back-door way out of a dilemma. It could be worse, but
this is the weakest way. True courage is a stand — at
any cost — on principle, and no compromise if
compromise means in the first place, sacrificing some
spiritual value, and in the last place, merely postponing
the crucial day.
Courage
is not just unreasoning stubbornness. It is not
unwillingness to be adjustable or to confess to having
made a mistake. It may be just the opposite of these.
Courage
is a clear knowing of essential divine principles and
being willing to let go all personal interests on their
behalf. Again, Paul’s leadership is so evidently of
this sort.
5. Balance
It
would at once be thought that when we immediately follow
what we have been saying with “Balance”, we are
taking something back, because, so often, balance and
compromise are confused. The best way of showing the
difference will be to look again at our apostle, and in
doing so, see a clear reflection of our Lord in this
particular respect.
Few
men have combined strong opposite features in balance
more beautifully and effectively than this example. That
Paul was a man of very powerful forces is unmistakable.
Whatever he did, he did it in strength. His own
description of himself is very true: “So fight I,
not as one that beateth the air...” (1 Cor. 9:26).
There was no air-beating about Paul. If he struck, he
struck hard and reached his mark. The forces stored up in
that little body and mind were very powerful, and balance
with him was not weakness of character or feebleness of
presence. Balance in the case of this leader is clearly
seen in the combination of austerity and kindness. He
could make the same people feel what he called “a
rod”, and melt into tears in his sympathy and
tenderness. He could — like his Master — leave
those who did injury to others or to God’s
interests, just devastated and shamed, and so to speak
“without a leg to stand on”. And yet, he could
win a grim battle, as in Corinth, by sheer love and
meekness.
It is
not our intention here to list the various contrasts
which were harmonized in Paul, but just to point out that
a true spiritual leader will not be one who is all will
and no heart, all softness and no strength, all cold
reason and no sympathetic imagination, all sloppy
sentimentalism and no “truthing it in love”
(Eph. 4:15).
Balance
demands the counterpoise of opposites and the man who
would lead others must win their confidence, if it be
possible, by holding strength, firmness, faithfulness,
even to wounding if needs be, in even proportion with
understanding, kindness, and sympathy.
6. Dependence upon God
Perhaps
it would be considered to have more point if this
particular feature of leadership were set in the context
of natural inefficiency. That is, if the one in view were
lacking in the things which naturally make for
leadership. If birth, training, education, intellectual
power, social status, personality, and such like
qualifications, attainments and abilities were of a very
ordinary or meagre kind. Then we could well understand
and appreciate a real and honest dependence upon God.
It
puts an altogether different complexion upon the
situation when all of these things are present to
any unusual degree, and it opens the door to a very
serious conclusion. If it was true of the apostle Paul
that, possessing all these natural advantages beyond most
men, he was a man who had to — and knew that he had
to — depend upon God for everything, and that
apart from God he was really impotent, then we are forced
to serious conclusions.
It
would be too big and too long a piece of work to gather
all the evidences of that dependence. We know much from
his own pen of his infirmities, weakness, entreaties for
prayer that he would be helped, his acknowledgment of
“help received from God”; and the one great
declaration: “We despaired of life; we had the
answer that it was death, that we might not trust in
ourselves but in God who raiseth the dead” (2 Cor.
1:8, 9). We should have to include all that teaching on
“faith” which was the very basis of his life.
What conclusions are we forced to by this case?
Obviously,
the first is that, whatever value the sovereignty of God
may have in such natural features, by themselves
they are no guarantee of spiritual leadership.
Should ever a man called to spiritual leadership tend to
“lean to his own understanding” he will find
himself confounded. The Anointing is an Extra to the
fullest and best, and — note this — is of
another order of qualification.
This
leads on to a further conclusion. It is that natural or
acquired abilities are — at most — only
servants, not masters. They belong to the soul that is
intellect, emotion and will, for such is the meaning of
the word “natural” in the New Testament. The
soul is the servant of the spirit, and it is in and
through the human spirit “born anew” that the
Holy Spirit dwells and works. The soul is that by which human
communication is made as from man to man. Reason helps
reason. Heart helps heart. Will helps will. This is all
good, but it remains on the natural level until the extra
of the anointing enters by the spirit. Then things move
on to the eternal level with issues that are much more
far-reaching. It is just here that dependence has its
real meaning, but it relates to the whole man:
spirit, soul and body; as we see with Paul.
7. Loyalty
It
would be difficult to say with finality which is the
greatest of all virtues, but in trying to reach such a
conclusion we should find ourselves under considerable
obligation to place loyalty very high up, if not at the
top. Loyalty includes so many things like faithfulness,
trustworthiness, fidelity, constancy, generosity, and so
on. It is so great a virtue because it is in such
definite contrast to the meanest and most contemptible of
traits. Treachery could be placed at the bottom of the
scale, with its evil brood, especially the inuendo. Of
all the poison darts in a quiver there are few more
sinister than the inuendo. It is the resort of the coward
who hides behind a covey of insinuations and refuses to
come right out into the open. Aspersions are cruel
weapons.
With
all that we know of wrong, weakness, meanness and
disloyalty in churches and people, it is more than
impressive to note how the apostle Paul refused to speak
or write of it to other churches and persons. We
are much disgusted with a lot at Corinth that was
deplorably unjust, unfair, unkind, and grossly selfish.
But we never find Paul talking of their failures to other
churches. Rather does he make the best of them. His
loyalty finds rich expression in his lists of people.
Paul would never stoop to try and strengthen himself by
demeaning someone else. He was a man who would, if such
could be found, find some extenuating explanation for a
seeming or actual delinquency when it was a matter of
talking to others. To the delinquent he would be
absolutely faithful and frank. You could rely on him to
stand up for you, even if he knew well your failures.
Whatever
might be said against him, it would require the most
contemptible of persons to lay a charge of being a “little”
man against him. He was too big a man to be jealous or
disparaging. He never thought or acted lightly in the
matter of friendship. Friendship was a sacred thing with
him, never to be cheaply thrown away. How very much there
is to say about this great virtue and factor of loyalty,
but with so little said it is not difficult to see what
an important and vital part it plays in leadership. It
was so largely this that justified Paul in holding the
position of spiritual leader which he had.
And in
this respect, as in others, he was safe in saying,
“Follow
me, as I follow Christ”.