Christian Leaders Lead Bodily

The main task of being Christian leaders is to handle the truth, speak the truth, live in the truth, and follow the Truth (Jn. 14:6). Christian leaders should hate illusion and pseudo-comfort. Real leaders don’t live in denial and deny what is true. In The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2012), Albert Mohler notes:

The leader faces the facts, and this means that the facts must be determined and known. The leader must know the organization as it is, know its needs as they are, and face the world as it actually exists. The conscious denial of reality is a central danger of leadership, and the leader must defend against this temptation…The leader must be unafraid of data and facts, and he must surround himself with people who know the information he needs and will give it to him. (p. 61)

Unfortunately, I have met many Christian leaders who welcome illusion, enjoy pseudo-comfort, deny the world as it actually exists, and turn away people who know the information they need.

I despise and disgust positional leaders who are indeed losers. They are losers because they who are in leading positions are supposed to lead and empower others but they become their stumbling block. They are losers because they are supposed to be called to bless others but they neglect their callings and the callings of others. They are losers because their stubbornness, stupidity, and spiritual slothfulness minimize the (spiritual and physical) size of the body of Christ that is made up of different individuals who are entrusted with varieties of spiritual gifts to build up this body (Eph. 4:11-12).

The doctrine of incarnation is fleshy and messy. In the midst of messiness, we get a glimpse of God’s revelation. No one expects to find God’s revelation in bodily form. But all the fullness of his deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9). The truth of incarnation exposes any human speculation of who God is and what he is supposed to be like. Whoever has seen the incarnate God has seen God the Father (Jn. 14:8-9). It destroys human fantasy. It deconstructs our construction of the Towel of Babel. We can’t reach up to God. On the contrary, he reaches down to us. He reveals himself to us as it is. It is what it is. To affirm what is is an incarnational thinking through which we may get a glimpse of God’s presence, revelation, and glory.

In Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), Eugene H. Peterson writes:

Popular forms of spirituality tend to avoid history, at least in its messier aspects, as subject matter and context for nurturing the soul…

History is bounded by birth and new birth, by the virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus—life, life, and more life. But between those two life-giving moments there is also death, death, and more death. When we are born we find ourselves in a world in which death and dying are major preoccupations; when we are born again it is still the same world. History consists of what happens in this world. History is the accounting we make of the human endeavor. More often than not it is an accounting of the mess we make of things: brutality, war, famine, hate, quarrelling, exploitation. History deals with what happens, what has happened, what is happening and what will happen. It means dealing with a world where things rarely turn out the way we think they should…Something is wrong here, dreadfully wrong. We feel it in our bones. The most conspicuous event in history that arouses within us this spontaneous sense of violation, of outrageous sacrilege, is the suffering and death of Jesus, a suffering and death in which eventually we will all find ourselves involved whether we like it or not. History. (pp. 133-134)

 
Christian leaders are historical, not ahistorical.

Christian leaders nurture the souls of others in bodily form.

The Conviction to Lead

I haven’t read books on leadership for a while. They usually talk about the same thing. Albert Mohler’s book, The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2012), is not so different either. But he approaches the topic from a convictional perspective: Christian beliefs. That makes the book a bit different then.

Leaders must lead with deep and passionate beliefs. “Put simply, a conviction is a belief of which we are thoroughly convinced. I don’t mean that we are merely persuaded that something is true, but rather that we are convinced this truth is essential and life-changing. We live out of this truth and are willing to die for it” (p. 22). Paul said, “Because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). Accompanied by the power of the Spirit, Paul preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the church of God in Thessalonica with full conviction.

The Spirit persuades us to respond to the gospel; we are also persuaded by a messenger who preaches the preached word with full conviction. Nowadays, we often hear no conviction in pulpit. What we hear is god-talk. God-talk is external to what we say and do; however, conviction is inherent in our words and deeds. We lead and speak with conviction. “Without conviction, nothing really matters, and nothing of significance is passed on. I believe that leadership is all about putting the right beliefs into action, and knowing, on the basis of convictions, what those right beliefs and actions are” (p. 26).

Without conviction, we are like those who talk and act like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6).

The Language of Sin

The church is losing its prophetic voice against the surrounding culture. We are silent to the point where we are succumbed to the force of cultural agenda. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don’t hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all” (Matt. 5:14-15).

One of the ways we hide our light under a basket is to make the notion and reality of sin disappear in our message. The language of sin is offensive. It’s judgmental. It is not welcome in our society. “Words such as disease, antisocial behavior, and lack of moral development had replaced sin as explanations for human behavior.”[1] The notion of sin in relation to God is taken away from public conversation. Instead, the concept of psychological and personal improvement in relation to oneself and one another dominates our common language.

Albert Mohler wrote:

This is an abdication of the gospel. Where sin is not faced as sin, grace cannot be grace. What need have men and women of atonement when they are told that their deepest problem is something less than what the Bible explicitly teachers? Weak teaching on sin leads to cheap grace, and neither leads to the gospel.

Scripture identifies sin as humanity’s willful revolt against God. It is rebellion and disobedience. Furthermore, it is “missing the mark” of faithfulness to God’s holy standard. It is the most fundamental human problem, and it is the reason we need a Savior. It is a revolt against God’s authority and an insult to God’s glory. It is humanity in moral revolt, usually disguised as personal autonomy.[2]

Gay marriage misses the mark of God’s holy standard. It is a willful revolt against God’s original design in creation. It’s an anti-creation practice. The Scripture names it SIN.

Jesus affirmed heterosexual relationship when he discussed divorce and marriage in Matthew 19 by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24: “”They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’ And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ (19:4-5, NLT) Jesus affirmed the creation account. We affirm what Christ affirmed.

Lev. 18:22—“Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.” (NLT)

Lev. 20:13—“The penalty for homosexual acts is death to both parties. They have committed a detestable act and are guilty of a capital offense.” (NLT)

Rom. 1:26-27—“That’s why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relationships with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men and, as a result, suffered within themselves the penalty they so richly deserved.” (NLT)

1 Cor. 6:9-10—“Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers—none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God.” (NLT)

1 Tim. 1:9-11—“But they were not made for people who do what is right. They are for people who are disobedient and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who murder their father or mother or other people. These laws are for people who are sexually immoral, for homosexuals and slave traders, for liars and oath breakers, and for those who do anything else that contradicts the right teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.” (NLT)

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[1] R. Albert Mohler Jr. The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2009), p. 26.

[2] Ibid., p. 28.

Tolerance and Openness

In The Disappearance of God: Dangerous Beliefs in the New Spiritual Openness (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2009), R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in the preface:

Indeed, the abdication of biblical faith is one of the hallmarks of our age—whether you prefer to call it postmodern, hypermodern, or post-postmodern. Yet, once the faith is severed from biblical authority, Christianity becomes essentially plastic; a malleable and changeable belief system that just begs for transformation into some other shape and substance.

The situation is complicated further by the embrace of an “openness” that is not open to authentic biblical Christianity. Tolerance becomes a code word for avoiding truth, and openness means never having to make a judgment about truth at all.” (pp. xii-xiv)

We live in an age where we are supposed to tolerate everything and be open to everything. Otherwise, we are being labeled as close-minded, rigid, judgmental, conservative, etc…

One of the examples that the author uses when he comments on the Emerging Church is homosexuality. When one of the Emerging Church leaders, Brian McLaren, was asked about the issue of homosexuality at a conference, here is his position: “McLaren insisted that there is no good and satisfactory position for Christians to take, because all positions will hurt someone… McLaren also took refuge in the assumption that homosexuality as we know it today may not be the behavior or phenomenon so roundly condemned in the Bible.” By using D. A. Carson’s own words, “As Carson explains McLaren’s position, ‘that is always bad.’” (p. 82)

Many in the Emerging Church Movement prefer to take refuge in an either/or, both/and, and inherently ambiguous understanding of truth. All this leads Carson to ask a crucial question: “Is there at least some danger that what is being advocated is not so much a new kind of Christian in a new emerging church, but a church that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise?” (p. 83)

When we are open and tolerate without firmly standing on the authority of Scripture, we make God disappear in our age, for we fail to promote the presence of God with biblical beliefs about God.