In teaching on leadership over the last two weeks, I've run across some interesting things. I especially like the paragraph below, taken from Dr. Gilbert Bilezekian's discussion regarding the scene in Matthew 20:20-28, where James and John ask to sit on Jesus' right and left in positions of authority:
"Jesus teaches that "it shall not be so among you" - the one man rule that characterizes the governance of pagan organizations and communities is absolutely forbidden among Christians... To avoid anarchy, authority is to be exercised in the home and in the church, but only on the basis of participatory consensual community rule. Christ refuses to allow any one person to assume in church or family the authority that belongs to Him... Both the congregation gathered together and the husband and wife bowed together receive the mind of Christ. His authority may be usurped by self-styled autocratic leaders only in violation of His will."
The ground is level at the foot of the cross. We all come to God, bowing under His authority, serving and living together in community. Some are given spiritual gifts of leadership and teaching, but those are never to be abused by lording them over other people. Every gift is to be used to serve the body. There should never be the kind of lording over and abusing of authority that we see so often in the world - not in the church and not in the home. As the apostle Paul put it so well, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." In the church, in the home - we are all under the leadership and lordship of Christ. May we always serve as servant leaders whenever we are put in positions of trust and authority, remembering that we are not to be about building our own kingdoms, but that we are to serve the One who died for us, building His Kingdom together.
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