Courageous Pastors or Overbearing Leaders: How Do We Tell the Difference?
Notice the ease with which the apostles move between calls to strength, courage, fortitude, resilience, and resistance on the one hand and gentleness, humility, self-control, kindness, and care on the other. In healthy churches and healthy individuals, they’re two sides of the same coin. Both sides were needed in biblical times because overbearing leadership isn’t a modern invention.
This generation needs courageous pastors. Every generation does. Shepherds are charged with guarding and protecting the flock of God from harm, and there’s plenty of that out there, whether in the form of wolves or thieves—predators within or bullies without. Faced with threats to the church and with an Enemy who always seeks to kill and destroy, pastors need to lead clearly and bravely. We need courageous shepherds.
This generation has suffered under overbearing leaders. Again, perhaps every generation has. But recent years have seen a reckoning: a recognition that far too many men (and they’re almost always men) have trampled over the flocks under their care, fleecing and exploiting rather than feeding and tending them. Several high-profile ministry leaders have been exposed as abusive. Others have been challenged and have closed ranks. Some leaders have repented and stepped down; still others have claimed to repent and then started up again as if nothing happened. Even now, I doubt the reckoning is over. The fallout certainly isn’t.
Accentuating each of these challenges is the existence of the other one. Many an overbearing leader has remained in place and retained support from his team by portraying himself as courageous and his critics as cowardly, spineless, effeminate, or oversensitive. Equally, I suspect many pastors have failed to address clear errors, abuses, divisions, and sins in the church, or immaturity and underperformance in their staff teams, because they fear that to do so would make them strident, overweening, overbearing bullies.
The presence of each error provides cover for its opposite. Cowardice and heavy-handedness are symbiotic.
We all want to have or be courageous pastors—not overbearing leaders. How do we tell the difference? Some Christian leaders know perfectly well that their behavior is abusive and evil; it’s difficult to sexually assault someone without realizing you are doing so. But I suspect many people become domineering and overbearing without realizing the extent to which they have. That’s partly why they’re so resistant to the charge when it comes—sin almost always involves self-deception.
What are the defining traits in each case? How might recognizing them help us grow into courage without becoming overbearing?
Biblical Portraits
An obvious place to start is with the biblical qualifications for eldership. (I use the NIV throughout; all emphases are mine.) Several of Paul’s criteria in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 warn against an explosive, hectoring, or domineering use of authority: “Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money . . .”
At the same time, throughout this letter, Paul urges Timothy not to be squeamish about confronting those who are threatening the church, using robust and even military language: “command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer” (1:3), “fight the battle well” (1:18), “command and teach these things” (4:11), “those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone” (5:20), “fight the good fight of the faith” (6:12), “command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant” (6:17), “guard what has been entrusted to your care” (6:20).
The same both/and is present in Titus 1:7–11:
Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced . . .
We find it in 1 Thessalonians 5:12–15:
Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
It also comes across beautifully in 2 Timothy 2, which begins with a call to strength and resilience, like that of a soldier or farmer or athlete (vv. 1–7), and ends by insisting that “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone,” and that “opponents must be gently instructed” (vv. 24–25).
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Review: ‘Following God Fully: An Introduction to the Puritans’
The best part of the book is that, like Puritan theology itself, ‘Following God Fully’ is not purely academic, but encourages reflection and action. Coming to the end of the book, I gained a refreshed wonder at the power of God’s Word to bring light and love into whole swaths of society. I am also full of thankfulness for how he fulfills his promise to supply his church with gifts to protect it and bring it to full maturity (Eph 4:11-13). I wonder how our modern churches would be more blessed if pastors, writers (including myself), and gospel workers were gripped by the centrality of Christ in the Bible.
This book is for those who have only heard of the Puritans as a movement or a vague idea, and can’t name a single person from that time. William Perkins… who?
It’s for those who belong to most major Protestant denominations in Australia, as beneficiaries of the Puritans’ reforming work.
It’s for those who want refreshing, encouraging and real-life examples of how a deep knowledge of God’s Word can lead to inflamed devotions for the Lord Jesus, rather than mere games for the intelligentsia and ‘theological ping-pong’ (148).
In Following God Fully, Joel Beeke and Michael Reeves achieve an admirable feat by putting together a short, informative and edifying book that would benefit people on both ends of the Puritan knowledge spectrum.
The ‘Who’ and ‘What’ of Puritanism
The Puritans were pastors and theologians who existed roughly 150 years following the Reformation, between approximately 1550 and 1700 AD. In many ways, they were a group of fervent-hearted gospel workers raised ‘for such a time as this’ (Est 4:14); by the time of their existence, the church was largely biblically illiterate and hungry for God’s Word:
The people of Europe had been without a Bible that they could read in their native tongue for approximately a thousand years. To be able to read God’s own words, and to see in them such good news that God saves sinners… entirely by his own grace, was like glorious sunshine bursting into the dark, grey world of religious guilt and human misery. (4)
The Puritans heralded this good news and were especially well-equipped to nourish the church back to life. They were largely ‘highly learned… well-trained in linguistics, and well-educated in biblical, systematic, and historical theology’ (148).
Beyond knowledge and skills, they were also men whose hearts and consciences were on fire for God, his Word and his church. They saw Christ in every line of the Bible and sought to expound him as clearly as possible. They fed and shepherded their flocks with tenderness and care, nourishing them with—to their delight—lengthy and scripturally rich sermons.
In short, the Puritans were gifts from God to the churches in old England, producing such a ‘movement of… intense, comprehensive pursuit of holiness [that lasted] for 150 years’ (9), not replicated even until now.
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Indescribable Descriptives
Talented songwriters can do better. It is not as if we don’t have an inspired songbook to show us how it’s done. Let’s mine the Word of God and the world of God for analogies that will fire and inspire the Christian imagination to rightly know and encounter our infinite God.
Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”: make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”C. S. Lewis
Lewis helps us to recognize a flaw in much modern Christian songwriting. No doubt, many contemporary songs are vast improvements on the gospel-song cliché-mill. The re-commitment to theological clarity and depth in many contemporary hymns is something to rejoice over, and any serious Christian will be thankful for an injection of sound theological ideas into the gelatinous world of modern evangelical conviction.
With all that said, I find Lewis’s sentiment played out before me in not a few modern songs. These songs seem to try to gather as many superlative adjectives as possible that will fit the meter of the song. These are then piled on top of one another, and the result is a rapid-fire of high-concentrate adjectives. The resulting lyrics are something like: “Indescribable majesty, incomparable glory, unbounded mercy, immeasurable beauty…”
Yet for all this verbal altitude, the effect is palpably flat. Instead of soaring into the heights of praising God as the ultimate Being, we sing these super-hero adjectives with a sense of incomplete affection. It is as if we are hoping that these superlative adjectives will kick-start our delight in God. Some worshippers succeed, others don’t. Likely, most content themselves with the thought that ascribing superlative adjectives to God is surely the right way to go, even if little moral excitement is raised in response to them.
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Blandina – God’s Strength in Weakness
Blandina continued to live on in Christian memory as one of the brave women martyrs of the early church, such as Perpetua and Felicita. During the early church, she gave hope to many Christians, with the knowledge that God would sustain them in persecution, regardless the weakness of their bodies and the violence of their enemies.
When the Roman authorities hung Blandina to a pole and exposed her to a crowd of blood-thirsty spectators, they thought they could frighten anyone who rebelled to their rules. What they didn’t know is that they were holding her up as an example that gave new strength and courage to other Christians.
The Persecution at Lyons
Contrary to popular opinion, the Romans were not in the habit of killing Christians. Many disliked them and distrusted them, particularly in the beginning, when their teachings seemed too new and strange. But only a few emperors launched a sustained program against them – most famously Diocletian, who in 303 AD started a persecution that lasted eight years.
Some violent persecutions came from crowds who looked for a reason for their calamities. This is what happened in the region of Vienne and Lyons (ancient Lugdunum), in what is now southern France.
A lively community of Christians, including Romans, Greeks, and Gauls, lived there. The famous theologian Irenaeus, who was probably born in today’s Turkey, served there as a presbyter.
By the year 176, the people of Vienne and Lyon had suffered one disaster after another – from a deadly plague to repeated raids by Germanic tribes, Many people believed the gods were taking revenge against the Christians who refused to worship them. Because of this, they kept Christians away from communal areas such as the baths and the forum, and attacked them with insults, beatings, robberies, and stoning.
In 177, this violence reached its peak as a frustrated mob brought the Christians to the magistrates. After admitting their faith in Christ, Christians were sent to prison to wait for the governor’s verdict. The local bishop, Pothinus, was imprisoned in spite of his old age and poor health, and died in prison two days later.
Slaves received the worst treatment because, by law, they were allowed to be tortured in order to obtain information. The authorities even arrested pagan slaves who worked for Christian families, as they were most willing to offer information in order to escape torture. In fact, in an effort to give the authorities what they wanted, some of them denounced practices these families had never followed, such as eating human flesh and living immoral lives.
Blandina
Blandina was a Christian slave who refused to give up her faith and to give any information. Because of this, she was cruelly tortured. Her martyrdom is described in a letter which might have been written by Irenaeus and has been preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (who wrote after Diocletian’s persecution).
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