Theological Perspective of Leadership

 How does God see leadership?

The term influence is at the very heart of many leadership definitions. One defines leadership as “the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives.”  Others define leadership as “interpersonal influence exercised in a situation and directed through the communication process…

Still others state that leadership is “influencing people to follow in the achievement of a goal.

The point here is that leaders are doers and what they do is influence.  Leadership is all about influence.

Influence involves moving people to change their thinking and ultimately their behavior.   Several ways that leaders accomplish this will help to define influence:

     1.    Persuasion – The primary way to influence is by persuasion. Paul influenced and thus       persuaded unbelieving Jews to accept Christ by reasoning with them from the Scriptures that Jesus was their Messiah Acts 17:1-4).  He also attempted to persuade lost Gentiles (18:4) and believers (2 Cor. 5:11).

     2.    Encouragement – David sought to encourage Joab by sending him directions on how to win a battle, even though it was for a bad cause (2 Sam. 11:25)

     3.    A godly example – The writer of Hebrews tells the readers to consider the outcome of their leaders’ lifestyle and to imitate their faith (Heb. 13:7). 

Leadership was considered necessary in New Testament Churches. 

     1.    Early in the life of the churches, relief funds were sent from Antioch to the elders in the churches in Judea (Acts 11:20).

     2.    Paul appointed elders almost immediately in the churches founded on the first missionary journey (Acts 14:23).

     3.    Elders and Deacons appear as part of the normal picture of the life of various churches (Acts 20:17; Phil. 1:1)

     4.     Paul seemed to consider leaders a necessity for the proper functioning of churches (Titus 1:5).

     5.    Leadership is one of the spiritual gifts (Rom. 12:8) that functions in local churches (Heb. 13:7, 17).

The word spiritual gifts (charisma) related to the word for grace, means something that is due to the grace of God.  The use of the word in the New Testament ranges from the gift of salvation (Rom. 6:23) to the gifts of God’s providential care (2 Cor. 1:11), to the most frequent use in relation to gifts of grace to the believer.  Thus, a spiritual gift is a God given ability for service.    

God sees leadership as a service to humanity by Leaders who are committed Christ – Followers who put themselves under the lordship of Christ.  Paul summarizes this in Romans 6:13 where he writes, “But rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness…” 

In Corinthians 11:1 Paul writes to the church at Corinth, “Be imitators of me, just as I also of Christ.  This is a bold but justified exhortation. Spiritual Leaders must set an example of Christ likeness to follow.

Eph. 5:1, therefore, be imitators of God, The Christian has no grater calling or purpose than that of imitating his Lord. That is the very purpose of sanctification, growing in likeness to the Lord while serving Him on earth.  The Christian life is designed to reproduce godliness as modeled by the Savior and Lord.  Jesus Christ, in whose image believers have been recreated through the new birth. As God’s dear children, believers are to become more and more like their heavenly Father.

I believe that the church is the hope of the world (Matt. 16:18). However, leadership is the hope of the church.  The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that Christ is both the foundation (Acts 4:11, 12; 1Cor. 3:11) and the head (Eph. 5:23) of the church, it is a mistake to think that here He is giving either of those roles to Peter.  There is a sense in which the Apostles played a foundational role in the building of the church (Eph. 2:20), but the primary role is reserved for Christ alone, not assigned to Peter.

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