For twelve posts now, we've been working on the Mars Hill eight-point definition of the church (here) and have gotten as far as the fourth criterion, which has to do with the sacraments. Forgive me, if I digress for one posting to go back to the second criterion, "The church is organized under qualified and competent leadership."Isaiah 11:2-9 contains a powerful description of the biblical understanding of leadership. Reading from Today's English Version (TEV) [here], the salient points are:
- leadership is God-given and has a spiritual focus;
- the inspired leader is wise, knowledgeable, skillful, pious, and fair with all esp. the poor & defenseless;
- this ruler can make the hard decisions concerning those who are a danger to peace;
- "He will rule his people with justice and integrity" (11:5)
- under inspired leadership those led will live in profound peace, and there will be no harm, no evil;
- "The land will be as full of knowledge of the Lord as the seas are full of water." (11:9)
The business of leadership is peace. The marks of leadership are wisdom, knowledge, justice, and integrity. The foundation is a trusting faith in God. The end product is a people who "know" God, that is faithfully put their trust in the divine—and consequently themselves live in peace. Recalling the fifth posting in this series (here), however, it is important to remember that leaders and followers live in a dynamic, reflexive relationship. If the people aren't open to and themselves seeking wisdom, justice, and peace, their leaders will fail. The above list of biblical traits of leadership thus also applies to followership. Amen.
