Yet the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us”- 1st Samuel 8:19 NASB

Every once in a while, the good Lord taps me on the shoulder and quietly lets me know that I am not completely finished with something I assumed was over. I know it’s God speaking because I am unable to let the thing (whatever it may be) go mentally or emotionally. 

Such was the case with last week’s blog post. 

I wrote about a rather grim warning Jesus gave regarding the sorry state of Christian leadership in the end times (Matthew 24:48-51). The overall point of the post was that the Church is almost certainly (at least to some degree) walking in the reality of Jesus’ warning. There is a shocking excess of selfish, hurtful and just plain crummy leadership in Christian circles. This is obviously not okay. Christians need to think about this, even if the leadership we are following or practicing is awesome. This is because Christian leadership impacts how unbelievers view both God and the church.  The epidemic of crummy leadership in the Church is without a doubt one of the reasons so many have defected from the church in recent years. 

In my mind the subject was exhausted.  

Nonetheless, Monday I had a niggling sense there was more God wanted me to say on the subject. I prayed about it and by mid-afternoon I understood what was missing from the original post.

The why. 

The why is the reason or reasons hiding behind a problem or issue.  Why’s matter.  Anytime we do not understand the why of something the problems associated with that thing tend to repeat themselves. Such is the case here. Crummy spiritual leadership is not new problem. Bad leadership has been the bane of both Jewish and Christian history. In first Samual eight we see the first recorded occurrence of the problem. 

Most of us are familiar with the story.

The Israelites decided they wanted a king to lead them.  The people longed for a human leader who had all the answers. They wanted someone who was bright and well spoken. Someone who understood what do and how to get it done. Samuel warned them that if they went that route, evil, self-absorbed men would move into that role, and they would pay a heavy price for their choice (1st Samuel 8:11-18).

 In a very real sense, many Christians want the same thing the Israelites wanted. Christians want leaders who look good and represent our churches well. Christians want leaders who will clearly state the will of God for our lives. We want someone to seek God on our behalf and give us moral and spiritual direction. It’s not bad to want leaders. Leaders can be a gift from God unless the desire for a leader is born out of one of the following reasons:

Spiritual laziness (sorry I know this one is harsh)-

God wants all people to seek Him. Once a person gets into relationship with God then He wants His people to want an intimate relationship with Him. One aspect of relationship with God is giving God the praise and honor He deserves (worship). However, another critical aspect of relationship with God is asking Him about stuff. God wants us to get into the Bible and learn it.  He also wants us to ask Him for wisdom and insight into our problems and struggles. When we do these things, we get to know God better and it gives invaluable insight into what we should and shouldn’t do in our particular set of circumstances. When we learn to do these things on a regular basis, it builds relationship with God, it increases our trust in God and it gives us the wisdom we need to do life well (Daniel 12:3, Psalm 37:29-31). Seeking God for ourselves does not end the need for human leadership but it does make us better able to lead ourselves because we are literally getting advice and guidance from the God of the universe. That being said, sometimes people don’t want to do the work necessary to build closeness with God, because it’s hard.

We have forgotten our faith journey is our own-

Every single human being will stand before the judgment seat of God ALONE (Matthew 25:14-29, 2nd Corinthians 5:10, Hebrews 9:27). We will not have a spouse or spiritual leader holding our hand for support or taking some of the heat (or praise) for our choices. We are all responsible before God for our own faith journey. This fact makes an overreliance on human leadership foolish at best. 

We don’t want to do the hard work of growth-

No wants to be wrong or make a bad decision. However, personal failure serves a valuable purpose. When we make a bad decision and take responsibility for the choice we grow and learn. When we humble ourselves after a failure, wisdom begins to take root in our hearts (Matthew 23:12, James 4:6-10). When we become overly dependent on human leaders for our spiritual direction, we rarely learn from the mistakes we see others making. Instead, we tend to become judgmental towards their failure and prideful about our own decision making (Matthew 7:1-3). This makes us dumb and lacking in compassion. Not good. It’s better to learn and grow from our own failures. 

The desire for good leadership is not always bad or sinful. Leaders serve a purpose (Hebrews 13:17). However, it is critical we understand Christianity was never meant to have a middleman. When Jesus died the veil in the Temple that separated the most holy place was torn in two, ripped from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). This miraculous act signified the end of the middleman and the beginning of a time when all people could communicate with God and learn spiritual truth for themselves. When we are communing with and learning from God, we protect ourselves and those we love from the devastation of bad leaders.