Leadership

    Leadership is a vast and almost impossible subject to capture especially in the confines of  just a few hundred pages.  If you don’t believe me, go to your local bookstore, whether Christian or secular. There are multiple shelves devoted to this important subject.  Every discipline has it’s secrets for those who would aspire to positions of prominence. The business community has its formula for leadership, as does  the political, and media communities. And for sure,  you and I as Christians, also  have our instructions on what’s involved in  becoming a leader.

    But for us, even before we head off to our local bookstore, God has provided an incredible recourse that He offers to us in our Bibles. You hardly start reading before you come across men like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua. They provide great insight into the subject of leadership. They were organizational leaders. They lead organizations, like clans, tribes and a nation. They were godly men, who were chosen by God, but who also possessed management, and military skills. They could organize, delegate, direct and oversee. 
    

One of these special leader, the shepherd boy named David, who was singled out and described by God as a “man after my own heart.”  As this point you might want to ask, “What does this mean, “man after my own heart?”
    I first came across this phrase “after God’s on heart” when I read Acts 13:22. The apostle Paul is describing the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, through the linage of David. David became king  after the first king of Israel, Saul,  was deposed by God. Here is how Paul describes this transaction by God and why David was picked as the new king: And when He [God] had removed him [Saul], He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said,  I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will. (Acts 13:22)

    What does this tell us about biblical leadership? Here are the facts:
        #1. Leadership is God’s choice. God removed Saul and  made David the new leader.
    #2. Leadership requires obedience to do God’s  will.
    I have found David the son of Jesse, ..., who will do all My will
  

 So we now have some insight into what’s involved in becoming a leader, especially a leader who in some way serves God.  But, their’s more: As you begin reading in the New Testament, especially the epistles, you get a little different take on leadership. Still, leaders are chosen by God (Ephesians 4:11-12), and there is still that element of godly obedience (1 Timothy 3:1-7). But the focus takes on more of a  spiritual emphasis.  That’s because the Church as God’s spokesman,  is first and foremost, a living organism, made of believers in Jesus. We are members of  His  body, the church, (1 Corinthians 12:27).
  

 How or should we reconcile these two emphasizes, one in the O.T and one in the N.T.? Why not see them as two sides of the same coin of biblical leadership. A Christian leader is both spiritual and organizational in his role as a leader. And who better to model these two side of the leadership coin than the man Nehemiah, a leader after God’s own heart who modeled both the spiritual and the organizational sides of true bible leadership. These subjects will be addressed in my new book coming out sometime this Spring.