I’m not anti-clerical, I’m anti laity

In the aftermath of my talk last week at Church House “When Women were Bishops, and before there were bishops” http://www.businessconnect.je/chow/item/when-women-were-bishops.html, I was challenged as being “anticlerical and having insufficient respect for ordination”.

Well I think I gave a loving and constructive response at the time, but the question has been nagging me a little since, so I thought I’d set out what I think about this in a little more detail.

First of all, I love the fact the people are ordained in the church. Love it. In fact I love it so much that I think we should be doing more of it. Lots more.

Now as the New Testament does not give us a model for ordination we will have to come up with something of a definition. Here’s a quick one:

Ordination is a collective act of the local church in which the body of Christ; (a) together discerns who the Holy Spirit is already equipping, gifting and calling into a work of service, and (b) together recognises, supports and authorises the person or people to continue in that gifting and calling in the context of our local church and the relationships with have with others and the mission field into which we are called.

OK so its quite a long definition, but the key points for me are that, firstly, our job is to spot what the Spirit is already doing and bless and follow that, and secondly that the ordination is as much about the local congregation undertaking to accept and support the ministry as it is about the person ordained accepting it.

So what should we ordain? Well I’d love to see more people ordained to lots of different ministries, some longer term and some pretty temporary. A member of the church is about to go into the local prison every Thursday to speak to the inmates – ordain him to it. Another is about to start volunteering at the hospice – ordain her. A couple are about to lead a Homegroup – ordain them. A team is about to go to Congo for a fortnight to build a HIV education centre and encourage the local church – ordain them. Someone  seems to be increasingly used by the Holy Spirit to pray for healing – ordain them.

Obviously there are some “bigger” roles of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Teacher and Pastor, and someone who has been ordained a few times into more specific roles might well be recognised as having one of these roles too, but lets not focus too much on that end of the telescope. Similarly if your church has an eldership, diaconate, PCC or other governing body, ordain them while they serve, but lets not see these as a hierarchical status.

What should we not ordain? Well don’t ordain people for just doing the normal stuff of church life – don’t ordain someone to be able to pronounce an absolution or benediction in Jesus’ name, don’t ordain someone to be able to baptise someone they have just led to faith, don’t ordain someone to break bread. Unless of course they were somehow “stuck” – perhaps a demon of traditionalism – or feeling inhibited in their exercise of the daily bread and butter of life in Christ, by the power of the Spirit. For someone in this state maybe a little ordination will minister release to them.

And of course in ordination there is no gender bar – whoever we see the Holy Spirit working in and through, we ordain to give our human recognition to the divine gift. Perhaps there is not even much of an age bar either – maybe we would be surprised just how much the Holy Spirit can use the youngest members of the congregation.

So ordination? I’m all for it. But as for the invention of the laity… don’t get me started.

Call me an evangelical

I have just seen a great quote from Menno Simons that I hadn’t seen before. It was on Kevin Daugherty, great blog Koinonia Revolution, and its worth reading the whole post.

http://koinoniarevolution.com/2013/09/16/who-are-you-calling-evangelical/?relatedposts_exclude=986

For true evangelical faith is of such a nature that it cannot lay dormant; but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love; it dies unto flesh and blood; destroys all forbidden lusts and desires; cordially seeks, serves and fears God; clothes the naked; feeds the hungry; consoles the afflicted; shelters the miserable; aids and consoles all the oppressed; returns good for evil; serves those that injure it; prays for those that persecute it; teaches, admonishes and reproves with the Word of the Lord; seeks that which is lost; binds up that which is wounded; heals that which is diseased and saves that which is sound.

Didn’t think I’d say this, but call me an evangelical. Or perhaps someone who is seeking to live an evangelical life, and by grace sometimes does.

The Blokes Eucharist

 

 

 

 

 

 

Priest    Peace!

All             Likewise

Priest    God’s great, and worth showing a bit of ‘spect to

All              Yeah, too right

Priest    Let’s show one another we’re all one team

All [to one another] ‘Right mate.

All [to one another] Not so bad yourself.

Priest      Jesus done the big one – lived right, got killed for it and rose again. Now he’s ‘ere so we can share in his victory

All             Amen

The Priest takes a big chunk of bread

Priest    When I rip this bread apart, Jesus is here.

The Priest takes the chalice

Priest    When you drink this alcohol, Jesus is here.

The Priest administers the bread

Priest    Have some of that

All             Ta

The Priest administers the wine

Priest    Get that down you

All             Cheers pal.

Priest    Now you’ve ‘ad your grub what do you say?

All             Thanks Lord

Priest   Come on lads, God made everythin’ and there’s people out there who ‘adn’t got nuffin, so we’re gonna have a whip-round.

All            Fair enough

Priest   Dig deep, its in a good cause

All            ‘S only money ‘innit, can’t take it with you.

Priest    ‘Nuff said, now get out there and get building the kingdom.

All             Right.

Starting to think about the Eucharist

Ordered a book off Amazon today. "On Christian Priesthood" by Robin Ward http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christian-Priesthood-Robin-Ward/dp/0826499082 Hopefully it will arrive in a few days and I’ll blog a few reactions to the text. I have been noticing more and more about the idea of Christian Priesthood lately – especially on Twitter, and I have had that recurrent dream of seeing myself dressed up in the whole clerical fancy dress virtually nightly for the last couple of weeks, so its probably a good time to get some of it down in electronic ink.
First though I have cribbed below a few jottings I wrote on the fly back in August to a dear friend whose question was on the lines of "Holy Communion – I’m just not feeling it…"
This is what I wrote to her.
"Holy Communion (to use the Anglican phrase) is an expression of our shared life in Christ. We are the body of Jesus, gathered and scattered, and when two or three of us gather we are particularly conscious of His resurrected presence. In coming together around a table we are powerfully reminded of our shared lives, the ways we have met one another’s broken needs, ministered healing to one another, stood by each other in encouragement and sympathy, met each other’s financial needs, carried one another’s burdens etc. When we feed one another at His table we remind ourselves that Christianity is not a solo spiritual journey, but a community of those who are being saved from the powers.
The openness of the table reminds us that we are not simply helping out our friends in some holy-huddle, but expressing the new creation, to which the whole world is invited, and especially those who seem uninvited by those outside the table who puff themselves up out of all proportion. There is no place for grandeur at the table of the King of Kings! The absence of any lords and leaders reminds us that we are all children of same Father, all sharing in the one loaf. The bear hug, arm-pat or gentle smile of recognition from each other as we eat assures us that we are known and accepted for who we are, both in the community of faith and ultimately by God.
The aroma of freshly baked bread fills our imagination with the joys of the age to come, and the crumbs that scatter remind us of the bounteous provision of God to every mouse or sparrow who prays "give us this day…". The warming hit of alcohol alters our senses, alerting us to the transformation of all things, that goes on by the grace of God working its way into our whole perceptions. The armfuls of leftover wine and bread that we share in the park with the homeless remind us of the astonishing generosity of God.
It is a feast for the soul and the senses, there is so much to take in that we can hardly hope to encompass 1% of it in our meagre minds, and yet over time, as we grow in love for our King and his upside-down kingdom our imagination becomes bigger and more able to contain "the riches of his grace".
And if we don’t feel these things? Well that absence if feeling should challenge us as a community. Perhaps we are not feeling the presence of the body because there are unmet financial needs among us, with some rich and some poor? Perhaps we are not feeling the presence of the body because we have guarded our wounds around the table and shied away from the healing touch of each other? Perhaps there are secrets, perhaps there are surrendered feelings of superiority, elitism or status, perhaps there is the simple pride of solitary religion, and its comforts.
So perhaps the feelings, or lack of feeling, you describe, is the prompting of the Spirit, to press on and press in to deeper fellowship and communion around the common table. Perhaps others are feeling it too… Maybe we all need to break bread (to use language I’m more comfortable with) together."
So I think while I read Ward, I’m thinking I might go through a season (perhaps through Advent) of celebrating the Eucharist daily. Some days this would be as part of my Morning Office sine populo, and where possible concelebrating / communicating at various times and places throughout the week depending where I am and what’s going on – and taking in St Pauls or wabbey on my London days, leading up to the midnight HC which I hope to spend at the lovely St Peters once again.

Taize Sermon from 27 October

Sermon delivered at St Helier Church evening Taize style service, inspired by a recent post of Richard Beck’s on Experimental Theology.

“Be patient then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.” James 5:7

“Be patient then, brothers and sisters”. This section of James’ letter is something of a case study in patience. Be patient about the weather, be patient about each other, be patient about suffering and persecution and be patient in prayer – patient with God.

But there are different kinds of patience and there is a different way of looking at the world through patient eyes.

Some people talk about a patience that says; "Just put up with it. Just put up with the injustice you see all around. Just put up with the pain and suffering of this world. Just put up with the fact that tonight over twenty thousand children will not wake up in the morning because in this world of plenty they could not afford to buy any food. Just put up with the fact that we spend more on the weapons of war than on all the schools and hospitals on the planet combined. Just put up with it because it’s all going to burn up anyway. Just put up with it because God is more interested in souls in heaven than bodies on Earth.” In this view, patience in this life is a logical, resigned, acceptance of the way things are and will always be – broken, fallen and ultimately frustrating. But this is not a Christian view.

There is the view of the recently departed politician who said “I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.” But hers was not a Christian view either.

There’s another kind of patience that says; “God is in control. God is mighty. God is strong. God is all-powerful. God can fix anything and the only reason that he doesn’t is something to do with us not understanding his mysterious ways or his hidden timings.” In this view our job is to wait patiently for God to fix this mess, and to fix us, and most importantly to fix them – because they really have it coming to them don’t they? In this view humans are just spectators in a Samuel Beckett-like drama, in which the absent lead character carries all the plot. I think its possible to say that this is a Biblical view, as in you can find some of this thought in various parts of scripture, but I would again say that this too is not a Christian view.

The modern world of business, of advertisers, of express painkillers, fast food, instant music and 24 hour access to debt finance, is one stripped of patience. We sometimes see this even in the church. One in which the unstrained cravings of the ego, become the acceptable strivings of progress. One in which no gratification must be delayed. One in which a whole economy is built upon desire and in which patience can be an insurrectionary act of defiance.

But what James seems to be alluding to, and what we see in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, is first and foremost a God who is patient. Because if, as John says; God is love – and as Paul says; love is patient, then perhaps we need a different understanding of patience. One that arises from a renewed vision of God.

Jack Caputo writes of the love of God as a “weak force in the world” – this is not a statement about how weak or strong God actually might be, but more a statement about how God seems to operate. And it’s based on an understanding of how love operates. Love beckons. Love beguiles the heart. Love attracts us in a myriad gentle and mysterious ways. Love does not force, coerce or overpower with greater might or strength of will.

Think for a moment about the beauty of a sunset – we’ve had quite a few marvellous ones lately. Does anyone have to force you to watch a sunset? Or can you ever force someone to stop what they are doing to just absorb the sublime beauty of heaven’s watercolours? No, the beauty of a sunset is very powerful, but its allure is not a coercive force. It doesn’t push you. It draws you. Its something that breaks your heart, it melts you and it moves you.

And maybe the love of God is like the beauty of a sunset. Maybe the life of Jesus is like the beauty of a thousand setting suns and ten thousand more heart-breaking dawns. Maybe we get a hint of that beauty in the good we see in people too. And maybe God is patiently filling the creation, and our own lives, with such moments of beauty that, little by little, our iceberg hearts might melt.

James says be patient. Just as a farmer cannot rush the growing seed, by fretting and worrying about it, and she certainly cannot force the fruit to ripen.

James says do not grumble against one another – but just as God is infinitely patient with us, then so might we look on at each other’s slow encounters with transforming beauty.

James says be patient in our sufferings, as God is patient in all the suffering of creation.

James says be patient in prayer. Prayer can so often be viewed as a coercive exchange. “I have done this Lord now you do that.” James is very careful not to make prayer for the sick a one man celebrity ministry. Lots of people gather round and share patience in community. So all might be transformed by the beauty of God working in the sick person.

James says be patient with each others sins, confessing to one another and speaking forgiveness to one another – a beautiful enactment of the life of Jesus in our community.

Finally James says be patient with those who have “wandered” from Jesus…

In our evangelism perhaps we need to learn patience from the patient love of God. So often we rush people to a deadline, often with verses that say "today, if you hear his voice…" or "now is the day of salvation…" But if Gregory of Nazianzus is right, then God doesn’t seem to work from this timetable of mortal urgency. God seems to be in the business of melting heats, through the attractive beauty of his gentle love. It’s so easy to be impatient with the work God is doing in others. Easy too to have a patient regard for the timberwork blocking our own clear vision. But if the weak force of God’s beguiling love is drawing the whole of creation up into communion… And if love wins in the end through the slow, non-coercive, unwinding of sin… And if love is infinitely and gratuitously patient then perhaps, just perhaps, patience might be our holy response to the grace of God.

Amen.

Leadership and Power, Pt V

The talk I gave at CHOW is now online, do head over there where you’ll see and hear a whole load of other interesting resources that relate to this topic.

http://www.businessconnect.je/chow/item/intro-to-the-kingdom-and-leadership-talk.html

http://www.businessconnect.je/chow/item/the-kingdom-of-god-and-leadership.html

Leadership and Power, Pt IV; Leadership in the Church

We’re jumping around a bit as I want to get this post online before the talk tomorrow at CHOW, although ideally I want to make a few more points on the business leadership side before doing the bit on leadership in the church. So this is principally for the benefit of those who are trying to follow slides 12 and 13 in the talk, which will hopefully become clearer later in the series. Let’s start with a word of scripture – Mark 10:42 – 45.
42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Slides 12 and 13 in the CHOW talk are essentially two vocab lists. All I am going to do today is to provide a little background and definition and bring in a note on one more leadership word from the NT. In Graham Tomlin’s excellent talk at the HTB Leadership Conference he focused on Ποιμένας "shepherd" and tracked the OT roots of the pastoral motif through Zechariah and Ezekiel, before coming to the iconic John 10:11 and 1 Peter 2:25. I’ll save the discussion of that exegesis for another time.

The other NT words on slide 12, are these:

Διακόνους– servant, waiter, “errand runner” – often transliterated as "Deacon" and read through a Contantinian ecclesiological lens, as a life long order of clergy. I would argue that a better modern gloss might be "that person who regularly stacks away the plastic chairs, or cleans out the tea urn, while everyone else is getting into their cars.
μαθητὴς– student, learner, disciple – a good word for Christian leaders, remembering that we are all lifelong learners, the word "disciple" itself is now probably too religious and archaic to make sense.
δοῦλος – slave, servant – obviously the language of slavery and class makes this a difficult one to use. "Server" is perhaps a better English word than servant.
ἀποστόλους – messenger, envoy – the transliteration "apostle" is just too fully loaded theologically to be useful as a word for contemporary Christian leadership, but in the contemporary context perhaps +John as our Episcopal Visitor is acting as ἀποστόλους?
Προφήτας – prophet – as my friend Richard notes the role of prophet is a key linking role in the plurality of leadership in the church.
Εὐαγγελιστάς – good news bearer, herald – difficult to translate this NT word since as we live in a world post Finney, Moody, Graham, and the televanglists of the modern era. To our ears the word speaks of a short presentation of a "gospel message" of persuasion leading to a "decision for Christ", but it is not at all clear that the NT word refers to such a construct.
Διδασκάλους – teacher – this one suggests one who facilitates learning. Effective learning is a product of environment, questions, dialogue, guided study and skilful teaching.
ἐπίσκοπος – one who watches over, tends attentively. This is another example of a word whose meaning for is influenced by our subsequent ecclesiology. Even where translators seek to avoid the anachronistic "Bishop" the language of overseer, or supervisor, tends to read in a managerial mindset, which is lacking in the original sense of one who watches with attentive and tender care, not one who directs from above.
Πρεσβύτεροι – elder, mature, experienced. We will need another post altogether to handle the "presbuteros = priest" heresy. For now it is interesting to note that the word is virtually always plural in the NT, and speaks of wisdom, discernment and kind advice rather than the sort of authority we saw with "archon".

Slide 13 picks eleven English words that have been used by churches to denote their leaders.

Vicar – “agent / stand-in, representative, substitute, deputy”
Rector – “Ruler, one who guides, directs” “archon”
Dean – “One in charge of ten”
Abbot – “Father”
Priest –”performer of ritual sacrifices / spiritual mediator”
Cardinal – “Permanent assignment”
Canon – “ruling / regulating
Monsignor – “My Lord”
Pastor – “shepherd” , but “Executive Senior Pastor”?
Minister – “servant”, but Prime Minister…?
Reverend – “Honourable / one who must be respected”

Our point is merely that many of these words owe more to the thought world of "archon" than those of the ten words of NT Christian leadership, and the sentiment of the Mark 10:42 passage above.

Finally a note about Προϊστάμενος – Proistamenos. We see this word in Romans 12:8, which the NIV renders:
8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
We also see the word in places such as 1 Thess 5:12, 1 Tim 3:4-5,12,17, Titus 3:8,14 and Romans 16:2. Many translations render it as "lead" (with the exception of the Rom 16:2 occurrence). The word breaks down into two parts; "pro" meaning "in front of" or "before" and "histemi" meaning "to stand". This might lead us to think about the one presiding, or standing at the front of a liturgy. But a better understanding is about someone we set before us as an example to copy, someone we hold in our vision as a model or demonstration of lived out behaviour. This then becomes a consistent reading with our other NT leadership words.
And why does the NIV, along with a good many other translations, balk at using the word "leader" for Proistemenos in Romans 16:2? Maybe its because the example given of this leadership trait is someone the translators cannot permit to be seen as a model of leadership? Romans 16:2 is about a leader of the early church in the strategic port town of Cenchreae. One proven as a leader to many including Paul himself. One given prominence in the list of greetings and commendations at the end of Paul’s greatest letter. Romans 16:2 is about Phoebe.

Leadership and Power, Pt III; Christians in Business

Glancing across at the bookshelves in my office I can pick out the word "Leadership" on the spines of over a dozen texts. If I included the words "management" or performance into my search there would probably be over fifty titles on the subject. As a Human Resources Director and occasional speaker and writer on matters of business and people the whole topic of leading and managing people is clearly a hot topic and one which is not settled.

Within the business literature there is at surface level a raging debate. Is leadership about command and control or about laissez faire? Are we trying to make star performers or team players? Is the proper focus the task, the team or the individual? Each book or talk has its own nuance. Some models of leadership focus on the big picture, others on the small details. Some have a degree psychological sophistication, others are blunt and unsubtle. Some focus on leadership as an implicit "pull", others show it as an explicit "push".

Yet across all of these theories there are some common themes. In business it is unquestioned that the leader is someone who gets things done, who makes things happen. Leaders are in charge, and their job is to make others do things. Whether this is by charm, persuasion, inspiration or coercion it is accepted that leaders are there to impose will, purpose and direction. This is also implicit in the idea in Capitalism that the owner of the means of production has the right to direct the labours of the work force – we find it hard to imagine it otherwise.

Before we look at leadership within the church, I wanted to think about the way leaders in business, are treated within the church. I particularly want to think about how highly successful leaders, such as CEOs, Generals, and high ranking Civil Servants who are Christians are treated within the Evangelical Church. My case study for this is the LC13 Leadership Conference recently hosted by the much reported Holy Trinity Brompton Church, known as HTB.

At LC13 there were a great number of high profile leaders on the speaking platform. When they were interviewed several themes came out; (i) it is hard to be a Christian at the heights of the career ladder, (ii) one reason for this is the pressure on family time and church time that having a high flying job requires, (iii) the Christian leader might not necessarily do their substantive job any differently but they will show some key differences around personal morality. These last differences might include abstaining from coarse language, being kindly to one’s driver, avoiding the scandal of a workplace sexual affair and, importantly, witnessing evangelistically so that one’s colleagues know you are a Christian. Those that had reached the top of their respective professions, while keeping to this narrow ethical code were greeted with adulation and celebration, with the success ascribed to the glory of God.

Two things struck me as noticeable, which became starkly evident following Tomlin and Backhouse’s seminar at the same event, the first was that it seems being a Christian made no difference to the substantive decisions made by the executive in the course of their appointment, and secondly, it was assumed that becoming a leader – one who makes stuff happen and takes charge – was not only a desirable thing for other Christians to emulate, but also a sign of God’s blessing.

Anticipating the conclusion of my next post – that leadership in the church is nothing like the leadership of Caesar, or of big business – we have several choices. We could take the view that Christians who work "in the kosmos" need to simply accept the ways of the kosmos and get along accordingly, albeit without swearing or shagging your secretary. Alternatively we could take the escapist / monastic route and leave the world to its own destruction.

But I’m (obviously) searching for a third way. I think it can be right for Christians to engage in worldly institutions and even to accept high office within them, but how we treat them as a church is key. Looking for Old Testament examples such as Joseph and Daniel, is not, I posit the answer. Treating the Christian CEO as a celebrity is not a healthy answer either. We should celebrate the work of all who toil. We should pray, equip, support and ordain all who are called into work in hospitals, schools, businesses and governments. We should especially equip, with teaching and pastoral support those whose roles require them to use coercive power. We should minister forgiveness and absolution to those who have reached the top of organisations, knowing all that is required to get there. We should honour the prophets in our churches who with God’s eyes can see through the charade of organisations and boards opf directors and all the trappings of status, money and power that go with them. And, in anticipation, we can model – in the leadership of the church – such a different way of relating to people and collective purposes, that leaders in business see the poverty of their leadership concept and the emptiness of their management models.

We should certainly avoid the opposite temptation, to make our church leaders into "Executive Pastors" who run the body of Christ like a Fortune 500 company…

Leadership and Power, an excursus

Tuesday’s post "A New Testament View of Leadership" has set me thinking and making connections all over the place, so before I complete my reaction to Graham Tomlin’s talk I’m going to take a little excursus around a few related issues. Before we get to a model of Christian leadership in the church, I’m going to do a reflective piece about Christians in leadership roles in ("secular") business and public organisations. While I’m getting that together here are two excellent posts that struck me as being very harmonious with where this is going.

The first is from the inestimable Richard Beck, and is well worth reading, saving, hacking, sharing and preaching…

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2013/06/csc-paper-it-should-not-be-so-among-you.html

This other one from Robert Martin, also I think subtly chimes with the subjects of power and leadership…

http://abnormalanabaptist.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/when-poetry-in-scripture-makes-you-go-wow/

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

A New Testament View of Leadership

Nearly a month ago I attended a conference at which I heard Graham Tomlin and Stephen Backhouse talk about leadership and authority. The post below is inspired by Stephen’s paper on the Kenotic hymn, who took a similar approach to that taken by Erik Heen in his "Phil 2:6-11 and Resistance to Local Timocratic Rule" in Richard Horsley’s "Paul and the Roman Imperial Order" (Trinity Press 2004) – which is well worth a closer read.

Today, somewhat belatedly I’m going to attempt to summarise and respond to Graham’s paper. This will be more challenging as Graham took a much broader scope, and I’m thinking I may need to split this post into two already. The first thing Graham did was striking in its simplicity, but has occupied my thoughts a lot for the last month. He did a simple NT word study on a leadership word, and his finding was so obvious, and yet so neglected it was like seeing something that had been hidden in plain sight.

Tomlin’s simple point was that Koine Greek had an obvious go-to word for leader, that any contemporary reader or writer would have used, and that most NT writers used frequently. The word is ἄρχων "archon", and it is often translated as "ruler" or "official". We see it in many places and here are a few examples:

· Matthew 9:18 – 23, Luke 8:41; referring to a ruler of a synagogue.

· Matthew 20:25 – "the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them"

· Luke 12:58 – referring to a judge or magistrate

· Luke 14:1 – referring to the leaders of the Pharisees

· Luke 18:18 – "a ruler / official asked Jesus; "Good Teacher…"

· Luke 23:13 – "Pilate called together the Chief Priests and the rulers"

· Luke 24:20 – "The Chief Priests and the rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him."

· John 3:1 – Nicodemus is referred to as a leader of the Jews.

· John 7:26 – "Have the authorities really concluded he is the Messiah?"

· John 7:48 – "None of the rulers or Pharisees have believed in him."

· The book of Acts is strewn with rulers, officials and authorities of various locations and levels…

· Romans 13:3 – "Rulers hold no terror for those who do right."

· 1 Cor 2:6,8 – We speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing… None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

· Eph 2:2 – "You followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient."

· John 12:31 – "Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out."

· Matthew 9:34 – "It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons."

· Matthew 12:24, Mark 3:22, Luke 11:15 – "It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."

· John 14:30 – "I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me."

The word archon, is derived from ἄρχω "arche", meaning "first, or beginning" and has the sense of who is placed before all others, the one who holds primacy, or pre-eminence. As well as being a common NT word it is also used extensively in Classical and Koine literature and early non-canonical Christian writings. If we wanted to make some more modern translations we might reach for words such as "boss", "executive", "officer" or the more common generic "leader". People in the ancient world, as much as they do today, have a clear idea of what leadership is and what to expect from a leader. There might be some nuance to be drawn about good and bad leaders, but the underlying concept of someone in charge is well enough understood.

So far, all pretty obvious, but the observation of the truth that had been hiding in plain sight for all this time was the point Tomlin made about all these references…

Not one of them refers to a Christian. Not one of them refers to a "leader" in a church. The various NT writers, at various times, both demonstrate that they are familiar with the basic concept of leadership and equally clearly they avoid the concept – almost allergically – when they are talking about the new community of the Spirit, that arose in response to the resurrection. In the third post in this series I will discuss some of Tomlin’s analysis of some of the words that the first Christians did use for roles within the churches and draw some conclusions around the issues of laity/clergy, ordination and vocation. But for now I just want to stay on this point.

What is the significance of the early church’s rejection of the obvious norms of leadership as reflected in the dominant worldview, well it speaks of a radically different approach to leading people, as seen in these two dicta of Jesus himself…

Mark 10:42-45

Calling [James and John] to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them.“But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant;and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

John 15:15

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Leadership for Christians, according to the New Testament, is not a case of being in charge, nor even a matter of "first among equals". The NT rejects the notion of being first and foremost altogether – at least within Jesus’ alternative community. The implications of this are immense, not least at a conference that bills itself as being about Christian Leadership! I look forward to engaging with your comments and pushbacks!