Arrogant Leaders
March 28th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
1 Corinthians 4:19,20 “But I will come to you very soon, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out not only how these arrogant people have been talking, but what power they have. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
Paul is challenging the men in Corinth who are dividing Christians and leading them away from Jesus’ way of life. These leaders are big talkers who claim to be wise (see chapter 2) and people are distracted by their leadership, dividing into factions when they should be following Jesus together (chapter 3). In chapter four, Paul sarcastically points out that these leaders aren’t suffering for their cause; they are living in luxury and security.
This brings to mind the politics our nation is suffering through today. We are being ripped apart, in our hearts, by the angry and hopeless (faithless?) rants of the conservative entertainment industry; at the same time, our sense of right and wrong is being anesthetized – euthanized, even – by entertainment at the other end of spectrum.
But rather than dwell on all that and be defined by what we’re not, we just need to move on. We need to get our focus on to the only leader worth following. There’s no point in reading Corinthians, with all of its advice on how to do life and church, without having that figured out first. Paul is writing to people who have already heard the Gospel and sort of signed up; their leadership problem – maybe more of a followership problem – came after that, when they began to line up behind big talkers with no real Gospel power behind them.
“The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”
It’s time to move on, past the disagreements and the divisions, and get our Gospel on. It’s not enough to be inspired by words, even good words of great people. Even the words of the bible itself are limited if we’re just translating them into our modern language of agenda bullet points and post-modern wishywashy “narratives”. We need to draw on the real power source – God, and our relationship with Him; our faith in Jesus who saves us from sin, ours and others’, and leads us to walk through our lives in prayer and trust in a God who knows everything about us and still loves us and walks alongside.
The power is in that good news, the Gospel. The Gospel doesn’t waste time with self-pity, hatred, un-forgiveness, even fear. The Gospel is a wellspring of the forces that renew hope, restore relationships, and empower positive change in the world.
I envy you if you can peacefully ignore today’s insanity on the right and on the left and just keep on pursuing God and His goodness. I’m going to try to be more like you.
