"Pictures of Spiritual Leadership"

We took a break last week to examine communion as a feast of anticipation, and we return this week to 1 Thessalonians chapter two really in the middle of a section in which Paul’s ministry is set forth as an example of spiritual leadership. You will recall that when Timothy returned to Paul in Corinth after a visit to Thessalonica, he brought a good report. The Thessalonians were standing firm in the Lord; their faith remained intact even in the midst of severe persecution, and the fruit of genuine salvation was showing up in their lives. But while Timothy’s report about the new converts was so good, he must have also brought warnings about how the opponents in Thessalonica were still attacking Paul. He had run from the persecution, they must have said, that the Thessalonians were left to endure. He was nothing more than a religious charlatan and huckster who had preached to the Thessalonians for monetary gain only to quickly leave and do so in another city. The accusations were numerous. His ministry was in vain, they said (2.1). His message was erroneous, his motives were impure and his methods were deceitful (2.3). When he spoke, his speech was nothing more than empty flattery and his whole ministry was a crafty cover-up for his real underlying motive of greed (2.5). And together with an insatiable appetite for their money, he longed for a place of prestige and authority among the Thessalonians (2.6). Such were the accusations leveled against Paul and his ministry.

Now if these accusations had been true, it would have been difficult for the Apostle to defend himself, and the very last place to which he would have appealed would be his own life, his own character and conduct among the Thessalonians. And yet because the accusations were false, that is precisely what he did. No less than six times in verses one through twelve, Paul calls on the Thessalonians’ own first hand knowledge of his and Silvanus and Timothy’s ministry among them. He was saying in essence, “You can take all of these accusations against us and our ministry and line them up right next to our lives, and you decide for yourselves, Thessalonians, whether they are true.” So in verses 1-6, Paul repeatedly denies the charges and then refutes them by explaining his true message, motives, and methods. And in verses 7-12, he turns to a decidedly positive presentation of his and his teammates’ conduct while in Thessalonica.

As you will recall from last time, Paul is not just refuting the charges of his opponents in this section. At the same time he is setting forth his life and ministry as an example of true spiritual leadership. In these verses the Thessalonians and we ourselves have an example to follow. All of us as believers are spiritual leaders at one level or another and this then is a model for us to imitate. In verses 7-12, we really have similes or “Pictures of Spiritual Leadership.” In verses 7-9 the spiritual leader is compared to a caring mother, and in verses 11-12 to a loving father.

I. The Spiritual Leader as Mother

In verse seven Paul declared, “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.” Here, then, we have the spiritual leader presented as a caring mother, and what Paul says in this verse really stands in contrast to the previous verse. In verse six he was denying the charge that he was merely seeking “glory from men.” He was saying, “We weren’t looking to be exalted by you or anyone else to a place of prestige or honor or respect; we weren’t seeking to be put on a pedestal so as to be idolized by you, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority.” The idea is that as those who had been called, commissioned and sent out by the risen Lord they (literally) “were able in weight to be;” they could have thrown their weight around as those who actually were vested with divine authority. But Paul says, “But (strong adversative) we proved to be gentle among you. So far from throwing the weight of our authority around we actually treated you the way that a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.”

A. The Nature of this Leadership

That is the mark of a true spiritual leader! The nature of his leadership is first of all 1. gentle. He leads not like a bull in a china closet, throwing his weight around and abusing the authority of his position, but with all the tenderness of a mother. I don’t think I have ever seen a more touching, caring, tender and nourishing picture than that of a mother feeding her own little baby. That is the picture Paul gives us. He uses the term “nurse,” which was used to describe a woman who fed a child at her breast. It was common in the ancient world for the true mother to have a surrogate nurse, but here Paul speaks of the actual mother because he calls the children “her own.”

I have watched my wife feed our daughters from the day of their birth, and have seen that there is never a place of warmth, security, tender care and nourishment like that which is enjoyed by the child at that time. This is the kind of gentle leadership that characterized Paul’s ministry with the Thessalonians

To the disciples Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them” (Matt 20.25). I mean that’s just the style of the typical Godless leader—throwing his authority around and demanding respect and compliance at every turn with little concern about the lives of those under his care. But Jesus says, “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 your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (vv. 26-28). Do you want to be great? Do you want to be a true spiritual leader? Die to yourself; become the least; become a servant just like Jesus who “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

The nature of this kind of leadership, then, is secondly 2. servant leadership. That is true spiritual leadership! It is self-sacrificial leadership, and nowhere is it better pictured than in the life of a mother. A mother is not served by her children. I mean when I come home and I ask my dear wife how her day went, she doesn’t say, “It was great! I kicked back on the couch while Katy swept and mopped the floor. Allison fixed an exquisite lunch—chicken cordon blue—for which I roused myself from the couch to eat. After that, Katy prepared our taxes and balanced the check book while Allison finished the weekly meal plan for the month of March.” No! They don’t serve her; she serves them, and it’s a consuming endeavor. The children are constantly in need, especially at such a young age. And that’s the picture Paul gives—a mother who is yet nursing her children.

He says in verse eight, “We were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives.” The “gospel of God,” as in verse two and verse nine, is again the good news message that is sourced in God. That was always the content of what Paul preached; he always brought God’s message to the people. As he said to the Corinthians, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor 2.2). He was convinced that the gospel is God’s power for salvation (Rom 1.16), so that is what he preached. But notice what it cost him. He says in verse nine, “For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.” It was by means of that “night and day” work, that “labor and hardship” that Paul and his coworkers proclaimed “the gospel of God.” The work of which Paul speaks is probably his trade as a tentmaker (cf. Acts 18.3). Paul knew that as a minister of the Word, he had the right to make his living from the people who benefited from his service. He reminded the Corinthians, “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel” (1 Cor 9.14). But when he came bringing the gospel to Thessalonica, he didn’t want to give them so much as an opportunity to suggest that he preached just to get money from them. So he worked to support himself—“night and day” the text says. Now this doesn’t mean every moment of every 24 hour period, but that he worked during both the night and the day. He calls it “labor and hardship.” These two words “express respectively the hard, tiring nature of the work and its painfulness,” the weariness and fatigue arising from continued strenuous activity and the outward difficulties that must be overcome.”

Paul gives us the reason for which he and his teammates worked so hard: “so as not to be a burden to any of you.” This speaks of a financial burden. Paul didn’t want to be tagged, like many of the secular and religious teachers of his day, as one who was a leach, who preached for monetary gain. He wanted to be totally free from that charge. Again, he wanted the Thessalonians to know that his motives were genuine, so he worked night and day to prove it. No religious huckster toils, breaks his back, busts his knuckles, cuts his hands, and wearies his body in working so that he can further expend himself in preaching to others free of charge. As a true servant leader, Paul is here exonerated from any underlying motive of greed.

This is a far cry from some of the lavishly wealthy and greedy prosperity gospel preachers of our day. I was recently reading a copy of last week’s U.S. News & World Report, and I came across an article entitled, “Preaching a Gospel of Excess?” The subheading reads, “A senator probes the finances of celebrity televangelists.” The opening paragraph says this:

Rolls-Royces, Dresden vases, vacation homes, jewelry, private jets, a $11,219 clock—the inventory is either admirable or suspicious, depending on your point of view. To adherents of the so-called Prosperity Gospel, the trappings of their ministers are evidence of God’s blessings for a life well lived. But to Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, they may be signs of excess—the kind of unreasonable compensation that he says could violate federal tax law.

Prosperity gospel preachers, or course, argue that God wants His people to be rich. As you can imagine, they gain quite a following. Who doesn’t want to be rich? The catch is that if you really want to be rich, you’ve got to have the faith to give all your money away so that God will then bless you tenfold. And where are you to give your money? Well, of course you need to give it to the “ministries” of the prosperity preachers.

So in this article, Senator Grassley said “he wanted to make sure that churchgoers were not being ‘played for suckers.’” The article goes on:

Grassley’s interest in the televangelists stems from several published reports of loose spending by church leaders. In 2003, for instance, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch exposed the opulent lifestyle of Joyce Meyer, a St. Louis-based televangelist whose church, Joyce Meyer Ministries, made an estimated $95 million that year. In his letter to Meyer and her husband, David, he noted reports of the couple accepting “personal monetary gifts and jewelry” from donors. To the Revs. Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga., Grassley cited reports that they had received two Rolls-Royces from the church.

The article goes on to talk about Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark, Texas, Without Walls International Church of Tampa, and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas.

All of this is a far cry from the gentle and sacrificial servant leadership of the apostle Paul. He spent himself in labor and hardship, just for the opportunity to preach the gospel to the Thessalonians. And notice that he didn’t just preach to them. In verse eight he said, “We were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives.” The word for “lives” is actually the word used for “souls,” in the Greek. It is a word that covers the whole person. It is as if Paul was saying, “We were willing to give ourselves to you, to put ourselves at your disposal, without reservation.” That is servant leadership!

But notice the reason for which Paul and Silvanus and Timothy were so willing to give of themselves to the Thessalonians—the motivation for this leadership.

B. The Motivation for this Leadership

Verses seven and eight are connected by way of analogy: “As a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children, so [in the same manner] because we have a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased . . .” The reason for which Paul so labored in giving out the gospel and was ready to pour his own life into them was quite simply that he loved them. The word here speaks of fond affection, ardent desire, or longing. The KJV translates it, “So being affectionately desirous of you.” Why did Paul so expend himself as a sacrificial servant leader? Look at the end of verse eight: “because you had become very dear to us.” It reads literally, “because beloved ones to us you became.” Note that it doesn’t say “were beloved” (aorist active) but “became beloved” (aorist passive). The stress here is not on the choice that Paul, Silvanus and Timothy made to love the Thessalonians, but on how such affection developed over the time of their stay—the Thessalonians became literally “beloved ones” to them. “Beloved ones” is put forward for emphasis. Hence the NASB is appropriate: “because you had become very dear to us.”

The proper motivation for true spiritual leadership is love. You will never lead gently; you will never lead sacrificially as a servant if you are not motivated by genuine love for the people you are serving. Paul wasn’t trying to get stuff from the Thessalonians. He didn’t see them as a means to an end. He loved them! And that love drove him along in gently caring, nourishing, and sacrificially serving them the way that a mother tenderly cares for her own children. The true spiritual leader, then, leads like a mother. But notice secondly that he also leads like a father.

II. The Spiritual Leader as Father

And how does a father lead? What is the nature of his leadership? A father leads, first of all, by example.

A. The Nature of this Leadership

1. A father leads by example.

Look at verse ten: “You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers.” Here Paul uses three adverbs to describe the conduct of him and his coworkers. “Our conduct was pleasing to God, devout, or holy,” Paul was saying with the first adverb. “Our behavior was correct; it was just; it was righteous,” he meant with the second adverb. And with the third he made the forthright claim that in what they did among the Thessalonians, they were irreproachable; not chargeable; blameless. That’s how they lived. So as a father would, they lead first by example.

Spiritual leadership is leading by example. We all know that. There’s nothing more repulsive than hearing someone say one thing and then watching them do the opposite. Many a preacher has undone with his life what he said with his lips. The seventeenth century preacher, Richard Baxter said,

Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonour him as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet contemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and willfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it? If it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? If it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? If they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause? . . . Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves. . . O brethren! It is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

The apostle Paul said it like this: “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God” (Rom 2.21-23)?

If there is one thing that is critical for spiritual leaders, it is that we lead first by example. Peter instructed elders to lead not “as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock” (1 Pet 5.3). It doesn’t matter what kind of leadership position you are in, it is always best to lead by example. I was talking with John and Debbie Ciesla a few weeks ago, and they both spoke highly of their “boss,” Sherm of Sherm’s Thunderbird and Food 4 Less. They said that you wouldn’t know him from one of the employees. No fancy coat and tie; he’s just there working, stocking shelves and unloading freight trailers. That’s leading by example; that’s the kind of leadership Paul exemplifies here. When he and Timothy and Silvanus were rubbing shoulders with the Thessalonians, their behavior was devout; it was righteous, and it was blameless. It was worthy of imitation and hence leadership by example.

2. A father leads through instruction

The nature of this fatherly leadership was also leadership by instruction. Look at verse eleven: “Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children.” When once a father has led by example he must then lead through instruction. When you live a life of integrity, you buy for yourself the opportunity to teach. When people know that your conduct is exemplary, they are going to listen to what you have to say. And Paul is saying, “In the same way that a father would exhort and encourage and implore his own children, we instructed you.” We were “exhorting” you, he says. This is an urgent appeal. A father is constantly exhorting his children, steering them in the right direction by way of appeal. The second word, “encouraging,” really carries the idea of comfort or consolation. It was used for comforting those who had lost a loved one (John 11.19, 31). A father performs this function as well. He teaches his children how to deal with difficulties, suffering and loss; he encourages them. The final word, “imploring,” speaks of solemn or earnest insistence. There is a time when it is necessary for a father to vehemently urge his children to pursue or avoid a particular course of action.

This exhortation, this encouragement, and this insistent urging characterized the fatherly instruction between Paul and the Thessalonians. And it wasn’t general; it wasn’t just broad and sweeping instruction given to the masses in Thessalonica. Paul looked at them in a real sense as his own children. So his instruction extended to the individual level—“each one of you.” He preached to the masses, but it was also apparently his and his coworkers’ practice to minister to people at the micro level. Hence he told the Colossians, “We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ” (Col 1.28). To the Ephesian elders he said, “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears” (Acts 20.31). Even a glance at the lists of names that appear at the end of some of his books (cf. especially the extensive list in Rom 16) indicates that Paul had personal relationships with many people.

Notice too that it wasn’t just Paul ministering on an individual level; it was Silvanus and Timothy too. He was skilled in recruiting the help of others to assist him in his efforts to disciple new converts. That’s why you see a plurality of elders leading the churches in the New Testament. There’s no way that one man can minister to the people on an individual level. When I first became acquainted with this church, I was pleased to see that there were several elders. I soon learned that these men were more than administrators. They are teaching, visiting the sick, counseling, and caring for the needs of the people of this church. The fact that there is a small group Bible study going on almost every day of the week here in this church also really excites me. This is where ministry can extend down to the very individual level. This is where people can be exhorted, encouraged and urged by instruction from God’s word.

The nature of a father’s leadership is that of example and instruction. But notice the purpose or the goal of his instruction. Look at verse twelve: “so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” This is what a father is pushing for. This is what a true spiritual leader is longing for in the lives of those whom he is serving. Every thing that he does—when he leads by instruction, when he leads by example, when he behaves devoutly, uprightly and blamelessly, when he exhorts, encourages and urges—is aimed at the goal of seeing people to a level of spiritual maturity wherein their walk is worthy of God.

And there is a sense in which this whole section—chapter two, verses 1-12—the whole life and ministry of Paul among the Thessalonians was driving toward this intended end. In all that he did, he was longing for them to come to this place of spiritual maturity. Breaking his back in labor and hardship, facing persecution and criticism, giving his very life to the Thessalonians—Why?—so that they would “walk in a manner worthy of God.” This was the driving passion of his ministry. “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4.19) he told the Galatians. “I just want you to be like Christ; I am longing to see you walk in a manner worthy of God—the God, by the way who is presently calling you into His own kingdom and glory.” This speaks not of the initial call to salvation, but the ongoing call of God. The kingdom is present now among God’s people and yet awaits its fruition in the future. In the same way God has called us to salvation. We are the called of God now, yet we await that final call to glory in which we will forever enjoy God’s glory in His kingdom. And the point of life now is that we are being made more ready to enter into God’s presence—we are being made more like Christ; we are becoming more and more spiritually mature. You show me a person who is spiritually mature and I will show you someone who knows how to live more skillfully in this life than anybody. The spiritually mature is the one who knows the mind of God; he knows the mind of Christ. He knows how to think and therefore how to live. He knows true joy; he knows true peace; he knows true happiness. He knows what it is stare the darkest of circumstances in the face with a smile—“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”—he knows the God who holds the future and the One who dominates the present. He knows God! And nothing compares with that!

The spiritual leader is one who like a mother gently nurtures and sacrificially serves. He is motivated to this gentle servant leadership by an ardent affection and genuine love for his people. Like a father, he leads by example and through instruction all with the intended end of seeing people come to increasing levels of spiritual maturity. That is his goal; that is his aim; it is the driving passion of his ministry.