The fallenness of our leaders is one of the most potent arguments against Christianity. Barna’s 2017 study, The State of Pastors, produced in partnership with Pepperdine University, spoke of “the credibility crisis of today’s pastors.” At the time, only one-quarter of all U.S. adults held a very positive opinion of pastors in general. The number of high-profile defections and instances of immorality since 2017 certainly hasn’t improved the pastor’s reputation. No need to cite specific examples: Google preserves all the gory details.
Leadership has never been more complicated than it is today, yet no society and no ecclesial community can thrive without it. Of the countless leadership resources at our disposal, an undervalued one is the Book of Proverbs. Proverbs speaks frequently to those who wield power. Fundamentally, the book teaches us that all leaders, whether they realize it or not, exercise authority by the permission and power of God (Prov 8:15-16). Those of us who have been entrusted with power must, as much as possible, represent the Power-Giver in our leadership. This means stewarding power for the benefit of others. As Jesus says, the greatest leaders are the greatest servants (e.g., Mark 10:43-45). Proverbs helps us wield power selflessly. It does so, first, by pinpointing our prideful propensity; and, second, by commending the safeguard of genuine friendship, which is characterized by candor.
What Pride Eats
In the final chapter of Prince Caspian, Aslan asks the Prince, “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?” Caspian stutters, “I—I don’t think I do, sir. I’m only a kid.” “Good,” says Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not. Therefore, under us and under the High King, you shall be King of Narnia.” Some leaders struggle from the day they enter the realm of ministry to cultivate a Caspian-like meekness. Others of us begin our ministry careers with a childlike humility, but as we accumulate years of experience and advance further up the academic or ecclesiastical totem pole, vainglory develops. Solomon warns both the early and the late bloomers among us: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). The themes of pride and humility/teachability are dominant ones in Proverbs. Pride is detestable (Prov 8:13). Why? Because pride opposes the first and controlling principle of wisdom: “the fear of the Lord” (1:7; 9:10). Simply stated, the fear of the Lord is a certain posture of heart and life toward God: awe and wonder, love and humility, trust and submission—affectionate reverence. Pride, on the contrary, is an “anti-God state of mind.” In his classic work, Mere Christianity, Lewis summarizes the vice with haunting precision:
There is one vice of which no [person] in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves… The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind… As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you cannot see something that is above you… Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.
When pride creeps into the pastor’s heart, it will eat up the possibility of wielding power selflessly. Pride turns leaders into tyrants who forget their status “under the High King.” And if Lewis is correct when he asserts that “no person in the world” is free of this vice, then each of us must foster certain safeguards.
What True Friends Speak
One of the most tangible safeguards to prevent the development of pride is true friendship. A true friendship will help us steward power for the benefit of others because the friend will discern prideful, self-serving tendencies to which we ourselves are oblivious. Pride eats away at us, like a cancer. And like a cancer, sometimes we can have it without knowing that we have it. In such cases we need a friend with eyes to see what we cannot. Other times pride has taken root in our hearts and produced a rationalization of our abuse of power. Because of the stresses of leadership and the sacrifices leaders make, we can be prone to the type of self-pity that justifies sinful practices: “After all I’ve sacrificed, I deserve this.” In these, our darkest moments, we need a friend to rebuke us gently, to wound us faithfully (Prov 27:5-6). In an era of digital communities, ubiquitous (and deletable) “friendships,” Proverbs commends the type of relationship that is characterized by constancy and candor (e.g., Prov 17:17; 27:5-6, 17). Fellow pastors, we need this form of friendship. As Paul David Tripp writes in his book Lead, “It is in the soil of the devastation and humiliation of confession that servant leaders grow. In the pain of personal candor, lust for power wanes and passion for the gospel grows.”
Pastoral Postscript: Fallenness and Faithfulness
The fallenness of our leaders is a reminder that what separates the church from the world is not that the church has no need of forgiveness, but that she knows where to find it. Are we, then, to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! For it will be the faithfulness of our leaders, the selfless stewardship of power, that will demonstrate to the world the ways of our Savior, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8).
This resource is part of the series Not So With You: Reflections on Power, the Pastorate, and Life in the Church. Click here to explore more resources from this series.
Dillon T. Thornton is a gospel-centered, dechurched- and unchurched-loving, mission-leading pastor with over two decades of diverse ministry experience. He’s shepherded small, medium, and mega churches, and has served both nationally and internationally. Presently, he serves as the Lead Pastor of Faith Community Church in Seminole, FL. Dillon co-leads his denomination’s church planting efforts in Florida and the Caribbean. He holds a PhD in New Testament Studies from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Dillon’s latest book is Give Them Jesus: Raising Our Children on the Core Truths of the Christian Faith. He is a member of the St. Peter Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
