Character in Leadership (#1: Overview) - Jonathan Voos

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Character in Leadership (#1: Overview)

What makes someone a good leader? And how should we, as Christians, go about choosing our political leaders and leading our families?

What makes someone a good leader? And how should we, as Christians, go about choosing our political leaders and leading our families?

Dear reader,

Happy Friday! With early primary voting starting and fatherhood approaching, I figured now was a good time to dive into a new series on leadership.

My premise is simple: The qualities of good leaders in the Bible are still the qualities that make leaders good today. Thus, to make informed decisions while choosing our leaders and leading our families, Christians need to understand the Bible’s teachings on why good leaders were good, why bad leaders were bad, and what God required of leaders throughout history.

Disclaimer: This series will not endorse or criticize parties or candidates; instead, it will provide a framework to help Christians understand what good biblical leadership entails.

Leadership stories permeate Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Esther, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Ezra, while the teachings and examples of Jesus, James, Peter, Paul, John, and others fill the New Testament. Because I have limited time and space, I can’t cover all of these examples in this series.

Accordingly, this post will overview my preliminary thoughts, and later posts will dive deeper into a selection of verses, leaders, and stories. As I write additional posts, some of my takeaways and musings may change in light of biblical evidence. But without further ado:

Preliminary Thoughts

1. God is always in control of who is in power. According to Romans 13:1–2, all governing authority comes from God. Proverbs 21:1 further teaches that the Lord directs Kings’ hearts. Psalm 22:28 tells us that “dominion belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations.” And Daniel 2:20–21 teaches that the Lord removes and sets up Kings.

   
   

2. Good leaders must seek the Lord in all they do. Particularly with the Kings and Judges, doing right in the Lord’s eyes required first seeking the Lord. Men like Nehemiah, David, and Moses were good leaders, and not coincidentally made seeking the Lord their priority. Because they usually sought the Lord first, they found favor in His eyes, and they and their people were blessed. However, particularly with Moses and David, when leaders acted presumptively without seeking the Lord, they and their people suffered (i.e., David & Bathsheba, David’s census, Moses’s punishment for disobedience, Pharaoh’s hardened heart resulting in the plagues, the falls of Israel, Judah, Assyria, Babylon, etc.).

   
   

3. Good leaders exhibit the qualities Paul requires for elders. In 1 Timothy 3, Paul writes that “An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy. He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?). . . . Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil’s trap.”

   
   

4. While these qualifications apply specifically to the church and are not required for politicians or kings, they are nonetheless a list of good leadership qualities. If you’re not convinced, take a second and think about which of these qualities are not desirable. Do we really want leaders who are unrespectable, insensible, inhospitable, drunk, greedy, quarrelsome bullies who lack self-control, can’t manage their own household, and have poor reputations among outsiders? Of course not. People aren’t perfect, and one can be a good political leader without possessing all of these qualities. But Christians would be wise to test potential leaders against these standards. If a potential political leader falls short in many of these categories, that leader is likely to lead people into sin.

   
   

5. When good leaders commit evil acts, the people pay the consequences. Look at David’s life, for example. When David sinned by conducting the census, 70,000 Israelites died.1 David’s adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah led to the death of his child. And David’s failure to manage his household properly resulted in his children raping,2 murdering,3 revolting,4 and trying to usurp the throne—all at the expense of other family members or the people of Israel as a whole.5

   And David is one of the best leaders the Bible has—a man after God’s own heart. The fact that even David had character flaws shows that leaders can’t be perfect. But we can’t gloss over the fact that each time David’s character flaws resulted in sin, his family and/or the nation of Israel suffered. Thus, when Christians elect leaders with serious character flaws and habitual sins, we should expect our nation to suffer—both in terms of moral degradation and via divine consequences.

   
   

6. Evil leaders can have earthly success. Despite their cruelty and failure to acknowledge God, God used Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon to punish Israel and Judah. All of these nations worshipped false gods and idols and relied on their own strength instead of God. Nevertheless, God gave His people up to their hands because Israel and Judah failed to obey. We even see this play out with Jeroboam II—an evil Israeli King who defeated his seemingly less evil counterpart in Judah and expanded Israel’s territory to its largest size after Israel and Judah split.

   Of course, to have earthly success, an evil leader probably needs some qualities of good leadership. Successful earthly leaders are often intelligent, hardworking, tenacious, and able to rally support among their people, irrespective of other character traits. These qualities matter and are worth considering. But the appearance of earthly success alone does not make one a good leader—especially when that leader encourages and lives in sin.

   
   

7. When evil leaders are in power, the people pay the consequences. Because evil leaders can have earthly success, the consequences of evil leadership aren’t always felt immediately. Israel, Assyria, and Babylon all had periods of earthly success under evil leadership, but their debauchery eventually caught up with them all as God allowed them to be conquered by their adversaries. Their people suffered greatly. Similarly, Pharaoh’s hard heart in Exodus resulted in the Egyptian people suffering through ten devastating plagues and losing their entire army in the Red Sea. And even during times of relative peace in Israel and Judah, evil leadership allowed for idol worship and other detestable practices that both incited God’s anger and rotted the soul of the populace, leading to their ultimate destruction. Might we soon face similar judgment based on our sexual mores today?

   
   

8. Good leaders lead their people to repentance and faithfulness. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the story of Josiah. When Josiah’s priests found the Book of the Law, Josiah heard it, tore his clothes, repented, and led the people of Judah to do the same. The Book of Judges contains several similar stories where the people of Israel went astray, sinned, were conquered, and then were saved when God raised up a Godly leader. Even in Nineveh, the Assyrian leader tore his clothes, repented, and commanded his people to do the same after Jonah’s prophesy of destruction.6 When a nation is living in idolatrous sin, a good leader will rid the nation of the sin and lead people to repentance and faithfulness.

   
   

9. Good leadership requires committing fully to God. If you look at charts of biblical Kings, you’ll notice that most lists contain 6-8 partially good kings who stumbled greatly. Saul and Solomon’s examples are the most well-known, but Jehu provides a clear example of why full commitment is necessary. When Elisha anointed Jehu King of Israel, he instructed him to eradicate Ahab’s line. Jehu did so and even eliminated Baal worship from Israel, but his blessing was limited because He continued in Jeroboam’s sin of worshipping the golden calves in Bethel and Dan.7 His contentment with only destroying the line of Ahab and the Baals meant the people were free to continue sinning under his leadership. He did not go all the way in eradicating sin, so “[i]n those days the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel.”8 Thus, while a leader who will only partially obey God is better than a leader who will blatantly ignore God, partial obedience is not enough to render one a good leader.

   
   

10. Food for thought: During my brief perusal of leadership quotes, I came across this gem attributed to Hugo Grotius: “A man cannot govern a nation if he cannot govern a city; he cannot govern a city if he cannot govern a family; he cannot govern a family unless he can govern himself; and he cannot govern himself unless his passions are subject to reason.” I like the logic. Will it hold up while tested against biblical teachings?

1

2 Samuel 24.

2

Ammon raped Tamar.

3

Absalom murdered Ammon.

4

Absalom revolted against David.

5

Absalom from David, and Adonijah from Solomon.

6

Jonah 3.

7

2 Kings 9-10.

8

2 Kings 10:32.