On being 'puffed up'

Comment on 7 Biblical principes for evaluating Christian leaders in the church:

[the blog pretends to apply 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 to Christian 'leaders']

Interesting that just before this passage, Paul writes "So then let no one boast in men".
I don't see the concept of 'leadership' as used these days appearing in Paul's passage at all! 'Leadership' is very much not of the church of God. Sure there are teachers, pastors, elders, servants, ministers....all are ministers in some way. But none would be characterised as 'leaders'. Archons in that day.

It is concerning that the language of the 1980s in evangelical churches, which emphasised ministry: very inclusive, accessible, and directly connected to Christ's mission, has morphed into the worldly concept of 'leadership' that implies, if not promotes, separation, division, and worldly prestige over hoi poloi. It also leads to people being passivated and not participating in church life. After all, they have a 'leader' (a 'leader' other than Christ...who calls himself a servant, as well as Lord).

Indeed, even in business, where 'leaders' are created by a set of contractual relationships, scholars such as Henry Minzberg say there is too much leadership, and not enough "communityship" (google it). In the church, above all we are about 'communityship' and participation through mutual ministry. Let's reflect that in our language and eschew the puffed up distortion that the world's thinking encourages "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God".

The most basic doctrine

In his book "The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission" John Dickson writes:

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible makes the resounding, unapologetic declaration that there is just one Creator and Lord of the world. It begins in the Bible's opening line: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). To ancient readers, this was not simply a sensible way to start a holy book. It was a huge swipe at the entire religious outlook of the time. The opening lines of the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish, to give just one example from the period, list no fewer than nine separate gods, each with its own part to play in the events leading up to creation. Saying that "God created the heavens and the earth" was tantamount to saying that no other deity was involved in the universe.

Now, what is interesting in this statement is that:

1. Dickson positions the Genesis account as a rebuttal of the myths of the time. He portrays God as reacting to others and making a derivative, not a primary revelation.
2. Dickson doesn't think that the Genesis account is factual, and considers (if I understand him correctly) that some form of evolution was the source of the universe and life as we know them. So he immediately relegates God to one who creates, not through the only mediator, the Christ, but through another mediator: the material world!

The Old Testament (and the New for that matter) revolve around God's being the creator. And this not in modernist terms, that see other forces or principles involved in the 'creation', but in the terms of a creation from the will of God over the space of 6 days, set firmly in the history whose flow contains both the incarnation and our own experience of a contiguous history.

When you come across references to the creation in the Bible, remember, its not some airy analogical or impressionistic conceptualisation of God's supreme authorship of the world that is in mind, but his concrete actions as revealed in Genesis. Because that tells us the the type of person God is. Any dilution of the force of Genesis 1 dilutes the substance of God.

More on Enuma Elis

As I read more of the book, I get the impression that Dickson sets God as high, as creator is. But in his terms, again if I understand him correctly from his other writings (for example), he not only pushes God away from a realist conception of the creation, but depicts God as one whose statements regarding his creative work have no credible meaning in the space time historical flow in which they are set.

So, the elephant in the room is this: what does it mean that God is creator? Is it just a rhetorical device, does he mean creator who does not create, or is God in his view relegated to labeling results that come from elsewhere?